The Sunspire all is almost lost and it starts to show

Liffey smiled as Rannoch gave instruction to their children. He was just as wonderful a dad as she had always expected him to be, much like her own father had been to her and her siblings. When the howl began, Liffey joined her own voice to theirs and thrilled at the sound of their whole family singing together. When it was ended, she thought it a shame that their company would soon be infiltrated by the rest of the pack. But that was a secret thought that she buried with her other secret thoughts, recognizing that it was not kind, and rather selfish.

Buried as those secrets were, the aggitation continued to creep in and settle beneath her skin as the meeting proceeded. She had gladly and wholeheartedly stepped into the matron role when her kids had been born and even now considered raising them to be her utmost priority. Even so, to stand in the crowd while Rannoch, Wraen and Terance stood ahead of them rankled her. She was surprised by the feeling, knowing perfectly well there was no reason for it. She had been involved in the decision to relocate, as she was in all decision pertaining to the pack. Her rank was still high, and everyone knew it. But still. It vexed her.

The curious eyes of her children pulled her attention away from her own inner musings. She met Breccan's worried gaze with a smile and a wag of her tail, though she offered no words of explanation. Now was not the time. She looked around at her packmates again as responses began to sound - Hyacinth, then Pyro, Malice, and Nara. Annoyance flashed again that she was not being looked to to manage the scouting parties, but she stifled it, knowing she had turned that responsibility down when she became a matron. And again, it flared at Malice's words, the meaning of which she misconstrued as criticism and disrespect. But she knew she was reading it wrong, and she forced her irritation to settle again.

Fortunately, Liffey said and showed nothing except a slight tension in her shoulders, which could easily have been dismissed as a reflection of the strain she felt over having to leave Sunspire. That was something too - something she blamed entirely on Seabreeze's and Olive's selfishness and carelessness. Another annoyance, but this one she didn't explain away. That one, at least, she had every right to feel.

Liffey chose not to fill the conversation with her own voice. Rannoch knew already she had never traveled East of the Sunspire mountain range already and that she was uncertain of her own part in this scouting mission. She trusted only Rannoch and Wraen to care for her kids and if their attention was elsewhere, then hers would have to remain. But she would probably still be irritated with others for taking charge when she voluntarily stepped aside. She probably ought to work on that, actually. And she probably wouldn't.