Fox's Glade silver basilisk

as dead-faced as stigmata could be, when something truly made an impact on his thoughts, it was easy to spot on his features how he was feeling. the mention of blacktail deer plateau elicited both a spark of recognition and one of bemused revelation. he knew only one wolf from that claim - the meek, easily disturbed ruenna - and he didn't know much else about the pack other than its general location, but hearing an outsider's perspective was helpful. tidbits to be tucked away for now, and then used to his advantage later, on proper date.

"they follow a cripple?" he repeated grimly. "i am afraid that absurdity is beyond my reckoning. i may have to just see it for myself." he was starting to think maybe all the wolves in these wilds had something more or less fucked up about them, but stigmata wasn't trying to uncover enemies where he currently had none, so he kept his perilously intolerant thoughts to himself.

the hooded virago began to expound then, revealing to stigmata that not only was she foredoomed by her age to suffer a bitter recourse at the paws of those she trusted, but also that she was in the same kind of situation he had just emerged from: wrapped tightly - safely - a relationship that forced her to swallow up her own opinions, so that she might appease the hearts and minds of... the one that mattered and the ones that mattered to that one.

"i was doing that. going along with things, despite my misgivings, because one of them mattered to me." he looked at her pointedly. indra had valued his service, but what had any of that meant when laurel had a say? what would treason mean to terance when his "laurel" spoke up against her?

his ears turned back, and he looked away. "i have no doubts you can handle any fray you are thrown into," stigmata mused. "i also think it is impossible to prepare completely for the day you find yourself spat on by those you have saw fit to help." and those bearclaw wolves - save for indra, and probably mona - would take and take and then leave when they could not take any more.