Arrow Lake meant to be a mother

toting with him the freshly dispatched carcass of a hare originally intended for takiyok, the ironclad general found himself altering his morning routine in favor of tending to the soft summons of aurëwen, who had news of the task he'd sent her on. because he tried very hard not to disturb the starlit mother and trusted that the father would handle whatever it was his family needed, stigmata had been operating under the assumption that she remained in her densite as often as takiyok did hers. he had no reason to assume otherwise.

he was not aware of her frequent forays out of the territory, or even that she had been hurt, and would not have sent her to the vale if he had known. he thought he'd been doing everyone a favor - giving her time to be free and social, as he knew her to be, and sending a kindly ambassador to lower the vale's guard - but it had never once occurred to him that she might've been spending too much time gone already. what he had noticed was the fading of vercingetorix's presence on their borders - and he burned with his own observations as he approached aurëwen now.

he dropped the rabbit between them and greeted her with a friendly sniff; noting on her scent that she had recently been outside of diaspora's claim. "i see you have made short work of your task, my lady," the wolf smiled slightly, reclining back neatly onto his haunches, and nudging the dead treat towards her. "for your troubles."