Sunbeam Lair & so it stood, bitter-sweet, still fair to see, but stricken, soon to fall and die?

He listened for all he was worth, but in the end Dragomir's opinion still differed from Aurë's. Of course it did. He was just a boy who had just learned he was leaving his home and his friends behind, and the reasons were unfathomable to him. Pack politics were no place for a child's mind, and so this child's mind refused to understand the gravity of what had transpired between Aurëwen and the rest of Diaspora, particularly Stigmata. To Dragomir, things like the sea and a mountain amounted to nothing when compared with his home, his friends, the bonds he had forged and the ones he had yet to.

He latched instead onto talk of Vercingetorix. He loved his sire dearly. He wanted the man back in his life more than anything. A young boy needed his father to guide him. But he was angry with Vercingetorix and it was easier to articulate that than the way he felt about leaving Diaspora. If he was older perhaps he would have choicer words for his mother on her impulsive decision, how it affected the lot of them and not just her, and how she hadn't asked them if this was even what they wanted first... but none of that occurred to a boy of three months.

He left us! Dragomir reiterated, his frown creasing into an outright glare. If we do not leave family behind then why did he leave us behind? And weren't the wolves of Diaspora family as well? To Dragomir, who was born upon those slopes and knew nothing else, they were. Blodreina and Praimfaya, Mahler, Kazimir... they were all family to him. Or had been. They are family too, insisted Dragomir, but the fight left his voice at his mother's final words. She needed them with her, and that was why she had chosen to uproot them from their homes in pursuit of her ideals, whether it was best for them or not.

He could not think of his dam as selfish. Not truly. But in that moment Dragomir had his second taste of disappointment in someone important to him, the first being Vercingetorix's bitter departure, and he grew quiet and sullen as he gave in to the fact that they were now homeless and the wolves of Diaspora were no longer their comrades. They would go to find Vercingetorix, for which he was full glad... and yet it hid beneath a veil of betrayal as tears filmed his eyes.