Nova Peak Yeah, I'm loving all your warning signs

It broke Stag’s heart, well and truly, to see not a single soul stand up for their leader.

Not even Mahler.

The newcomers he understood. They were fresh recruits, who had not faced the same crucible of uprooting their lives because of lurking danger.

Star he understood. She was beyond her years of physical usefulness, and had her children to think of.

Even his mother was afforded small grace; she broached her concerns with tactful care.

But Mahler...? To stand silent, unsupportive, as they all collectively watched Wylla’s authority wither away like smoke on the wind?

Stag’s nerves were steady, his expression one of extreme coldness as he looked to the wolves that, before this day, he would have happily laid down his life for. To realize that they would not do the same was like being doused in chilling ice water. They were no packmates of his.

Stag rose when Wylla finished, ready to follow her once she left. He understood, implicitly, what this moment meant for Sagtannet. The fractures had been there all along, but this moment defined them — and made them into rifts.

When Sagtannet collapsed, Stag would not be found in the chasm. He would be found standing alongside his family — his true family — while the spineless found themselves falling to the void.