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

Cowed and embarrassed, Thade wilted off to the side and turned to watch the short proceedings with a glum expression. He was too lost in his own rejection at first to realized what was being said, but as the fracturing emotions of the pack intensified and quieted at the same time, the boy focused in.

The strangers, which all of them felt to him — save for his parents — were not unified behind the Eisen. There were no rallying cries, or even a mild sense of unity, as they talked about outsiders, the inferior ones by default. And what grace did outsiders deserve? If they were not all pupnappers, then they were mavens of indifference, at the very least. Thade had never had a stranger do him a honest kindness, so he was inclined to be against foreign parties entirely.

He could feel his thoughts pulling in one direction, keen to the opinion of Stag, but the sight of Mahler’s roiling stoicism grounded him. Be like Papa... Be like Papa...

Except, this tacit endorsement seemed to do something to Wylla that Thade knew he never wanted to see again. It was withering, the look on her face, the coldness emanating from it. He glanced around, unaware that he was watching the disintegration of Sagtannet, and landed on Astraeus’ detached expression. His heart sank, as fragments started to solidify, and he felt the cracks almost insurmountably widen when everyone began to disperse.

Frozen for a while, he was one of the last bodies to depart, his head full of worst-case scenarios, imagining that he would be the one to end up completely alone in all of this. He felt that he could not agree with non-action, but since his mother had already jilted him — which he did not understand as a situational repercussion — he felt as if he were not allowed to follow her either. Alone, he went to brood.