Duskfire Glacier golden days.

Veteran had only been alive for six weeks at this point, and his mother had been gone for one of them. Although it had felt like the blink of an eye for Lane, a week was a significant amount of time for such a young man, especially during such a formative stage. He had changed quite a bit, adapting to his newfound independence easily enough. He was often on his own, with the other adults caring for the younger kids and his sister moping around about being abandoned. Funny, if anyone had to guess which of the two siblings was likely to be the more resilient one, it probably wouldn't have been Veteran. 

The boy was very serious about his border patrol, which in reality was just a walk between the rendezvous point and the place where he'd last seen mother with Mahler. He was still a little fuzzy on what a "border patrol" actually was, or even what a border was. 

On the eighth day of mother's absence, he found her here once again. With a stranger, once again. 

"Mama," he spoke, interrupting the conversation. His little puppy hackles rose, and he glared at the strange man. He didn't have the words for it, bit his expression stated very clearly, who the fuck are you. 

The six-week-old puppy inside of Veteran wanted to cry for his mother and rush into her embrace, but some bitter element of the maturity that she'd forced upon him far too early held him back. When he looked at her he was reminded of Wayfarer, crying and moping and suffering the last eight days, with Lane the only one to blame for it.