Duskfire Glacier raise your shoes

"I'm hoping," Lane nodded, voicing her agreement that things should be quieter after the move. 

Meerkat's "unsolicited advice" brought light to one of Lane's most carefully guarded secrets. She let out a huge sigh and seemed to visibly deflate, very much looking like overfull balloon wheezing out unwanted air. 

Lane wouldn't have dreamed of confiding her secret in Meerkat if she had still been a packmate, but as things stood now...  

"Hey, no, don't worry, I take all the advice I can get. I actually have two advisors in the pack now, and I still can't figure out what I'm doing." She laughed. On a more serious note though... "I think about that a lot, honestly. Just.. going back to being a medic and a ranger. The main reasons I stepped up to lead were to make the pack a safer place for my kids--" At the time, Makatza had still been at large--  "..and to help instill confidence in Issorartuyok." He had been a fairly new addition back then, and some of the longer-standing pack members were unsure of him. Things were very different now, on both fronts. Issorartuyok was more than capable of leading in his own right. 

"But Issorartuyok seems uh, I don't know..." Lane wasn't sure how to put it. "Like, every time we talk, he's always saying how much our people love me, and how great I am for the pack, and how he 'hopes to one day be as good as me' and all that. Even though he doesn't need me anymore, I think he still thinks he needs me." Lane hesitated, and then she fell quiet. She ad no idea if she was making any sense. Come to think of it, was Meerkat okay with all this talk about Issorartuyok? Lane knew she had her new man now, but she imagined there was still some hurt there.