Nimbus Summit We took a back road

Despite her best effort, Lane was not able to elicit a brightening upon Issorartuyok's features. Lane wondered if Issorartuyok's melancholy was tied less to the changing ranks and more to the fact that they had made "progress in their path together" while he had struggled more with his mate selection. Lane wondered if this attitude was the results of some hybrid of jealousy and low self esteem that had taken root within Issorartuyok. 

"Our feelings for one another don't make us better leaders," Lane insisted, glancing to Tuuluuwaq. "If you haven't made as much progress on your own path as you'd hoped, it's probably because you've been focused on being a leader to our people during an incredibly difficult and turbulent time." Issorartuyok had spent much of his time devoted to guiding the pack's youth after the loss of their father and the search for a new territory that could support them all. He hadn't wasted any time of the frivolities of courting, and in Lane's eyes that made him a better leader, despite the fact that Issorartuyok seemed to think that it somehow made him a worse one. 

Leadership was not a race. It was not a competition. It was a calling-- one that Issorartuyok possessed, and Lane and Tuuluuwaq did not. That's all there was to it. 

"Then we won't argue," Lane allowed when Issorartuyok agreed, albeit reluctantly. "This is what we want." She nodded firmly to both brothers. 

"There is further business," Lane stated hesitantly, venturing to change the subject now that it seemed they had reached an uneasy truce. "Tuuluuwaq and I met with the remnants of Rivenwood. Mahler has left the pack. Those left within Rivenwood are requesting our help to recover the kidnapped children, presumably by force." Lane's displeasure would be apparent to these wolves who knew her well. Her eyes narrowed as she relayed the request, and her tail switched back and forth in agitation. She was not inclined to gamble with the safety of her packmates by volunteering Atautsikut for a war that did not concern them, but Issorartuyok may see things a different way.