Honeyed Pasture beta

Sometimes, it was hard to remember than Aditya was older than his mother, who already had begun to show subtle signs of advanced age. The man that met with him today was frail in some indescribable way that made the panther feel sick to his stomach. Worry? Embarrassment?

"I do not live there anymore, Adi," he said gently, and then he swallowed down on something thick and choking. "I have been traveling. With Valiant. I must tell you — no one is there, right now. The boys are at Round Valley, and the girls have gone toward the coast, the last I heard. And the blackbear is here, in the valley."

His burnished gaze drank the other man in, and his expression pinched just a fraction in uneasy concern.

"I stay here, now," he said to the other man. "In the village, Moonsong. I... I am leading it. For now."