Nova Peak III

Ire rode Ayovi. It gathered with every encroachment, in every intrusion and slight, coming to a head with Faust’s haphazard attempt to recruit Lorcan into his war. Darukaal had long since violated the treaty for peace.
As for the dark hunter, Ayovi saw little honor in him. If he left, she would not welcome him back.
Hot blood in her veins is not good for puppies, and only after a thorough marking of the eastern hills does the affliction yield to quiet counter efforts. The calming scent of spring is in the air; the wormy earth of snowmelt and lenten-rose browning on the new-leafed bush. Her headache lessens, gloss driven into her eyes as fierce kicks strikes inside her belly. She had never been so glad for her flesh, layered like soft armor around her children. Sheltering them from the world.
Giddily Ayovi returns to the mount, speaking to her little warriors, heart taking on a new pace when it is Nemage that fills her eyes. For a moment she is only still, reading worry in the silent woman’s posture and allowing her own to be felt in the graze of eyes. The North had belonged to Nemage long before the packs of Saatsine, and Darukaal and Winsook. Uncertainty defines this time, but there is security, too; a comfort as Ayovi braces her neck over the snow-shawl of Sister’s spine. They would be strong together. 
“War has come to divide the North,” she murmurs soberly against the hunter's nape. “The mountain will have no part in it. I think— diplomacy is wasted on these neighboring tribes. We do not want the same things.”