Rising Sun Valley a backlit canopy with holes punched in it

The culture he described prompted a nonverbal quip from the inky Tartok wolf; she was interested in this. It reminded her of how she and Tonravik operated, one of them playing diplomat while the other started trouble, though in some regard she was hardly a war queen by any stretch of the imagination. There had been plenty of times when if not for Tonravik, she would have had more than a few scrapes to tend to. But her interest only went so far, as Echelon did not quite understand the concept of demeaning males to what they were. Yet in stark reality, it was often how the female rulers in Tartok's stead operated. They were capable hunters, warriors, even advisers, but at the end of the day, even she knew that Tonravik would look for the most worthy to breed with. Even her own father had lusted after Siku, tuned much in the same way.

"How intriguing," she replied, regarding his story as though she had tested a fine wine. "I can see why you left, though." Her assumption he had fled such a place seemed properly placed. Yet traces of that culture, at least from what she had been told, may have chosen to shine through in his personality then. He was guarding the glacier surely, yet being a capable tour guide left open to her abuse, so to speak.