Blackbeak Bluff didn't they tell you, you'd leave and never come back

Natrona. He'd heard that word before. It was a word for disloyal souls who ran in the night when their wills, weak as they were, crumbled beneath the weight of the lifestyle they'd sworn to uphold. For a long moment Ephraim didn't know what to say. He didn't really know Wildfire, having only seen her in passing once or twice, and he had absolutely no idea who Sequoia was, but he remembered Kiwi. It seemed impossible that she would turn her back on Drageda and her family. It seemed impossible that any of them would. It couldn't possibly be true.

But Tux wouldn't lie, and one hasty glance at his companion told him that this was the truth. The reaction was too visceral to be anything less. Wildfire and Kiwi had both left, abandoning not only their pack, but their family. "I can't believe it," he hissed quietly, flattening his ears back as he grappled with the gravity of it. What did that mean for Heda? The penalty for treason was death, of course, at least as far as he knew, but could Heda kill her former mate? Her child? Could Tux if he was charged with it? His friend went on to repeat some of his phrases in slow Trigedasleng, which Ephraim tucked away in his mind, but he wasn't able to abandon the former topic so easily. Licking his dry lips and finding no solace in it, he asked, "Is there anything I can do?"

It seemed like a flat offer when Tux moved uncomfortably, because of course nothing he did would suffice. He didn't know it had to do with him being Skayona and Tux being Kru. He didn't even know his friend was still Kru, having assumed Tux had a rank as well, and even if he did know, it wouldn't have made a difference. Ephraim regarded his tuxedo companion with utmost respect either way. He was Drageda born and he had stayed loyal when his family betrayed. He didn't need a named rank to prove his worth, he'd already done it.

Ephraim settled down onto his belly on the cool rock and propped himself up with his elbows, turning his face to the horizon when his attention was drawn to the clouds. He could almost see the front line of the advancing storm, so clear was the division between normal sky and raging cumulonimbus clouds. He switched his tail side to side nervously. "I've never seen clouds so angry looking," he admitted, tipping his ears off to the side as he contemplated them. "You can almost smell them," he remarked, and added, "think it's gotta be more than normal old rain?"