Noctisardor Bypass Tends to reach the same conclusion

IDK if you wanna backdate to be shortly after the border meeting with Saints peeps or have it be current day, can work it as either! Also vague on number of pups that are currently present to give Lullaby a chance to reply to my PM, heh.

She'd given the potential threat of the Saints some thought. They still seemed like jokes to her. So, while the children were tasked with a few different things to do -- investigate a warren, practice tackling each other, that sort of thing -- she called for @Kaertok. They should probably do a little bit of planning -- or at least Arbiter being Arbiter, she wanted some direction they both agreed on.

And so, she perched herself on a slight rise while she watched her children do a bit of independent learning. Once the adult conversation was done, she could back to giving them more structured education.. Or something like that. There was plenty to ponder in the meantime. Saints, Ursus, Easthollow... Threats and allies.

The children grew, and while Kaertok still didn't feel that they were strong enough, they certainly did try. There were moments they made him proud, but those seemed few and far between. He could not, of course, blame these weaknesses on himself. Tartok blood was strong, and it was their mother who had the weaker lineage of the two. Wasn't it her children who had proven themselves to be insufficient? Spook (or Warlock, or whatever his name was this week) seemed to timid, Thief was who-knows-where, and Kaertok scarcely knew Brouhaha.

To deal with it, Kaertok had chosen to simply avoid Arbiter outside of pack matters. He slept close to the children at the rendezvous site, but he was warm to none of them; he never had been. As the days wore on, he felt himself become more and more detached.

When Arbiter called—specifically for him—Kaertok arrived as he always did: neutral and ready to listen. Although this time, there were things on his mind as well.

Ok so election night isn't hte best quality posts...

It was sort of a feedback loop -- the more disinterested Kaertok was, the same was true of Arbiter. She didn't see him as having the same drive, let alone patience, which was a thing that one seemed to need with children, unfortunately. Did he just not see the potential? If so, unfortunate.

There might be interesting things afoot, she mused. The howl earlier was that wolf Daegmar spoke of -- apparently now he goes by Kynareth -- and he has a pack somewhere in the mountains called Saints of the Dying Light. Which she found to be a quite ridiculous name from the way she said it. Daegmar himself joined me -- and yet they still wanted us to walk blindly into an alliance with them. Oh, and somehow they heard of us from Ursus. So friends, perhaps? They then got rather bent out of shape when I asked them what they really wanted from us, so I suspect we're not missing much. Far too sketchy for her tastes, plus the distance made them useless. I'm wondering if Easthollow has more information about what they're up to. Might be due a visit. Did you ever meet them? She was pretty sure he hadn't, and it would be a nonissue anyway as he'd vanish soon enough -- well, and the fact that she would rather speak to Valette herself, or maybe send Warlock if she had to...

<3

Word of packs he did not know well, but their names were somewhere in the space between his ears. Talk of alliances with packs they barely knew put a bitter taste on his tongue. Kaertok realized he did not know much about Ursus, either. Nor Easthollow. Had he been instructed to meet them? Was it an expectation he had failed or forgotten, just as he felt Arbiter had failed and forgotten him?

I did not, he replied. Since the children had been born, Kaertok had clung close to the bypass. His feet itched, and while Arbiter did not hate him (as far as he could gather), she remained indifferent about him. It was then that the seed dropped into the soil. All it would need was a little bit of water, a little bit of sunshine.

It sounds as they would be more receptive to a visit from you if one is in order, he suggested. Kaertok knew that he would be wary of a stranger, no matter who they said they were, showing up and talking on large matters like this.

Wherever his feet had taken him on his jaunts outside the territory, it obviously had not been south. Even if he had been familiar with them, she still wasn't sure if she'd want to assign the duty to Kaertok -- maybe if he'd run into Valette herself. Then again, this was a subject where she wanted an abundance of clarity, so best to do that herself. Yes. I'd contemplate sending Warlock, but I don't think he ran into any of them when he ventured to the creek months ago. He may wish to please but I doubt this is a case where he'd best fit. Some day, perhaps in better times she'd send him to go meet them. It would be easier for the future, but the future was not this instant here.

Depending on how much they know, if they are working with Ursus, they could be expecting someone to be sent to Easthollow now. They seem to have left, but I'm in no rush to test them without immediate need. She'd quite happily pick the patient route because if they were hiding the next hill over, it would be positively infuriating to them she imagined, just based on how they were acting when she met them. Training budding hunters is a better use of a wait. She peered back off at them in the not-so-distant distance, I'll be suggesting to just be more alert at the borders for now. To whoever she came across, she meant. Were the Saints wolves intelligent enough to focus on the north though they were from the south? She wasn't sure. It was easier to not tie a direction onto it, less guessing.

It sounded as though Arbiter already had her plans in order, and once again, Kaertok felt himself put out by it. He was a leader, but he felt so in name only. She relayed information to him, but never asked for his opinion on matters. His expression remained ever-neutral, but he felt the budding of... not hate, not really. Just a sense of I'm thinking of ending things. He felt he had given Arbiter everything she had wanted: Legion and children. If she had asked more of him, he did not remember it.

As for the pack politics, Kaertok found that they quite bored him. How could they worry about outside forces when he felt that the pack as a whole lacked cohesion? It wasn't as though he and Arbiter picked at each other, fought, or argued, but there did feel like a distinct sense that they were on different wavelengths entirely. He felt much the same about the others, too. It became increasingly clear that Legion was not working out. It's not you; it's not me; it's just the way it is.

I will increase my daily patrols, he said matter-of-factory to that suggestion. The children are learning things quickly. Except for Atuaserk. She seems disinterested in anything of value. Inukun and Piguktuk had already earned names from him. They were sharper than their sister.

Malrok will make a fine hunter. Pingasut will be a sturdy warrior, too.

At his promise of patrols, she nodded. She wished they'd had more numbers -- that some of those who had given their promises had actually kept them. Apparently that was a thing that was lacking in many wolves. She shouldn't be surprised.

The names that he called them by didn't make sense at all. Literally. To her they were nonsense names, and they certainly didn't fit her children in any way she could see. Still, she could sort of guess who was who -- and Royal was obvious. Royal will learn, it just might be at the teeth of her siblings when they tell her she doesn't get to act better without actually being that way. Which did at least amuse her a little. Even Brou had shaped up a little when her siblings talked back to her. Hell, Arbiter made her own sister get in line. Maybe it was just a thing with certain females. Haunt and Vex will know both hunting and fighting by the time they're grown. We'll see if they have any other interests by then, but all three will be more than capable to survive in these wilds. A thoughtful pause, They will be ready for winter. Though I won't complain if it's easier than some previous. Earthquakes and all. They were closer to the volcano now, and she did look that way -- the smoking had stopped ages back, but if it happened again, Arbiter knew she'd likely have to find somewhere else to take the pack.

Kaertok wasn't so sure about Atuaserk. Not all children were as smart as his other two seemed to be. He did know that the other two would also be hunting and fighting, perhaps before they were grown. They were smart and capable now, and he had no doubt they would be ahead of the game, just as he and his siblings had been at that age. They still had plenty of work to do, of course, but a few more months and they would be more or less ready to take on the world by themselves. Perhaps sooner.

Maybe it should have been a sign to both of them that they could not even agree on what to call their children. Kaertok would never give up the Tartok traditions of naming them, and it seemed Arbiter was just as stubborn.

I will head out for a patrol, he said, Maybe take Pingasut with me since he seems interested, unless there is more you wish to discuss.

This seemed to be the way it was with her. Talk business, plan for the future of their kids, then part ways.

Can be archived here or in your next post!

If she had thought more about it, with a side of introspection, Arbiter may or may not have thought about what she actually wanted from a partner, romantic or otherwise. But this might have been a case where they were too similar in many ways and the differences that separated them were too far apart. Then again, Terance's death had pretty well killed her sense of humor, so that probably didn't help... Or that maybe right now she just wasn't ready to outright replace him -- at least with someone who also from her perspective didn't seem to want to be more than he was.

But right now? The equivalent of two statues held their own ground. I think one of the families of moose left to the southeast let me know if they've wandered back in to the territory? The youngest was of a size that would be easily huntable -- if it could be separated from its mother. A project for another day, but she did want to keep tabs on them. Arbiter's own patrol would be later in the day, which wasn't too unusual. She'd watch the pups a while.