Blackfeather Woods nothing but the burnt edge of an unfinished history

Kjalarr watches as she cleans up her things and a wave of fatigue settles over him. It is sudden and heavy, threatening to pull him under but he reminds himself this is an infirmary and not a place for sleeping. At least, not for patients like him. Not for patience who wounds do not demand a staying presence in the infirmary. Still, the temporary rest is nice. He is weary from his travels and as the pain ebbs thanks to her tending to the wound he realizes that tolerating the pain of the brand as she carves it into his flesh has also added to his fatigue. He lets out a quiet noise of content as Potema lays near him and feels her head rest against his shoulder. “I can give them but will he listen?” Kjalarr is doubtful. If Vaati is anything like he was as a boy then the likelihood of that is non-existent. There are as many differences as there are similarities between Vaati and him when he was a child, however and it unsettles him to know that his son is measurably worse and at such a young age. It’s troubling for any father to hear …even one that cannot even call himself such. Absent or not it did not change that he was his father. Blood was thicker than water, after all. Blood calls to blood.

If Kjalarr knew that their son had been promoted to leadership he would have told Potema that it was a stupid decision. He was a kid — a terror to the Wilds at that — and that anyone who knew how to actually lead a pack would have never promoted him to a place of authority but presently he doesn’t know and therefore mulls over what Potema has shared with him with growing unease in his stomach …unable to help himself from wondering if they would have to put him down. Could they? Evidently, Vaati’s proven himself as much of a domestic threat as he is a foreign threat and why should the whole suffer for the one? But Kja’s just a prisoner and has more important things to tend to: like making up with Potema. “What kind of work, High Priestess?” He will do it, no matter what it is, but he thinks that if she wants him to go out and gather medicines for her she will end up being sorely disappointed …or potentially with a dead prisoner. He’s not got the talent for that kind of thing and would likely ( incidentally, of course ) poison himself in the attempt. He’s tempted to call her Potema, to let her name roll off his tongue, to say it again and again with the reverence of a worshipper praying to his goddess but settles for what he knows to be her title.

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