Broken Boulder but then the special secret sickness starts to eat through you

he smells alarian's sister before he sees her, searching briefly for her name -- lanawyn, right. she does not look so thrilled by his presence (join the club). awkwardly he shifts toward her, unsure if her silence is in invitation for him to speak first or if she's just waiting for him to move on and leave her alone. after a few beats he decides he'd rather err on the side of interrupting her solitude than coming off as rude by not acknowledging her verbally, and clears his throat.

"hey," he says, doing his best to sound approachable (or at least not flat as he feels). "um. lanawyn, right? thanks for allowing queenie and i to join you." even if it was basically alarian's decision without any input as far as delight can tell. it still seems polite. especially since he accepted alarian's offer of a promotion. it hadn't occured to him yet how the other wolves of bracken might feel about that (hell, he's not sure how he feels about it yet). he still doesn't carry authority well, never did at tindómë, certainly doesn't here, where he's a stranger -- mostly he feels obligated to help alarian out, however he needs. and that he's ... a nice distraction, sort of, from everything else, certainly helps.