Initially, he had been rather... bothered, he supposed, by Aithne's rulership over Iromar. After all, in a way, he had grown to believe it would have been his some day. However, he'd never had a definitive interest in such power and eventually, he had grown to rather enjoy the lack of complete responsibility that came with a lower rank. Even in his position as Cerberus, there were still those above him that needed to shoulder much more of the decision making. It had made his life easier in a way, and he had become glad that Aithne's suspicions of him had been absolved too. Their first encounter had been tense but now, it didn't seem as such. It was definitely a comfortable life despite what had happened to produce the results; his mother's death, his sister's absence, even his brother's murder. He had a lot of thoughts on the matter but at least life at home was simpler.

He had never seen Iscariot before, or at least not so personally. He had been curious as to what kind of guest they might have brought in and, to his surprise, he was met with somebody quite... well mannered. It wasn't exactly a common trait - the most polite wolf Astaroth could think of would have been Raven, and even it was said she could bite back when she wanted to. So, he did his best to mirror the politeness, though he'd likely never master the articulation of Iscariot's kind.

"I'm Astaroth," his introductions had always been simple, when he had bothered to introduce himself. He had made an effort since his mother's death to remove her and Andras' name from his address. They... didn't matter so much anymore, not in that regard at least.

"What do you want my opinion on?"

He blinked, a little confused by having been asked to share such a thing. In fact, he often kept that kind of thing to himself, though he had shared several with Aithne some time ago in relation to Iromar's progression forward. Still, it made him curious and he could not help but feel his ears perk up in interest as he lowered to be seated, too.

"As for change, much has changed," he paused as he pondered for a moment, but his eyes refocused on Iscariot's own before he began to speak once again, shrugging off the comments as he went. "Iromar is not as... violent as it once was. Once, we had a war. Our leaders stole a lot. Lillith... she attacked others, as did Andras. All for fun, I think. But Aithne is not like that. We aren't like that, I don't think."

He looked away for a moment, as if a little ashamed by their rather rough past. How could he not be? Since having met Denali, the idea of being like his parents had begun to look less and less tempting. Still, he did enjoy tension. And he did enjoy, at times, the rush of anger and the adrenaline that came with it - but there were healthy places to channel that now.

"Aithne is trying to bring us all closer together. Into a real pack."

He fell quiet after that, letting Iscariot take from it and also taking the time to observe the other male's reactions to what he had said. After all, he had to be sure this male would be well suited to the swamps. He didn't want to let somebody in who didn't respect Aithne's attempts, or who couldn't accept the past. The past still haunted Iromar. It wasn't like they could just ignore it.