Galileo was polite, though I expected little else of a son of Niviaq. Even so, there was evidence of Pan's raising in the way his son spoke, and I couldn't help but wonder where my Hand had gotten off to. It had been far too long since his presence had been made known upon the mountain. Perhaps I would seek him out for a final discussion about the plains' alphas before I set out to meet them firsthand. This meeting might be the very signal I was waiting for to indicate that the time had come for such a thing. I nodded at Galileo's words, glad to hear he was pleased with his life and that the rolling openness gave him a sense of completion. Sometimes the blood of the mountains was not strong enough to keep one within its heights; my own siblings were evidence enough of that.

The matter of business was quickly moved on to, and I regarded Galileo with interest in his new position. His alpha clearly trusted him enough to handle such matters as interpack relations, much the same as I was coming to bestow such responsibilities upon Tithe. But it was his words about the former alpha, Jaidah, that garnered my true interest. In what ways had it changed, truly? There were still just as many rumors surrounding Asteraia as there had been when the white cannibal had reigned as now, when the black one had replaced her. Though I did not know if the female shared in her partner's appetites, the tales that went along with the name Tobias were hard to deny. I was ever curious by the conundrum that Asteraia presented in and of itself. "In what ways do you mean, Galileo? Beyond the original brutal takedown of Rhae, Jaidah made no known trouble for Moladion during her stead in Asteraia." When the current alphess had first taken over Asteraia, the attacks in the freelands had come to a grinding halt. But now? Things were different; there were whispers of violent attacks rearing their ugly heads once more.

Tithe had told me interesting things about his short time in Asteraia, his own interactions with Tobias and his female. I trusted his instincts in regards to her, and I couldn't help but wonder if Galileo was becoming as much of a master of his tongue as Tithe had told me she had been. As the longest standing alpha in Moladion, my pack and I had much to offer; Galileo's own father had been the one to remind me of such a thing. What was it that Asteraia had to offer, other than the name Tobias? "If such a thing is to be, I would like to meet her myself, before anything is agreed upon." Surely an understandable request, for I would not lay any level of trust in a wolf I had never met. Galileo had once been pack, and it had been a wise choice to send him here to break the ice between our packs, but this was a delicate matter indeed.