She's digging for secrets but I wonder if she knows - we all bury our secrets on the same shore. If she seeks mine then I'll find hers too. I am not the leaders of other lands - I do not offer up morsels free of charge and without exchange. She will fast this learn this. Everybody has their fronts and hers? I wonder just how much of a push it would take to remove it. She is somebody else beneath all the smug smiles and bouncing strides. How could she not be? The Monster of Asteraia gave her pride and joy to she and her mate. How does nobody question such a thing?

Then she growls and I cannot help but let the corner of my lip rise in a half-grin. I might not have pulled her mask aside but I'm getting a peek. See, Aster? We all bury the same pieces of ourselves. But I take the hint, though it was never subtle. For now, I've found a weakness and so, I remain quiet on the manner any further,
instead deciding to find out her true intentions though I doubt those will come to light with the tension this thick.

"I was not born with the privilege of blood and rank like you," I stop as she does, my eyes meeting hers, my words blunt. "Ambitious but never brazen." And it is true, no? I was born but a rankless child, a bastard to a daughter barely seen as such by her own family. I worked away in Diveen, rose in Taviora and snuck into Glorall without an ounce of bravery, just ambition and cunning. Aster is an alpha's child, the grandchild of another king and so on down her line. She is mates with a king. Heir, alpha, she was born with dozens of names to give herself. To compare us is folly and I make it known, my eyes challenging the depths of her own before she speaks of Vesper.

I pause, having not considered Vesper's relation to Aster until now. Still, my head slowly tilts, unsure as to how she does not know - had she not been where Vesper had run to? "Vesper has not been in Glorall for some season," I state bluntly though there is the inflection of a question that lingers in my words, "she was last seen traveling to the west when you were declared queen." The implication is simple: she had gone to Asteraia or Iromar, but not here. By all accounts, if such a thing was not true, then she is missing, a sudden possibility that makes me frown. Yet, I cannot search for her now. I am stuck in a game with a child who now poses not only a threat to Glorall but towards our wolves to - she ought to hurry. I have more pressing matters than teaching a child who does not truly wish to learn.