In truth, I wasn't sure if she was ever going to start breathing again. I wonder if a wolf had ever killed so easily in the past. It had taken less than a look to stun her, so I cannot help but be curious as to what exactly it was that awoke her from it. Eventually, she breathes again, and I see recognition pass across her features, bleeding into cool acknowledgement and poised attentiveness. She was taught well, that is for certain. I play it back to her, bowing my head low in a momentary greeting as I settle to a pause among the tall grass and shadows. She smells of Diveen, and I admit I am a little surprised at such. Diveen was not the place I expected her to go if she ever were to return – not Glorall, to be sure, but Iromar perhaps. Tesseract, I remember, was a son to the moors at one point or another, though perhaps there was more ill blood there than I know. After all, he did not return there for long either. Aster, I imagine, was cause for that.

"Your years away have been kind to you, princeps fugae melior,” I reply with a grin, wane but there. "Glorall is content, as it has been for some time. Come winter, the bridge to the island is like to form. We’ve had such luck these few years.” My voice is complacent, at ease, as if merely observing the very weather we rest in. Yet, I can see her poring over each word, her eyes hard on mine despite the gentleness of their hue, the relaxing of the muscle around each one. She is hunting among my words, and I grow curious to know what she finds. Ah, but I do not think she is looking for something of mine – no, she is hunting for an opening for her own.

I will make it easy. "Your father was around some time ago, but I did not have the opportunity to extend an invitation to him,” I muse, sure to turn to her with an inquisitive look, as if for explanation – where is he, I wonder? Yet, I know well enough. He is, after all, surely dead, for Underidge’s hunt ended some time ago. He was not the kind of wolf to let up such things so easily and so, he must have surely lost the scent for good...and a wolf like Tesseract? Ah, no. He would not return here only to leave again, after all.