Rougaru never forgot Vanya. The mare was the forbidden fruit that tempted him again and again. No matter how hard he fought to win her, she found her freedom and did it without him. Paper thin nostrils flare as the stallion thinks of her, thinks of how she evaded him and escaped into the highlands where the warrior women fought to maintain freedom. She found against him, then claiming innocence though her eyes screamed haughty pride. That is his last memory of her, standing there in the cold permafrost of the peaks. She had glared up at him with that angelic curve of her neck and her sultry figure swollen heavily with his foal. He had come to try and convince the mares of the peak to return her to him, but the venture had been in vain. Despite his threat to Wasp, Rougaru was determined to keep his bargain to the queen of the mountains. He would not wage his war upon them. He could not. Despite his hunger to have Vanya back within his grasp, his loyalty to the long lost woman ran deep in his veins. He could never harm those she loved so deeply, even if it meant that his forbidden fruit would go unharvested. So Rougaru had left her there, and fate provided the distraction for the months to come.

Rougaru never forgot. Always, the wolf wondered what had come of the child she carried. Had he another son? A daughter? Oh how he had cursed Vanya's spirited nature in the same breath he hungered for her. Like his viper, she worked herself into his mind.

But he had Drogon. Since finding the boy in the Inlet, Rougaru had relished in the time he was able to spend with him. Though Vanya assured he was not his own by blood, the wolf had claimed him and his spirit as much as he himself. Drogon would forever be his blood. His pack. As with Akela, Annubis and Loupgaru, Rougaru did his best to spend time with him and teach him what he could of the world and the gods as he knew them. There would come a time when just as his own father before him, it was only a memory they were left with and he was determined it would be often they remembered him.

As of late however, Drogon had been absent from the herd. Rougaru worried for him, perhaps more so than the rest of his children. Ironclad had come for him before, determined to take him to the Inlet in hopes of turning the boy against the wolf. Rougaru had fended him off that day, but he was not foolish enough to believe it would be the gray stallion's last attempt. He wanted to hurt Rougaru and what better way than to turn loyalties away from family. He already had his daughter, but the Inlet king was not content.

A renewed pang of worry began to form in the pit of his stomach. Though he never put any rules against his sons forbidding them from visiting other islands, he was used to them returning by nightfall. Drogon's continued absence was not normal. Each morning he found himself gazing over the vast blue ocean, searching for some sign of the young stallion's bobbing head above the waves. Each evening he found himself searching the trails, as if his thoughts might cause him to manifest from the shadows. Each day he is disappointed.

However this day is different. He grazes peaceably beneath the thick canopy of shadows, hiding from the harsh noonday sun with the rest of the herd. Listlessly he chews the sweet green grasses that his blunt teeth had ripped from the earth, lost deep in his own thoughts and troubles. Lost, until he heard a familiar voice.

'Father!' The word rings over the chattering sound of birds and insects. Dark ears perk amid the cream and caramel colors tendrils of his mane as the stallion lifts his proud head and focuses his emerald eyes on the shadowed jungle around him. Two forms manifest from the shadows, their hoofprints muffled by the rustle of leaf litter on the earth underfoot. The first to appear is Drogon, his muscular frame aglow with the strength of youth. A broad smile curves across Rougaru’s ashen features as the stallion takes a step towards his adopted son for Drogon would never be anything else. Vanya had done her best to ensure that it was not his child she carried that year, but Rougaru cared for the boy anyway. Part to spite her and partly because he felt a real and true connection between the boy and himself. The wolf sensed it.

”Drogon!” he murmurs, a deep throated chuckle rumbling in his lungs as his gaze immediately shifts to the smaller form at his side. For a moment, Rougaru thought it was Vanya that stares back at him. The unmistakable curve of her neck and the finely dished profile of her face could be none other. Even the pattern along her coat was similar in his mind but the wolf discerned a few straying paths of white or dark roan skin that did not fit with its memory. Nostrils flare as he drinks in her scent, the faintest hints of the wolf lingering beneath the more common odors of pine and birch. So, Vanya had hidden her away on the main island. The wolf made a mental reminder for later. He would have to seek her out for a reunion in the near future. Emerald green eyes soften as he gazes at the girl, dark ears relax as he closes the distance between them. Mahogany colored neck stretches forward to allow ash dusted lips to bump affectionately against the young stallion’s muzzle. ”I was beginning to worry something might have happened to you.” he says, meeting the boy’s dark eyes for a moment before turning his attention to the girl beside him, his smile broadening. ”Who have you brought with you?” he knew very well who this girl was. Knew immediately that she was the daughter of Vanya and yet he wanted to hear her say it. The wolf needed it. Golden eyes glitter in his soul as the wolf smiled at the girl. His blood. His daughter. .