Her question catches him by surprise. Just what had happened while the youth was gone, embracing her wanderlust? The King thought for a long, few moments— when had he last seen the pale hybrid shuffling around the Edge? When she had greeted Dacianna with Kiuaji. A long, low breath expelled from his nostrils.
So much had happened.
He had lit Mauja aflame, he had shared intimacy with Elsa, he had grown closer to Orithia and tried to put both himself and Katerina at ease, he had spoken with Rexanna and learned that demons from her own past were haunting her. He alienated Alysanne, his head Moon Doctor. “Many things have happened, Erthe,” he started, his low rumble burdened with darkness, “Not all good.”
He paused, thinking just what to tell the yearling— who was wise beyond her years. “The Edge trades with both the Basin and the Throat, now. We are gaining a tent and a drawbridge. And Tilney is now one of our Moon Doctors,” he began with Edge-related things, before delving lightly into personal matters, “But there is some unease within the Edge. And there are things I must atone for…” He trailed of quietly for a moment. “But I will,” was his offhand dismissal of such a dark and tedious discussion.
“I think you’ve won over Mbwene,” his attention shifts from inward to outward, navy eyes lightening as the ghost of a lopsided grin turned up a corner of his muzzle. “That’s not an easy task,” his grin grew full-fledged (even if it didn’t entirely meet his eyes) at the indignant snort of the elephant calf, who unwrapped her trunk from Erthe’s legs to threateningly point it towards her bonded.
Do you want this thread to turn into their fake-spar thread? I was thinking we could end this one and have a new on in BS? But I'm open to either :D