So, that the older folk don’t like having a young buck (har har, Duir, you get that one?) telling them what to do is pretty obvious. From the meeting until now, all the old dudes (which, lets be real, is all of them) have sort of looked at me like I’m some wet behind the ears punk. Sure, they quickly cover it up with their masks of loyalty, and taking the role they have been assigned, but I can see the façade finish slipping on, none the less.

It’s fine by me, I think, my general lack of fucks given over the passed few months actually playing into my favor, for once. The going-gray can all think of me however they want to, for now. I’m new, after all, and those of them that do know me, such as Roland, probably think of me merely as my parent’s son, and the boy who ran away. It’s not like each of us walks around with a salesman, paid to advertise what else we did in our ventures outside of prying eyes. Those sort of things reveal themselves in time, anyway, through your actions, and how much better you can be than everyone else.

Glad that the conversation quickly takes off, distracting me from the potential problem of insubordination from my more aged comrades, I feel a slight chink knick into the armor I’ve thrown up around myself, as Zünden says aloud that which I’d feared. There is no Adelric, slowly ambling his way up the pass, made lame by some wild skirmish; he is simply gone, having gone… where? No one seemed to know.

If not for his sister, here now, I might have thought I’d dreamt him. That he was a small figure in my memory, placed there upon the border of our land, delivered by a mother who did not want him, for how he had come to be; I might have thought he was a figment, a notion I’d contrived to feel less alone, less singled out, to believe that I was not the only one who’s mother did not want them for who they were.

Zünden is real, though. She is real as the memory of the stones piled up along a creek side, and real as Deimos’ final resting place, across the vale. I smile at her, too, not really having words to share, but figuring that I don’t need to say them.

She knows what loss feels like. It’s real to her, too.

So, when she moves on to talk about those she misses, I can’t help but feel my eyes widen at the mention of a son. Zünden, too? It seemed all the girls I’d grown up with had already had sons, or had died before they could. The aftermath of my mother’s regime, her legacy, perhaps shines through more in our generation raised beneath her rule than it does anywhere else.

We are all a bunch of degenerates and corpses, it seems, with the luckiest of us being merely missing persons. At least, I think to myself (much to Duir’s disapproval, wherever he is), I’m not alone in my misery.

"I will tell the others I meet to keep their eyes and ears open for word or sight of a Tiberius, I tell her, not managing the compassion I had for Glacia, because, I suppose, my heart is starting to run low on those things; if this is the way of the world, I cannot allow myself to be wounded by it with every fell swoop of its cruel hand, "though I have never stopped looking for Adelric, nor has Erebos, I’m sure. Her brother, Toulouse, is a meaty fellow, marked with wire, like Zünden has there on her leg."

The tall, pale man seems otherwise adept at his job, from his build and light step, down to the way his eyes intelligently glimmer. Believing he doesn’t need much more than a basic physical description and a name to do what all he could possibly do, I return my attention to the gray mare. She offers her services as a warrior, which I think is suitable enough, and nod in agreement; her father had served in the same position, and though I am not entirely sure if their relationship had ever been mended before he was slain, part of me finds it fitting, regardless.

"Erebos is the General now," I answer, wondering where best to look for him, smiling slightly as I remark on the almost all female status of his military, "we can find him shortly. He should be about with his gaggle of savage amazons somewhere."

When she asks what has changed, however, my smile falls away, becoming again the empty expression of denial. Too much, I want to answer; every single thing, is another. Instead, however, I manage something more useful than a childish retort to a question that hurts.

"The valley is ruled by the Ladies Aisling and Tiamat. The Lord Deimos died at the rise of Birdsong," flatly, I tell of my Uncle’s passing, not revealing the fractures which branch out around his name, the things which were never said, and the blows which had found no closure before closure was forever denied to me; when I try to speak of everything else, however, I flounder, finding the emotional waters to grow frustratingly deep, "shortly after my father."

I stop, unable to say anything else without the flimsy façade that I’m fine shattering into pieces around my hooves. Within a few seconds, I think I can go on, having made my way back to the shallows.

"The Hidden Falls was disbanded, and is no longer a herd land. There is rumor of a healing spring there," I wonder if she holds any ties to that herd too late, not pausing to even appear apologetic if I have wounded her with my callous discussion of a place I could not care less about becoming open territory, "it is good, if there is. I feel it will be necessary in the aftermath of the battle that awaits us. Do you know of the Rift lands? I can’t remember you being at the battles there, but it would have been easy to miss you, considering the amount of mayhem that ensued at each."