To be fair, as accepting and accommodating as the High Priestess could be, even she felt the initial jolt of surprise at hearing of Harper and her husband's plans for married life. While it remained to be seen if things might change, the arrangement seemed to work for them - who was she to question love, whatever form it might take? She herself had taken the plunge into a grand new adventure with Amaranth, undefined and unfettered, yet bound inextricably by an invisible tether that never saw them apart for long.
Yin and Yang; the sun and the moon.
She could not in fairness expect Ira to understand with her strict adherence to tradition; some things simply were. Like the sky, like the rivers, even the way birds took flight.
“From what I hear, Crux is not... how you say, man of tradition? Believe he and sister do not plan to only have one spouse. Forgive, am not clear on private affairs, but it might be that they take mate in other places, too, so... probably not bored,” she explained haltingly, trying to figure out the easiest way to put it. She was certain there was a word for the arrangement - a very specific word starting with a 'p' and ending with a 'mous', Harper might have told her before, but by now the weeks following their union had scattered it to the wind. Valeska sighed. “Sorry. Was explained to me in way that made sense to them, but for me, I am woman of one wolf. Do not think I have attention span that they do.”
She was a little surprised Ira had not seen the Plains to the east of their lands - well, slightly southeast, if one were to be picky - as they had seemed utterly vast and nearly endless in their scorching misery. The little wolf remembered waking and coughing up blood, ribs sore and fur unkempt from the earthquake that had swallowed her in the last life. Most had woken here reborn and refreshed, but she, it appeared, had more sins to pay for in this Purgatory.
Ira did venture to answer her question, at least. Valeska wouldn't have been terribly put out if she had chosen her usual stoicism and bid her good day, but she was quite pleased to find the roan woman dared to waste a little time on their meeting. A fondness of danger, then? Yet she could see it - she could see Ira with all the clarity in the world, clad in the stone armor of her mind, leading expeditions and strategizing battle plans as the blood dripped from her maw, a triumphant queen of warriors and savoring the thrill of the hunt.
It made her smile.
“Yes - it is the overcoming, I think, that is so good,” she affirmed. A little less of an adrenaline junkie herself, but no less enamored by the harsh pursuits of the great wild that lay beyond them, the kind of lands from whence she came. “It is nice to be surprised by oneself. To worry you cannot do a thing - but then you succeed, and you are better, stronger. That is how I feel here. I did not think I would find them again, my Elysium, my friends, my family. And yet one by one, we gather each other up, find each other in darkness and fear of the new, and rebuild better from before. I see it in other packs, too. This place - it makes us new wolves.”
That said, she still wanted to reassure the Vanderfell alpha over Nevada's errant field trip. “But yes. I promise it will not happen again - it was lapse on my part. Am grateful for your generous. Generousness.”
The English language was a journey, not a destination.
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