I WILL ALWAYS FIND YOU
The whispers come, with or without the caws of crows- or ravens for that matter. They come without the herald of the Chamber's ghost, they come, they come.
Beqanna grows restless. It grows tense with each season past, each day to come. Killdare can smell it in the skies, around the curve of a bend. It is often when he finds himself in strange company that it grows hushed, wide eyed, and recoils from his presence. The Chamber had made a name for itself, had begun to unravel the lull of peace in which their world grew stale. It was not hard to notice, even without the spread of gossip, or warnings like wildfire.
Killdare would not be caught unawares, nor would he let his own be caught in such a manner. Though he sorely wondered where both Erebor and Gryffen had been, he takes their rounds when they are his to shoulder-just as they all did. When he is not watching the Chamber, when he has a spare moment, he meets with Raelle. War was coming, it was in his mind inevitable, one way or another. Run He had instructed the girl and her dam. And if you can not run to me, you will run away. Often he ran the girl, building her muscles because her mother could not, or would not. Most days she was agreeable to the task, running alongside him with fervor. Other times he reduced the girl to tears, doing his best to impose on her the importance of her strength, her endurance. You must run, he would tell her sternly, I do not wish to make you, but I will.
The bay never wanted to be his father, the man he both respected, but despised as well. He would not suffer the loss of his only present child, his boys were gone, and he did his best to make do with his girl child. She would run, she would save her own skin, his line. To hell with her Dam if it came down to it. Killdare had a deeply instilled sense of family, of honor, and strength. If his daughter could not find him, she should seek the Cove, if the Cove was lost, she should flee. It was a lot to ask of a child, it was a lot to ask of anyone, but he could not coddle her every step of the way.
His broad head lifts, the curve of his jaw clenching as he flares his nostrils to scent. Everything was about smell, everything that mattered to him anyhow. Straia required a meeting, they were rightfully due, and he went because it is his duty.
The clearing is clearer than in times past, the most noted absence still, is that of Engelsfors. He snorts irritated with himself, the heart is the last to forget, no matter how far the thought has been pushed from the mind. It takes him moments to settle, ears forward, nodding to his Queen. He does it not because she asks it of him, but because he wishes to give it. They all served the Chamber, they placed their faith in the mare to lead, and she had not let them down yet.
Tidings come to no surprise, War, the words bring a smile to his lips. They are not unexpected and not poorly received, not at all by the Colonel. They wait though, for a decision to be made by the Amazons- he wishes for the best. With the Sisters at their side, they could throw Beqanna into the discord it desired, and he kinda still had a thing for Joscelin. Much as she treated him with disregard in that aspect, he had become subtly persistent, and he hoped to keep it that way. His thoughts though turn from the chase of Amazon tail, a promotion? Does he accept? "I would be proud to serve the Chamber as such." He nods and it's true. If being Lord made the Chamber happy, then it made him happy, and he would do his best to serve the position. However, Erebor is not absent from his mind, he was one of his dearest friends. He hoped there would not be bad blood between them now, though he would not expect such a juvenile reaction from the prince.
When all is said and done, and the opportunity to voice opinions comes, he gives his own baritone to the mix. "Return their Queen? No I don't think that would be convenient for us?" He looks to Straia in a quizzical, but joking manner. "But I'll have war if the Chamber will, she seems to grow as restless as the realm. I will fight for her with honor, with or without the Amazons." He is certain that his course would be no other way, it hadn't been for years now.