[Ayliyra]

Mercury scoffed as she told the part about Sansa and Alana's opinion of that particular incident which didn't surprise her. Mercury knew about Hexilia and the blood feud between Hexilia and Heartbeat that had caught so many within Nardir unawares until rather after the fact. Namely after Rio had been taken and after she had been threatened, which was how she'd ended up spending so much one on one time with the warrior queen as her mentor. Being a target and fainting from fear were hardly a good combination for a small pup of course she couldn't call that a good combination for anyone but...after she mentioned the part about being blamed for Starfire's death by Byakko..rather ironic since she was being ambushed at the time Starfire died, Mercury spoke and it was very clear that she wasn't pleased with the account. She had to agree. It had been too much, it had been too much for a long time before that but she had tried to deal with it. Not very well of course but..."I thought of challenging for alphaship but Alana and the others might have been badly hurt if I had...". Which had been her main concern though by no means had she been oblivious to the fact that she likely would have lost a fight if she had chosen that route. "And I didn't want that and I considered trying to form a pack of my own after I met one of Nardir's founders, Rain, but that could have caused harm to Nardir as well as any that joined with me so when the ally I was sent to fell during a blizzard I went looking for you".

Some would perhaps consider her admission of thinking of challenging the alphas for leadership reckless considering she was admitting it to a member of the royal family but while the admission certainly demonstrated her ambitiousness it also demonstrated loyalty in being so honest and that her ambition was not blind or ruthless. "I spent time in the unclaimed lands but I also went to packs and used the healing knowledge I'd picked up to pose as a wandering healer willing to trade my skills for a place to rest a few days and to learn from any healers of their own so I could gain access and see if you were there or if any of the others who had gone missing were there". Because she hadn't forgotten about any of them and even though she knew it was a dangerous thing, a gamble she'd made with every border she arrived upon trading herself the way she had..she had done so willingly, unlike Mercury unbeknownst to her though she did have her suspicions and had suspected Mercury to have been a prisoner somewhere for a long time. And even if she had known with certainty rather than educated assumptions of Mercury's forced servitude and being traded about she likely still would not know what sort of impact her statement and admission of willingly giving herself over to that sort of uncertain life in search of the then missing warrior queen, would have on her mentor.


((sorry this is so..bleh..I wanted to try and write but am still kinda distracted so...))

[Mercury]

The Dark Moon of Nardir                    ☿ "Being brave means to know something is scary, difficult, and dangerous, and doing it anyway, because the possibility of winning the fight is worth the chance of losing it. - Emilie Autumn

"I thought of challenging for alphaship but Alana and the others might have been badly hurt if I had..."

Not to mention it would have been a horrible idea.  As the saying went: "two wrongs don't make a right", and Mercury did not think Ayliyra was ready to be a leader.  Not then, and not now, even after her time away from Nardir. It was a burden and a responsibility that many were all to eager to obtain, but not to bear.  The Dark Moon had carried the weight of Nardir for most of her life.  She had never had a life of her own. Mercury was raised as an accessory to her sister, a shield and sword to protect Alana's crown.  It was not ambition, nor righteousness that had made her a Queen.  It was the yolk of duty, ironclad around her neck, as real as the collar she now wore.  She didn't think Aylie, for all her justice and honor, really understood that weight.  Mercury voiced none of this, however, and simply let Ay speak.  Some packs would have called it treason, but Mercury did not think it was so.  Challenging the hierarchy was a bit extreme, but considering that her protegé had been voicing her opinion all along, Mercury understood why she could have come to such a drastic option as the solution.

"A challenge could have also been perceived as a threat, and could have justified harsher demand for your recompense."  Mercury said mildly, as though she were commenting on a mere board game rather than a real political situation.  They could have killed you for it.

"And I didn't want that and I considered trying to form a pack of my own after I met one of Nardir's founders, Rain..."

Mercury's Grandmother.  She had always thought of Rain to be strong, and had aspired to be like the silver-eyed queen.  Did she still live?  Mercury hesitated to ask, not wanting to know if another piece of her life was now forever beyond her reach.  She had already lost her parents, and her brother.  While there had never been any conformation of Alexander's death, she did not hold hope that he would return.  He was lost, and she knew firsthand how easy it was to never be found.  Had the opportunity not presented itself, she would never had gotten away from the humans.  She would have been a dog the rest of her life.

"I spent time in the unclaimed lands but I also went to packs and used the healing knowledge I'd picked up to pose as a wandering healer willing to trade my skills for a place to rest a few days and to learn from any healers of their own so I could gain access and see if you were there or if any of the others who had gone missing were there."

It was a sound strategy, and Mercury felt it was a good fit for Aylie's skills.  Mercury had always thought it was odd that she had been the youngster's mentor when Ayliyra clearly had a healer's heart.  She had obviously survived, and for that Mercury was grateful.  But it also made her wonder if, like herself, Aylie was a bit stuck in the past.  With Mercury gone, and Nardir having turned its back on her, Ay could have easily have moved on; joined another pack and had a different life.  Was her search for Mercury what denied her that path?  It saddened the Dark Moon, thinking once again how she had brought hardship to her pack.

"Did you have any success?"  She asked, but she didn't think she was going to like the answer.

☿

[Ayliyra]

Ever calm as she had remembered Mercury to be the warrior queen did not launch into any of the violent reactions others might have done and instead simply stated what she had already thought of herself, about the odds not being in her favor if she had challenged. Of course the odds hadn't exactly been in her favor to begin with as she had been sentenced at a make believe trial but challenging would have definitely not been in her favor so she had refrained from doing so but if things had been different..hm. That was something she tended to try and avoid thinking on though as it wouldn't do any good since she couldn't change the past and also there was still the uncertainty as to what Nardir had turned into and would it need to be destroyed which that train of thought tended to always lead to her realizing how much like Zvulun she was, how much of his violent tendencies she had inherited and was perhaps even worse about. She couldn't be sure whether Zvulun had been like that or not but when she looked back on some of the things she had done, tried to do and been willing to do, she could not deny, as much as she would have liked to, that she had not just mean streak but a sadistic one and it seemed to only get worse as time went on.

Of course she had stopped that particular thought train before it ever really got started so those contemplations would be left where they usually were when she was focusing on something and someone else which the moment was Mercury. The question posed was whether she had had any success which in one sense was an easy answer but in another it was not. "I found Hakan in the unclaimed lands and spent some time learning healing from him. The packs I stayed in held no trace I could find of the missing and members that I thought it was safe enough to make inquiries of either hadn't seen or even heard of any of the missing or weren't sure if they had or not. I made arrangements with some that if I visited their packs again they would let me know if any of the missing had been seen or taken in but many of the packs I visited seemed to be struggling when I visited with the possibility of their predicaments becoming worse, at least from what I observed, so I'm not entirely sure whether those packs still stand or not".

And that would conclude her answer of Mercury's question about her success where things would go from there she didn't know and while she had no intention of lying to Mercury..if she had known what Mercury was thinking about her possessing a Healer's heart it would have made it that more difficult for her, much harder for her to deal with the knowledge that she was possibly just as much of a monster as her father was and possibly more and revealing that to Mercury......

((sorry this has taken so long and that it's such a sucky post))