[h2][center][color=Brown]Raethel Norvegicus[/color][/center][/h2]

With Raethel stepping down for a period of mourning and a Regency Speaker taking over, one might have expected chaos and panic to grip Firstbarrows or the now properly established Greenland Dockyard... but the truth was it didn't. Those in the know of Rattus politics didn't really see this change as anything major since there wasn't anything vital to be voted for in the foreseeable future. Those not in the know generally only care about the board strokes of what was going on anyway so the Regency likely would go unnoticed as they went about their lives. 

For the first time since he had awoken all those years ago before his two gods, Raethel was free of the duty of leading his people. The loss of his mate was a heavy burden to bare still but... for the first time he could actually spend some time at home, being a proper father to his children. That wasn't to say that he didn't try to spend times with his offspring when he could, but in the balancing act of family and leading their people he had to admit that things tended to slant towards the latter at times. 

As hurt as he was through, Raethel knew he wasn't the only one that was hurting from the recent loss. The pups of his second litter had only just recently grown thick enough fur that their skin would be covered and protected from the light of the sky and were so... lost. Confused by the fact that their mother wasn't around anymore. They weren't sad, but that was only because they didn't truly understand what had happened... but they felt the absence of their mother all the same. 

Their first litter was older and [i]did[/i] understand the situation. While Raethel might have spent the first half of the sky cycle quietly mourning by himself, the rest of his time seemed to be attempting to weigh giving his children the space they needed to process and grieve in their own way and spending time with them on a one to one basis. Occasionally a small group of them could be gathered together but it was still too early for all of them to gather together at once.

There was no real ritual or plan. They just stayed in their barrow, occasionally talking, occasionally eating something simple. Every now and then a friendly, sympathetic soul would stop by and offer some food so that they didn't have to burden themselves with preparing anything themselves. Occasionally they fell asleep. Despite everything through, the youngest still needed to be looked after and entertained... and truth be told Raethel was perfectly happy to take on that duty. While his own body had started to be worn down by the many cycles of the sky that had passed, seeing the joy and youth of the pups filled him with an energy that he hadn't felt since before his fur started to lose its color and go gray. 

Personally he loved sitting down and telling the little ones stories in order to help them drift off to sleep the most. He generally tried to do so regularly even before this self imposed rest, since while he might not have been able to spend a lot of time with his children he wanted to at be present to help them sleep, but if there was one silver lining to all this it was the fact that he got to do so consistently without the threat of some bickering over trade calling him away. 

After a few cycles through, Raethel decided that it might be for the best to have a change of scenery; To leave their barrow for a time in order to see some of the other areas of Firstbarrows... maybe even take a trip over to Greenland so that they could see it for themselves for the first time. 

Granted he would have to check if the latest issue with the [i]Water Steeds[/i] (formally [i]Water Monsters[/i]) in Greenland had been resolved yet; Transporting them there had been a logistical challenge in the first place due to the fact that they didn't like the deep, salty one bit and trying to escort them via the land route was such a supply issue that it was honestly quicker and easier to figure out how to develop a wooden boat that could not only safely carry one of the big, heavy bastards, but also the food, water and mud required in order to keep them happy and healthy... [i]on top[/i] of the standard supplies and crew.

It had been done. It had taken many cycles of the sky but it had been done. Unfortunately that hurdle was quickly followed by the fact that the plant life in Greenland didn't seem to agree with the [i]Water Steeds[/i]. Thankfully they weren't poisonous to them or anything (apart from the plants that [i]were[/i] poisonous) but the new diet seemed to cause more discomfort then anything else. That problem had been solved by planting some of the plants the creatures ate along the water sources where near the Greenland Docks and with some slight influence of the Followers of the Wind of Life the plants started to thrive. 

Last he had heard, the issue now was the [i]Water Steeds[/i] and most of the local wildlife didn't seem to get along. Considering what the [i]Water Steeds[/i] were like before the ritual that made them friendly and passive to the Rattus, this wasn't completely surprising. It also answered a question about why they had started attacking Rattus in the first place but seemed to leave other species alone. The [i]Water Steed[/i] was by their nature a highly territorial creature and proved highly aggressive to anything that entered what it deemed to belong to it... and to put it bluntly the wildlife around the River Rattus had learned long before the Rattus had shown up that they didn't want to try fighting a [i]Water Steed[/i].

Unfortunately, the wildlife of Greenland didn't know this lesson yet. The Followers of the Wind of Life had convened on the matter and decided to largely let nature take its course here; As they put it, a new natural order was being sorted out between the [i]Water Steeds[/i] and the local animals and it was not their place to interfere with that... through they would heal up the wounded on both sides as possible. Not only would this ensure that the [i]Water Steeds[/i] would be fine, the Green Wind hoped that the act of healing wounded local animals would improve relations between them and the Rattus in general... at the very least, they felt that having survivors of fights with the [i]Water Steeds[/i] would help the local animals figure out that it wasn't a fight that was worth having a bit faster then letting the [i]Water Steeds[/i] kill everything.

  
[hider=Summary]
Post the death of his wife, Raethel takes some time to spend with his family. After a few days of being a good dad, he decides to organize a trip around Firstbarrows and possibly to Greenland which has developed into a proper Dockyard in the years since the settlement there was founded. 

We also get to see a glimpse of the issues with transporting and introducing Hippos across the ocean into an environment where there were no Hippos formerly. Problems with the transportation itself (solved with some clever engineering to the ship designs), trying to feed the Hippos with local plants (solved by introducing plants the Hippos can eat to the region) and now nature trying to work out where Hippos are in the food chain of this new region. 

The Followers of the Wind of Life (the Green Wind) felt that this was perfectly natural and largely decide that the Rattus should stay out of it beyond going in and healing injured Hippos... as well as any wounded survivors of the fights with the Hippos. This was to A) Hopefully make local animals more friendly to the Rattus and B) Hoping that having survivors of Hippo encounter among the local animal population will make the local animals figure out that Hippos are dangerous and shouldn't be fought lightly a bit faster.  
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[hider=Spirit]
Start: 1

+1 for being apart of a post for longer then a line.
+1 for being main character.
+1 Med length post 

Divine Quest: Claim the Land of Deserts and Hidden Rivers for the Rattus (In progress)
Divine Quest: Discover a new land across the sea (Plus discover the ability to sail on the ocean) (In progress)
Divine Quest: Create safe passage through the Great Dragon Range so Rattus can explore the other side.
 
End: 4
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