Nadine had been thinking much about her role within the pack. When she had first joined, she had informed Finley of what she was good at: diplomacy, hunting… she had even led a pack hunt with moderate success though there was little doubt she still had much to learn. There had been blunders, and flaws… some her own doing and others decided by the universe… but one thing she had noticed about Paradise Falls in particular was it’s peaceful nature. They had no real conflicts to mediate with other packs… and thus, her role as a diplomat was not horribly necessary.

It was not to say that it would never be necessary, but it was something the yearling had come to learn she could not lean on for a pack role… not if she wanted to actually be useful. With Finley stepping down with Jethro’s return, she was now seeking out Chan. She did not know him fairly well, and only really saw him in passing… but anyone who resided within the Cove automatically earned her respect solely for the fact that they were packmates, and him even more so for the fact that he was now the acting leader. It meant something to her.

She sat outside the pack den, raising her maw to call for him with excitement brimming in her eyes.

Nadine had never known any different. It was the life she had been raised in – stuck in a turmoil that her mother helped guide her through. They had worked together to negotiate trade deals, hunting parties that shared between two packs… work that had shaped who she had become. She’d never known what she had missed out on, because she’d never been particularly exposed to it. It had been an expectation in the world she had come from. For her, her sister, and all the other pups from the nearby packs. At least from her experiences.

She offered him a polite smile as he arrived, a dip of her head to display the proper respects that were so engrained into her body. “I was hoping to speak to you about a pack role, and about what my future here might look like.” She explained, trying not to sound too ominous though she supposed it was a general disposition she usually carried unintentionally. “Where I come from, I was a diplomat, trained by my mother in conflict mediation and peace negotiations… but the environment here is so different. There are no overarching conflicts to assist with, and I hope there never are.” War and the likes were never a good thing.

“I guess… I’m just trying to figure out how to fit in fully.” It was different from how she had envisioned her life… but not in a bad way by any means.

Nadine had always been one to get straight to the point. She found it the most effective form of communication, and could often lead to her being quite blunt. If she thought something, she’d say it. Her mother had always taught her to keep feelings out of politics, to focus on the logic even when the other side could not, because otherwise one would do their pack a disservice. They would burn bridges… she knew in practice it was much harder than that unless one was an unattached third party which seldom handled matters of state.

She offered a gentle smile, a glimmer in her eye. “My mother used to say the same… I’m afraid that before I was separated from her I never quite learned how to identify conflict before it starts in order to neutralize it.” She offered, a rare display of bashfulness as she admitted the gap in her own education. She knew much about the art for her age, but she was far from perfect. She knew she had plenty of room for growth, and would not pretend to be an expert.

“I guess I don’t know what a traditional pack looks like? My home was so different from the Falls that I feel rather off-kilter… my normal is very different from how things are here. And I love it here… but it leaves me a little lacking in my own knowledge in order to decide what kind of role I want to pursue.” She explained, wanting to express her lacking in a way that asked for more education, or maybe an explanation so she could understand what roles the pack needed and utilized more fully, from someone who had been around much longer than her.

Nadine had not told many about her past; Finley had known she was looking for her family, and Isla knew that as well… but she had not felt it necessary to share such things with the rest of the pack, including the leader who stood before her and offered her advice. It had not felt relevant to her role, only to her experience, and in her mind, her experiences had not mattered much as this pack operated very differently from her home pack.

As he motioned to her when he spoke of scouts, she hummed. She supposed that meant that was the role she was expected to feel. She found she was not horribly fond of travel or exploration. Her traveling had been specific – a mission from one border to another, but she knew she would need to adapt her expectations of her role all the same.

“I have also been working as a hunter.” She added in, referencing the pack hunt she had successfully conducted and other smaller attempts she regularly made to keep the caches full. It left her conflicted. She had been raised a diplomat, but the idea of straying too far from the Falls gave her a source of anxiety, wondering if her sister or her mother or Cyran might find their way here whilst she was gone and thus miss her like a ship in the night.

“Scouts travel often, yes?” She would ask, only pausing a moment before clarifying why she was asking the question. “My travel has always been intentional, and as brief as possible… dispatched to a border and reporting immediately back. What would I do with all of the time left between ventures? Is it possible to have two roles?”

She had become so used to conforming to rigid structures that the idea of more than one role almost felt daunting… but it also felt freeing at the same time. It felt as if she could truly grow into her own. She had been perfectly content to play the diplomat… but the older she grew, the more she realized that there was more than simply the role her parents had insisted for her. Perhaps she ought to consider them as well, especially now knowing that she had Chan’s blessing in the matter.

She listened, intent to heed his wisdom, and nodding as he explained more about how roles structured within the pack she now sat. She supposed if she had been paying more attention, she might have been able to catch onto all of it by now… but it was better late than never, correct?

“My home… my former home… we were all assigned roles, and trained in them from such a young age.” She explained carefully. She had been the diplomat, her sister intended to be the leader. Perhaps it had simply been the Alpha’s children… her father’s children. Even now, she struggled to not shudder at the thought of her father.

“I can truly learn anything? Do anything?” She asked again, almost as if she struggled to believe it. “Even if another does it, and it proves slightly redundant?”