Surely the bottom is going to drop out from under me, Heriwulf kept thinking. There would be some moment where the enormity of recent events, of what had happened at the clan moot, would leave him shaking with realizations and perhaps horror at the consequences. The responsibility that was his now. The impossibility of how it had come to pass. The collision between regret for his mistakes and expectations for his future actions. The uncertainty about how to do what now fell to him to do. He ticked these things off on his fingers, promptly pricking one of them with the tip of the bone needle he was using to mend his tunic. "Thunder!" he called out in ire, and sucked his fingertip, frowning at how clumsy the mending was. It would hold, but he was no tailor.
But while being declared the chieftain of the erstwhile clan was like a mountain looming mostly unseen through a shroud of clouds, trying to cast its shadow on everything around him, it was Brunan who he kept thinking about.
The clan had decided, in large part, to stay in Eriador, each for their own reasons. In most cases he knew no more of why they chose to stay than why they'd come in the first place. The Chetwood was certainly less dangerous than Mirkwood, and that might be enough reason right there. And whatever they left to get away from was still back there on the other side of Hithaeglir. There was probably a lot more to it than that for some of them, though, but it wasn't any of his business. No, not even as chieftain.
Brunan was now, he imagined, he hoped, bounding through the Lone-lands towards wherever Radagast would meet her, and would soon return, tired but unharmed, both her and the puppies she carried. Surely whatever wizard's trick Radagast had used to be sure she could carry him the acorn that meant they were staying was one that ensured she would make the journey, and back, safely. Far be it from me to question the Brown Wizard, he thought, but couldn't he have used Dalgo, or at least Niht? Brunan was the only hound in the pack who was a good bitch to breed, save perhaps one of Faron's wolves (he was never sure if that would even work, given how she hadn't tamed them in the normal way of the clan, but she would never even consider it, so the point was moot). The loss of any hound would be a tragedy, but none more so than Brunan.
Perhaps worrying about Brunan was how he avoided thinking about the fact that the clan had, somehow, despite his recent disastrous gaffes, chosen him to be its chieftain.
Well, not the whole clan. Faron did not speak for him, nor against him, which was a good sign, perhaps? On the other hand, she left abruptly not long after the decision was made. Perhaps she had pushed him to put himself forward so he would be humiliated when he wasn't chosen? (Joke would be on her if so; the clan's disapproval could hardly add to any of his own disapproval over how he'd treated her, despite a chorus of "but you couldn't have known" rattling around in his head.) No, it's not wise to try to guess what she's thinking, he told himself. You'll only make yourself mad, and never get any closer to the truth.
Tomorrow he would take Ljota into town to talk to some of the farmers about buying goats or sheep or kine from them, and to shop for a variety of goods. He would watch to the east for the return of Brunan. And perhaps the ground would shake his feet, temblors of sudden realization, and the bottom would finally fall out under him. If so, let it happen and get it over with.
