Hello I am back with a NewAge AU thought.
I was rereading some of out things I had a horrible realisation.
Geno, and Reaper, are very lucky that what Geno did to Dust remained in the trusted circle.
Because... if the Whistlers had found it it would NOT have been pretty.
It is already established that they are very loyal to their own. And they had already almost declared war because of the black market trying to human traffic their children.
Hearing that their most favourite person? The most wanted/desired bachelor? The person who risks a lot of trouble to help their own? Was harrassed?
Sanctuary would suddenly have been at war with Whistling. And Whistling is a country made of people who can transform and shapeshift and known to eat humans. That is a country filled with spies who can and will infiltrate your country and destroy you from the inside.
As I said. Geno and Reaper are very lucky that the whole Dust situation remained private, at Dust's request at that.
Ohhh yeah 110%. They would have been COOKED. (<- "They" being Sanctuary)
Like you said, Whistler are highly dangerous and powerful. They shaoe-shift, they eat human flesh, they are pretty much universally feared and as such a limited population they're hyper-protective of their own! Including Dust, because he WOULD be theirs if they didn't respect him so much!
In Orchard if news had gotten out, public opinion would've shifted negatively against Sanctuary. (Their little knight, Sir Panther? Someone broke his heart? It was THE FUCKING KING OF SANCTUARY???) It wouldn't have been easy to salvage the rumors from spreading. But again like you said, Whistling would have just started rallying their best combatants and sent them off.
Plus they use psychological warfare all too often. They're smart enough to know Reaper and his mate are probably too well-guarded, but a king is nothing without his people. They would have started from the edges and seeped their way into the borders. Kill a person or two, impersonate them a while, move on to the next. Until entire *towns* are empty. Blood and dust left, but no signs. No forced entry, no missing weapons, no full bodies. The Whistlers would be too efficient for Reaper to be able to send in forces before it was a decent chunk of the peoples. They'd be silent as long as possible, before beginning to stew distrust. Whispering in ears that the King's failed conquest was driving him to destruction. That it was his fault for this death and hurt. The silence.
They wouldn't tell him either! Like, Reaper is mildly aware, atp, that Dust and Nightmare might've had chance encounters w/ the Whisperers, but it's not exactly bragging rights and also I don't really think either of them would realize it either. It's only when enough damage has been done to Reaper's kingdom that signs start to show, or maybe There's one lucky survivor who can out the whistlers. Either way, by the time the nations are at proper odds, Sanctuary's peace is over.
I also don't know how Dust would react to this because despite the whistlers having his best interests at heart (Reaper hurt Dust so they're hurting him back) they don't hold the same values that Dust does in the end. Culturally, they see it as an equivalent. Monsters and humans have to work to earn respect fr rom whistlers so... it's like killing a man's cow when he cheats on his wife. To *Dust* tho? Poor guy would probably feel responsible for the massacre of... all those people. Because he let it slip that someone had hurt him. Night and the others reacted well enough, but he never imagined an entire nation would go to war, go spill blood, over a bit of his discomfort. (<- Guy who is never expressing an outward emotion ever again after this.)
