Redhawk Caldera No matter how much it hurts, no matter how hard it gets, you gotta keep grinding.

Towhee sat up as Fin settled on her haunches, apparently anticipating the conversation to come. She could sense that the girl was anxious about this, and likely she had been ever since the altercation. Finley hadn't considered before that her niece might be feeling nervous about this, but now it was obvious. Of course she'd been worried, and Fin had just stayed on her happy island with her happy puppies, ignorant of everything.

-You're not in trouble,- Fin signed to her after a long pause. She'd considered it over and over again the past few days, and no matter what way she looked at it, she simply couldn't find fault in what Towhee had done. The Caldera was a wolf pack, not a homeless shelter. When food became scarce, the strongest survived, and sometimes that meant removing the dead weight. Truth be told, she did not hold Burke or his mate in very high esteem. She'd never had a conversation with the latter, and the former was just plain unpleasant, not to mention essentially useless. Given time, nature likely would have taken its course and caused the death of the old man anyway, which probably would have driven his mate to go her own way. Towhee had tried to speed up the process, and any anger she may have felt about that had disappeared the moment she saw her goddaughter's emaciated frame.

-Towhee... Do you trust me?- Fin asked suddenly, gazing thoughtfully at the girl's dark face as the sky darkened further, -Not as a parent or guardian. But as a leader of this pack? Do you trust me as your alpha?-