Kesan had come and gone and had left barely a track on Porcupine Ridge, and so had another female. The pack now had two free spaces, as the black wolf no longer counted the missing among his ranks. It also meant that Jhala rose to the position of beta female by default. He had hopes that she would make a better beta than Kesan, as she had already been a contributing member and had shown ambition.
Tilting back his broad muzzle, Taggarik howled to his wolves, to let them know of the shift in the ranks, and at the end of his song he beckoned Jhala to him to talk. Seating himself in the snow, his tail flicked around his flank, he waited.
Ironically, Jhala was doing nothing of importance when the howl of rank shifts had come. While doing a bit of territory exploring, the young girl had come across a strange knot in a tree, and she was investigating with much interest. It was so large- but was it hollow? Was there food inside it? How did trees grow like this? She had no idea.
Taggariks howl confused her, and she stood dumbfounded for a moment. Had she heard it right? She glanced around to see if anyone else was around her, and with a gentle shrug she went after the sound of her alpha with mixed feelings about the call.
She arrived pretty quickly, apparently the two weren't too far apart to begin with. She dipped her head respectfully and lowered herself submissively. A Beta was still below an alpha, yeah? No reason to be any less submissive, she thought. She smiled half-heartedly to him. She was unsure of what to say. She was excited, honestly she was, but she remembered her talk with Taggarik where she blatantly told him she didn't think she was ready to be any sort of leader. Did he disagree? Or? Was there really just no other option. She knew she really wanted to take the position, but she was just worried about how she would do.
Mustering up all her confidence, she asked the only question she could think to ask. "Has Kesan left?"
It did not take her long to arrive, and the black wolf greeted her with several quick sweeps of his tail through the powedered snow and a tip of his muzzle. He had not forgotten the conversation they had when she inquired about their ranks, and it was one of the reasons he called her to him.
"Mhmm," he hummed. "She was barely here to begin with," he said with a pinched brow. "I know beta was not in your plans, not yet, but the role falls to you as the next highest ranking female." He tilted his head his gray eyes rest curiously on her face. "You do not have to keep it, if you do not want."
It was nice to hear that Taggarik had remembered their conversation. She settled in the snow across from him and listened carefully before she spoke, nodding along once or twice as she thought. When he finished, she gave the situation a few more moments thoughts before she responded, looking at him with a warm amber gaze, cautious as always to avert her gaze from his.
"I see," she replied dully, still fully processing a string of words to form together. "I would be honored the take the position," she told him, unaware of the other females in the pack. She'd only met one, Vuk, and it was a very brief meeting- the two only hunted together. The other two she made the assumption that they were not nearly as important- after all, they'd never come to speak to her. "I am young," she began, restating her previous worries. "Do you think the others will approve of me?" She then asked, he head tilting to the side.
He was relieved when she said she'd be honored to take the position, and it showed in the gentle exhale of a held breath and a several bobs of his head. Truly, there was no other he would place as beta if he was inclined toward dictating his ranks. To him, she held the most promise, though her age may have lacked.
For her question, though, he had no answer. He rolled his broad shoulders. "I hope so," he said. "No one else has stepped forward to make a bid for the role. You may blunder, and some may be upset with you for it, but as long as you try your best and commit to learning I do not think you have anything to worry about." He himself, now three years of age, was not flawless in his lead.
He was not certain either, but it seemed that he clearly held her to some sort of respect or another... maybe it just seemed she was the only one capable of doing anything. She smiled. And although his attempt at reassurance was not wonderfully so, she appreciated his honestly nonetheless. Her tail wagged a little and she nodded, her smile lingering.
"I can manage that," she responded with a confident voice, her amber gaze warmed by the thought of having a bit more weight to her words. She knew she was able to work harder, and a bit of disapproval had never stopped her before.
"Good," he said brightly with a wave of his tail, before his expression shifted to be more serious.
"Then I have a proposition for you." He had been thinking about the situation concerning their neighbors, and had at least one idea on how they may be able to deal with them. Quietly, he explained his idea to her, and asked that she oversee it, for he had other things to tend to and could not dedicate so much time to it.
Remember what we talked about? ;) Shhhh...
Taggarik then changed, appearing more serious. Her ears perked as he mentioned a proposition. Curiously, she leaned in a little bit, her amber eyes focused forwards as he explained his plan to her. She thought carefully about the whole thing, her gaze not moving from the spot she'd chosen. After a few moments silence, she looked to him with a few thumps of her tail against the earth.
"I can def' do that" she informed him, a small smirk displayed upon her muzzle.
He grinned devilishly at her and bobbed his head. "Good. I don't know how helpful this will be, but I think it's worth a shot." There was just one small detail. "I trust your judgement on this." She would not need his approval before carrying out the plan. Though he was somewhat possessive of his pack and the decisions made within it, he was confident enough to know he could deal with any problems, if they occurred, after. "I'll leave you to it then, beta." Moving past her, he brushed his shoulder against her camaraderie, waving his tail before he left.
Somehow the approval and reassurance of this action made Jhala feel a hell of a lot better than earlier. She felt that maybe she was prepared... or at least to a degree. It was just a small action, but to her it held a lot of weight. She dipped her head as he brushed past, watching him go. She wouldn't dare tell Anwyl the plan, but she had to tell him what happened!! The girl gave a bark of goodbye as he left, and then trotted off into the territory to find her friend.