Mid-afternoon crept up on the lazing Alpha quicker than she would have liked, prompting her to rise from the bed of pine needles she had laid herself in earlier that morning. A thin layer of clouds hung ominously over the valley, but this didn't perturb the female. Rain would not come until much later, if at all.
The dark bitch stretched, wincing and taking a sharp breath when one of her healing wounds split open. They were numerous, but thankfully, none had festered and she was able now to move around unaided. Ptarmigan would not have lasted long in her new reign if she succumbed to infection, and the thought of allowing anyone to come near her with a mouthful of leaves made her shiver. She doubted the abilities of healers enough to consider them all quacks.
She tossed her head low, snaking her tongue over the bleeding sore on her chest and flinching at every sting her saliva caused in the depths of the wound. Her ears twisted alternately forth and back. Though she had yet to see any of the pack wolves she presided over, and though she wasn't even sure they existed, she was always watchful for them. Ptarmigan was occasionally an imbecile, but she suspected they would view her rise to power as petty theft and was ready for their opposition.
Once he had escorted Cara back into the valley, once he was sure she was safe, he succumbed to the angry voices snarling in his head, ordering him to kill the woman who dared hurt his Cara. Kaname rarely acted upon his emotions. Long training as an assassin prevented too many emotional outbursts, but he couldn't contain this one. He was frustrated, angry, upset. And he took it out on anything that got in his way.
For the most part, it was fauna; birds, rabbits, the occasional young deer. The last of his victims was a fledgling hawk that had fallen from the nest. It had enough feathers on its body to fly, but it was so dumbstruck by its fall that Kaname had an opening to attack. He was cruel to the young bird, breaking its wing, letting hop around pitifully before he pounced and dealt another blow.
Being young, the raptor didn't hold on long before succumbing to its wounds, but it had lasted long enough that Kaname was finally sated. The dark Beta licked some of the blood off of his mouth before he ventured to find a stream to wash himself off in. As he strode to the nearest one that he knew of, he passed the familiar black female laying in a bed of pine needles. She looked vulnerable, resting from her wounds. He could quite easily kill her if he wished. But, luckily for her, he suppressed that urge a while ago. The Beta approached his new Alpha, cold eyes fixed on her resting form. "I didn't get your name."
She had half expected some lower subordinate to appear from thin air, but the crunch of wolf paws on twigs and needles belonged to someone much more sinister. Kaname had been there to witness the beating down of his former queen's pride, until finally she had relented her position while Ptarmigan bled freely on the Spine's soil. The male had not made a move then, and though the eyes fixed on her were like chips of ice, he didn't seem inclined to make one now.
Barely visible against the dark backdrop of his fur, Ptarmigan saw the glisten of fresh blood. The scent was not that of a wolf, and so the hint of uncertainty that began creeping up her spine dissipated. She lifted her head slightly from her chest, her tongue still poked between her teeth and her ears tilting assertively forward, though the display ended there. Much unlike their founding Alpha, Ptarmigan wasn't one for displays unless deemed necessary.
Though she expected him to say something much ruder, the male only asked her name. Her tongue slithered back behind her off-white teeth as she sheathed them behind her lips, only now lifting her head to its full height. She was smaller than he, and had been smaller than Cara as well. No doubt, Ptarmigan Endore was the most unimpressive leader who ever lived in this valley. “Ptarmigan,” she replied slowly, as though a single hastening of her words would drive him into a frenzy. “I didn't get yours, either. I was gonna call you Boulder, since you barely moved, but... I don't think that's a good name, do you?”
As he approached the Queenslayer made an assertive stance. Her ears pressed forward, her fangs bared in a snarl with her tongue poking out. Once he had spoken, however, she had shifted from a more threatening stance to a dominant one.
The usurper's name was Ptarmigan. It was the name of a bird, a bird of the north, it was. The Beta wondered if that was where the black female came from, but pushed the curiousity aside. She continued, giving a slight when she called him Boulder. He smirked, though on the inside he was annoyed by the name. "'Boulder?' How quaint."
He sat down on his haunches, still outmatching her in size. My, she was small. Even Cara, a yearling was larger than the new alpha. It was a wonder why she even won that fight in the first place. "I didn't move because it wasn't my fight. It would be useless for all six of us to be fighting at the same time when it was your and Cara's quarrel." Besides, he probably would have severely injured one of her supporters had they fought, maybe even turned on Ptarmigan if the battle allowed him to. "My name is Kaname, Kaname Sicarius, if you want to be more formal."
His inner thoughts were shrouded behind carefully controlled eyes, which was a shame. Ptarmigan would have liked to mock him if only he'd known the thoughts he had about her and her companions. Alas, she knew only what he said, all of which was stated plainly and gave no hint to his inner violence.
“Admirable,” said Ptarmigan, who could appreciate a wolf who knew how to pick his battles, or at least how to stay out of those that had little to do with him. “Too bad your queen wasn't so honourable in combat. They should have appointed you.” Though it scarcely mattered now, she had privately wondered all along what claim the yearling had had to the pack.
It was no secret that Ptarmigan considered Cara a dishonourable wolf for intentionally drawing blood in a ritualized challenge. Although it was reasonable enough, for she had been trespassing on claimed land, it was nevertheless a law of their breed as the Endore saw it. To draw blood in a rank challenge was to invite the ire of every ancestor of every wolf. Although Ptarmigan did not believe in spiritual mumbo-jumbo, if she had, she might have pointed out that Cara had lost by the will of the gods because she had drawn blood wilfully.
Him? Alpha? He could not fathom the notion. He was not that cut up for leading, which is why his promotion to Beta surprised him. The assassin only shook his head gently. "Lecter chose who he thought his mate would choose to be her replacement, and it was Cara. Jinx was Cara's idol; she looked up to her. That is undoubtedly why she drew blood, since you are the one who killed her idol, after all." He spoke in a soft matter of fact tone, though if he was in Cara's position he might have done the same. Honor be damned.
"Knowing when to choose your battles isn't that honorable." He licked his lips, cleaning the dripping blood from his maw. "It's called being smart."
“Then she was a fool,” Ptarmigan concluded off the edge of his own words. Cara had been well outmatched by the older female, though she had found a spark of ferocity in herself. It had not been enough to overcome a wolf in her prime. Perhaps Cara should have thought better of challenging Ptarmigan for age alone, but pride did funny things to wolves. Pride would do funny things to her someday, but for the time being, it was all a game. They played charades.
“Why would this idol select a yearling?” she wondered aloud, cataloguing the names for future reference. Jinx must have been the mad female Ptarmigan had shoved into the river, and Cara the child who had taken her place. But in all of Ptarmigan's years she had never thought to bow her head to a yearling. Yearlings were unseasoned, practically incapable of taking care of themselves, let alone others. They lacked the maturity, at least how she saw it.
“You can't tell me you'd prefer to bow your head to a child,” she accused, though she kept her tone devoid of any frustration. Kaname had been nothing but calm and collected, and since Ptarmigan was truly bluffing her way through the encounter, she was made nervous by it.
"Out of all of the options, Cara seemed the best to Lecter. I can't speak for him." He said, understanding Ptarmigan's distaste. Not many would wish to follow a yearling, especially those who are older, like they were. While the idea was a bit far-fetched in his mind, he did understand Lecter's choice a bit. Cara was like Jinx; she had ambition, drive, ferocity. Given a few years, she could have been great. But this challenge came too early.
"While I would prefer someone older, I trust Cara." More than I trust you. He hissed internally. His eyes glared at her for a moment, noticing the accusation in her tone. Though she kept it hidden, Kaname sensed something else in her voice, but couldn't discern it. What was it, fear? Anxiety? Nervousness?
Pushing the thought aside, he changed the subject. "If you don't mind my asking, but where are those lackeys of yours?" He had seen them through the valley, but was not expecting their lack of presence near their leader. If he was this Ptarmigan, he would keep his closest followers near him at all times until he gained the trust of the pack. There were too many risks, such as himself. Ptarmigan could easily die at his paws right now.
She watched him carefully as he responded. It wasn't really much a secret between them that Ptarmigan was probing, and not very pleasantly at that. To goad him into anger would only reveal things to her that she couldn't otherwise know, and that was what the Endore most wanted from their exchange. Yet Kaname was proving unflappable. It was a good quality, at least, and seeing as he retained his position as the most respectable wolf beneath herself (by her good will, she told herself), it was a welcome quality in her eyes.
“She will prove herself or leave,” Ptarmigan said at last, rolling her shoulders into an uncaring shrug. It wasn't much of a threat—had the new Alpha intended to oust the old one, she would have done it in the heat of battle rather than exiling her later—but it was nevertheless true. She suspected the youth would prove herself after the wounds of her shattered ego had scabbed over, and at that point, perhaps she would make the memory of her dead leader proud.
When Kaname asked after Andrus and Viggo, Ptarmigan smiled wryly. “You'd have to ask them,” she quipped with a little laugh. “They have free will. I bet they're close.” Both men had proven themselves loyal, and neither had been on a leash to begin with. They had watched as Ptarmigan deposed a rightful heir and had done nothing to aid said rightful heir. Maybe none of them had straight moral compasses after all.
The lack of finesse in her probing was enough to make him laugh. Really, the pups in the Sicarius pack did better than that. But he hid his amusement and focused on the next statement his alpha made. She will prove herself or leave. "I have to agree with you on that." It sounded like something Cara would do.
She said that her colleagues were nearby. Shadows, they were, following their "queen" around. But, their differences were apparent. One Kaname could describe as a "dandy", the other was definitely a mercenary. How on earth did she come upon them? "Who are they anyway?"
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Friends,
she said dismissively. Viggo and Andrus would eventually speak for themselves, and until then, Ptarmigan would leave impressions in their hands. She had no desire nor intent of giving Kaname information about her comrades that they had not given themselves. It was mutual distrust, for she knew nothing about her current pack members.
Instead, the dark female dipped her head again, swiped her tongue over her chest wound, and then turned Granny Smith eyes on him once more. Tell me about this pack,
she requested, though hidden in the words was more of a demand than a question. He was her Beta, though not by her choice, and it was his job to advise her, though not by his choice.
His alpha vaguely dismissed them as "friends". The closeness and longevity of this friendship he didn't know, but he would find out about them at another time. Ptarmigan shifted to another subject, that of Ouroboros. He thought it best to retale the pack's past in order for his new alpha (for he would never call her queen) to understand who they were.
"This pack was founded by Jinx, her mate Lecter, and a few others months ago, originally in a place called Silvertip Mountain. I joined them when it was still under that name. We were very aggressive towards outsiders, especially Jinx. We had a buffer zone, and if any wolves crossed into it, we chased them off. If a wolf crossed into our borders, we killed them." He said, recalling the white queen's aggressive posture towards him when he first joined the pack. He had impressed her with his skills as an assassin, and here he was. "We moved from Silvertip to Ouroboros due to the lack of prey on the mountain. Jinx found this place and moved us here not too long ago."
Not long ago, was the major piece of information that Ptarmigan took out of Kaname's history lesson. The name of their former territory and former leaders were quickly considered unimportant and discarded from her mind, leaving room only for scraps of info regarding the pack's general attitude and name. Ouroboros, said Kaname. It sounded like something she might have stuttered if she was completely mental.
“What a stupid name,” she remarked without any regard for the male's feelings regarding their strategic territory. “You're a bunch of macho wannabes, but your name sounds like something a pup would babble in their earliest days.” She shook her head as if it was funny, then turned perpendicular to him, though her eyes never left his. “Got any other names for it? I don't want to sound like a babbly cub when I tell others where I lead.”
His face showed no anger, though his ear twitched with disdain. How. Rude. Sure, Ouroboros was foreign on the tongue, but it had a meaning. That's why Cara, his girlfriend the Beta Female, chose it. "It's named after a legend, of a snake eating its tail. It is a symbol for infinity." He said calmly, with frost creeping up onto his words. He didn't even want to get started on the term 'macho wannabes'.
"The full name is Ouroboros Spine, so most of us just call it the Spine." The Beta was growing increasingly annoyed with how condescending this new alpha was towards them. How she viewed them as lesser, even though he had a feeling some of them could be better leaders than her, especially a yearling he knew.
“That doesn't stop it from sounding dumb,” she muttered, but chose to leave the issue of the name along when he revealed that they often called it the Spine. She twisted one ear toward her rear, keeping the other on Kaname, as she made the decision to be away from this cold creature.
“Well, I wasn't looking for gargoyles today,” she said, referring to Kaname's stony facade. She turned slowly away, keeping one eye and ear trained on the dark Beta, and then began to circle around and away from him until finally he was shrouded in the trees and she could turn and lope away, though she gritted her teeth against the sting of each step.
Thoroughly insulted, he watched his new alpha limp away, keeping his frigid eyes trained on her until she disappeared into the woods. Kaname bristled, feeling a rekindled urge flooding his mind. Though an outwardly cool individual, Kaname did have a fire blazing in his soul. And it flared indignantly at the way Ptarmigan insulted his pack, the original leaders, and Cara. Growling low in his throat, Kaname turned away, ready to find something else to kill in order to quell the flames within.