tegan suddenly had a bone to pick with 400 different wolves, staring with fuckass towhee. it was easy-- more specifically niamh-- who had set off this anger, but tegan was gonna take it out on towhee because she was the first person on his list. he had a list of wolves and a list of demands, and tegan was gonna fuckin bitch his way through them. towhee, he had decided had the most power in this situation... even though she'd dropped her rank. so, besides good ole' mommerz, tegan was starting there.

demand one-- take tegan more seriously.

because, okay, yeah, fine, i get it-- he got it-- he was such a whackass. dude did the weirdest things and said the strangest phrases and maybe it he didn't act like it but tegan was really hardworking. he went on missions for his packmates all the time-- he was a god damn red hawk ambassador! he was such an asset to the pack and no one could deny it... and so what, one wolf he recruited ran off. who gives a fuck, plenty of wolves came and left all the time. just because  it was tegan who had been nearby, easy-- blackbear, whatever-- hadn't gotten into the back. that's discrimination and tegan was fuckin whacked over it.

demand two-- tell tegan why you chose niamh over him.

and don't laugh at him, okay, it's a very reasonable question and tegan doesn't really like handling emotions so just to ask outright and get rid of the emotion altogether seems like the best way to handle this. 

demand three--

actually! fuck this! this is stupid, tegan hated having emotions, it seriously damaged his street cred. fuck this, tegan actually wasn't gonna demand anything, in fact, he wasn't gonna tell towhee anything was wrong. he had a much better plan.

he tracked down his cousin with angry eyes, ears pressed to his skull. he found her scent by the borders, as usual, and took off after it. overheard, X flew, signaling to the angsty little blackthorn that he was on the right path. but hey, he was the world's best scout, why wouldn't he be on track for success?

ha! she noticed! both him and that he was upset! good! tegan hid a smug smirk. 

he turned his head, plopping himself down a few steps away from her, tail flicking with agitation. of course, he knew if he spoke towhee wouldn't be able to read his lips. so, head still turned away from her, tegan signed, -just taking a break from all the hard work i do for this pack- he told her pointedly. tegan worked hard. it had been a big character development, tegan had gone from 'NO RESPONSIBILITY' to 'oh i'm only doing it because it's fun' to 'i am an asset to the pack and i want to help'. not that he cared about rank, still. but it felt like no one noticed-- or, all his dedication went undermined by the small mistakes he made. 

-how's niamh?- he asked her, taking a moment to shoot a look her way. and then his nose twitched.

this, tegan, is why no one takes you seriously. you bafoon.

but this had nothing to do with promotion-- tegan could literally be the lowest rank in the pack and he wouldn't care. hell, the only reason he ever liked having a high rank was to hold it above his siblings heads. but lucca was gone. fiadh was gone. and clover was so distraught by fiadh's disappearance that tegan wasn't even sure she cared what he was doing anymore. of course she did, but tegan was entitled to how he felt. but, no, if towhee mentioned niamh's rank tegan would probably just make a face.

his lips pressed together tightly as she spoke, trying to take her words and let them mean something to him-- but somehow they felt empty. tegan was the least serious in the pack, but he was hardworking. and no, he didn't think they were exclusive to themselves, but then why did he feel like everyone kept treating them like they were? his nose scrunched at towhee, but a small grin played at the edges of his mouth. "i can't remember but-- you know i'd be a dumb-stupid beta," he told her, using dumb (in this case) as a way to describe stupid. it was so stupid it was dumb. get it? got it? good. -i work my ass off in all the ways i'm supposed to but i'd hate being a beta. i'm good here in the middle ranks.- not that she was offering but... tegan clarified anyway.

-do you remember easy?- tegan asked her, grin turning into a broad smirk, -the friend i ran off to go see before we moved to the plateau.- if her name didn't ring a bell, the memory surely would. it was one of tegan's proudest (and stupidest) 'pranks'. -well, she stopped by. she goes by blackbear now... wanted to join. niamh wouldn't accept her, and kept saying it was because my judgement wasn't the best-- cause of that wolf i recruited way back when who left. she wouldn't even hear blackbear out, kept calling her a liar.-  well, that was mostly the story. tegan cut out a few of his rowdy comments and paraphrased and... what not, but when it boils down to it, that's what happened anyway. 

he shrugged. -niamh told me i could go get her and have her complete a task for reentry but... only after she bullied easy out of the territory. i went and chased her down but she didn't even want to be a part of the pack anymore.-  his brow furrowed. his gaze had fallen down in front of him after a while, and he eventually blinked and looked back up at his sister. "like, i told her i got it, she's got a new rank and a reputation to look out for, and i do get it, but am i taken so unseriously that my good word about someone discredits their whole fuckin... being??" tegan had had a while to think on this. even after his mission to the sound, it bothered him. at least now he'd gotten so riled up he'd let it all out. sheesh, that shit had been bottled up for a while.

-i can't remember- tegan said stiffly, ears flicking. well, he could, kinda. he knew that she actually said 'it's not that i don't trust your judgement'... but that was like a big red flag for 'BUT i don't trust your judgement'. at least, that's what tegan heard and that's what he took to heart.

"imma keep calling her easy," tegan muttered, cause blackbear was too big a change. and it's not like he'd ever see her again anyway. not in the plateau, anyway. -she said she was from a nomadic pack, and that her dad was blind and she was his guide. but also that her dad was the alpha-- but he didn't go blind until later in life after he'd already taught her everything she knew- tegan explained, and then shrugged -and niamh found that hard to believe. plus she thought i was calling her easy-- like slutty, but i wasn't, it's just her name.- with a quick, sideways glance at his sister, tegan added. "you can't call girls slutty to their face." or ever, tegan, but i can't remember the last time this boy was entirely PC anyhow, so i won't argue with him. 

he added anyway, -kidding...-

towhee could've rolled her eyes-- tegan liked to get reactions like that. expected it, even. that wasn't what he meant by taken seriously... just, from a diplomatic standpoint, he didn't wanna be looked at as some fuckass kid-- because he wasn't, he was a full member of the pack who carried more than his own weight. but, he couldn't read her thoughts so he didn't say anything. oh well. 

"she said two strikes was probably enough," tegan added in response, shrugging his shoulders again, "i don't blame her. she only came back for me." and i let her down. 

and then tegan's face scrunched up a little bit, cause towhee was so wrong! "there was only miscommunication cause niamh was interrogating easy and not really listening to me-- and the only reason niamh was so hard on her to begin with was because i said i wanted her in the pack," tegan said, catching towhee's eye with a firm and narrowed gaze, "easy had all the qualifications to be in our pack but because i said that i knew her, and easy said she was my friend, niamh questioned her harder since the one time i recruited anybody she left." 

"and yeah, i guess," tegan muttered in regards to the ambassador thing, but like... that doesn't mean anything. that wasn't an automatic switch that said he had to be taken seriously. and then he looked away, cause he was still frustrated. -if i ever see sapphira again imma fuck her up.-

tegan rolled his shoulders. -if you wanna- he said, because on one hand he wanted them to talk it out, but on the other hand he and niamh had kinda discussed it and also he didn't wanna look like a big fat loser baby. -don't tell her i was all frazzled, though, i gotta image to maintain.- or, what was left of his image, rather. -we kinda talked-- kinda. i don't know if it helped any, she sort of apologized, but also that's when i found out about the judgement stuff. so, i dunno- he added with a frown. 

towhee gave him a playful shoulder punch and made a really bad joke, but tegan snorted anyway, leaning in to a short lil embrace. "thanks, tow," he said after he'd pulled away, "i am pretty jacked about it." he rolled his shoulders, all this emotion stuff was making him antsy. he needed to go do something that didn't involve telling your sister-cousin how big a crybaby you were.

"maybe that too," tegan shot back with a shrug. who's to say what he can and can't do in his free time. as long as he locks the door...

wha--" but before tegan could finish, there were some fuckin feet in his face!! GROSS! oh wait... "wait-- yo! no way, bitch, that's awesome," he chirped, his tail beginning to wag. "since when?" tegan asked her, head tilting to one side.