Since setting out, Finley had kept her head forward. She’d allowed herself an entire day to mope and wallow and it had been one day too many. Once they embarked southward, the recruit had no time or interest in bemoaning the Saints’ situation. It was a practical move; they didn’t have the numbers to protect their territory, not yet, and waging war against so many packs would be a suicide mission. Being reasonable was nowhere near a sign of weakness.

Her focus on the move had kept her distant for the past two days, akin to her travels as a lone wolf; any drop of will to socialize had, for the moment, evaporated. They had a new recruit, Colin, and Finley had acknowledged him with little more than curt nods of greeting. She could resume pack-bonding later. For now, they had one objective: forward.

And then Derg fell into a hole.

Finley had been following him at a respectful distance and nearly skidded to a halt when his head dropped, as if taking a nosedive off a cliff. She stayed back, glancing between him and the rabbit hole; had something tripped him up? But he rose, seemingly unphased, and Finley bit back a comment about watching his step. They were approaching a gorge and such clumsiness would serve them poorly.

Colin, slightly ahead, had the decency to ask if Derg was alright, to which the latter responded affirmatively and stopped until his trailing companions had caught up. Her trance broken, Finley turned to Colin as Derg asked for the hunched wolf’s story. She’d be lying if she said she wasn’t curious. Donovan: rebuilding his pack of warriors. Nemisis: raised in a violent pack, now poised to lead alongside him. Derg: sad when found, but a guardian in a past life. Finley herself had little tragedy to speak of.

Getting a focused, alert look at Colin now, she got the sense she’d continue to be an outlier in that regard. Between his walk and the vague air of sickness about him, Finley wasn’t going to question Derg for his rather upfront assumption of a “sad story.”

Unsurprisingly Colin seemed uncertain in the spotlight; even less surprisingly, despite initial hesitation, his story was familiar. Derg offered some quiet words of consolation, to which Finley blinked slowly in cordial agreement. Again the passivity of the story’s presentation left her wanting more. But if Derg could prove her assumptions wrong with stories of his own sordid scars, Finley had little doubt Colin could do the same.

To her renewed interest, in response to Colin’s subsequent question—perhaps his tone indicated a cool detachment with which he regarded his situation—Derg said “You don’t follow Donovan if you don’t seek something for yourself.” As if having a “sad story” was a Saints’ rite of passage. On one hand, of course a fledgling pack would be composed largely of the lost; they weren’t established enough to attract those directly from other packs, or to have those born and raised among their ranks firsthand. But Finley wouldn’t have phrased her own motivations that way.

“It’s about more than us,” she said, a stately tone hiding questioning intentions. These wolves did want to serve, didn’t they? Then again, was it her place to argue with one who’d been here longer? “I’m rather content just to be in his ranks,” Finley added, with a shrugging tilt of her head, “knowing what’s ahead.” Surely they’d been promised the same.

Her comment went unaddressed, though not entirely ignored; good enough for Finley. Colin swung the spotlight back to Derg, who had a new detail to share: a lover. He was just full of surprises, wasn’t he?

It was, of course, of little concern to Finley what romantic escapades her packmates had or hadn’t enjoyed the past. What mattered was where they were now. And for that reason, while she half-expected the backstory questioning to fall on her, she wouldn’t volunteer the answer unprompted.

Thus sympathies were swapped and Finley was left wondering if she ought to have said something. When Colin turned the questioning to her, Derg’s focus following suit, she momentarily wondered if he was asking for her condolences. But neither of the males’ eyes betrayed judgment, nor had she detected ulterior motives from either. It seemed some wolves were simply content to pass the time exchanging past trials—and as packmates, she supposed, it wouldn’t hurt to tell.

“Can’t say it’s anything sad,” Finley said, with a casual sway of her tail. “I failed my pack’s initiation spar. I’ve been training since.” She spoke as though the implication of her failure was obvious, and that the loss itself was significant as missing that one deer on a hunt of yore—an unfortunate yet mundane turn of circumstance, and little more.

The responses to her confession were interesting, to say the least. Colin’s remark had Finley raising her head with fleeting pride; being a “capable soldier” was a baseline minimum, as far as she was concerned, but she wouldn’t turn down external affirmation. But Derg offered a gentle smirk and the implication it was her “teacher’s” fault for… failing her? Nonsense.

Before Finley could figure out how to respond without implying the older wolf was, at best, misguided, Derg continued with a shake of his head and gestured towards Donovan. If Donovan thought… She forced down a scoff. Of course Donovan didn’t think her “beyond help.” Far as Finley knew, anyone had a home with the Saints, if they were willing to fight for it. What was the purpose of Derg’s comments, then? Was he suggesting she’d been taken in out of pity? But then he wouldn’t have assumed, correctly, that she’d fought Donovan—

Pity. Ah, so the tables were turned. Finley would have to challenge Derg on it, but he shifted attention back to Colin and she bit her tongue. Right, yes, back to him; she was already slipping, her tail drawing to a standstill and gait shifting with underlying agitation. Let Colin speak first, tell more of his own history, and then Finley would set the record straight should the opportunity arise.

So Colin was a peacekeeper—a “reverend,” who fought only in self-defense. Finley had mixed impressions of such mindsets. Her own time with Helios had been an isolated period, and she’d been taught not to instigate fights without due cause—but “self-defense” suggested the other party was the aggressor, which struck her as a needless concession. Finley wondered about the leaders who’d ganged up on Donovan, several packs against one that’d barely formed; would they have claimed “self-defense” as well?

For now she’d withhold judgment on Colin, individually. A peacekeeper could be an asset in a pack with a wolf prone to bloodshed; with this thought Finley stole a glance at Nemisis, still ahead. She expected the conversation to continue but Derg remained silent; as Finley reeled her attention back in she realized he and Colin seemed to be expecting more from her.

As good a cue as any, then. “Minor clarification,” Finley said, clearing her throat, “on my ‘teacher’: I had none. Youth in my family are taught to fight for their place in the pack. It’s inevitable some will be stronger than others.” She gave her head a quick shake, as if deterring a fly. Colin’s interlude had given her a moment away from her internal grumbling, and she tried to keep her voice level and flat as usual. Her words could speak for themselves, no tonal condescension necessary. “No wolf from their ranks would be beyond help.”

Well, not those who lived to see a new life after Helios, at least. But if anyone had died along the way, that was their own failing. They’d only have been a hindrance to the rest if they’d stayed.

As far as Finley was concerned, she’d made a good case for herself and her origin. But the others didn’t seem to feel the same.

Derg replied with a grunting hum and an apology for “offending” her. Was she offended? He seemed taken off-guard, and the apology, genuine. Maybe he didn’t realize he’d suggested Finley was beyond help. For this she could sympathize; her own standoffish demeanor had annoyed the scattered traveler, for reasons largely unfathomable. But she found it hard to justify his statement on failing being the fault of the teacher, not the student, and the accompanying implication that Finley’s failure had been anyone’s fault but her own. Still, she relaxed somewhat, content to accept his apology and let the comment slide unremarked—

But Colin was bitter. He spoke with a grave finality, to which Derg agreed without question, and both left Finley baffled. It wasn’t as though she’d said her own family was killed. Colin stopped his rant there, as if ashamed, and Finley was almost disappointed. Where had this come from?

Regardless, she wasn’t here to make enemies. After glancing between the males, and occasionally to the leaders ahead as if hoping for an interjection that wouldn’t happen—she hadn’t gone mad suddenly, had she?—Finley finally spoke again. “I suppose,” she said, hesitation punctuating each word, “when you put it that way, it’s… harsh.” Frankly she hadn’t spared the issue a second thought, or even thought it an issue at all. “The unsuccessful aren’t killed.” Never mind that she’d never heard of a blind, deaf, or naturally weak wolf dragging the ranks down. She was alive. “Nothing stops them from establishing themselves elsewhere.”

There was more to say; Finley decided, at the last moment, against it. She’d tripped down her own rabbit hole already; the details of her upbringing were more irrelevant than ever.