The fire woman crept up the mountain path, finding solace in the cold wind that met her above the lake. As she pushed ever upward, she poked at an apparently empty hole sitting between the roots of a pine tree. The badger within had abandoned it some time ago, heading down to a lower altitude to scrape a living. The hole smelled musty. She contemplated rolling in it, but decided against it if only because it wasn't quite fresh enough.
The air was clear and good. Her pace slowed, and she stopped beneath a small spruce to think.
Valmúa knew that she would need to talk to Kigipigak soon and formulate the next phases of their plan. He had done well, of course, and she hadn't had the opportunity to give him good praise. It was only a half an hour before the boy found her spot on the mountain slope, such an excellent tracker he was. Tail wagging, she grinned as she saw him, a rare expression of cheer marking her normally cold features. Excitedly, she flew to him, mouthing his muzzle affectionately. `Qaŋa tai`! Tell me of your travels, she demanded.

As they embraced, she felt the warmth of his body contrasting with the cool of his teeth raking against her. Puppy love was imminent. She was shameless in her interactions with him, pushing caution to the wind and swallowing his essence whole whenever she had the chance.
Her pet then described his journey and the important places he had been. He spoke of a woman called Simmik, and of another called Kukutux on the mountain in the far off west. She could not have asked for a better scout to collect and relay information, all while keeping their plans to himself.
Valmúa considered first Simmik and this potential arrangement. She knew that, if Simmik were to become a wife of a brother, they were unlikely to follow her back to her forest. They were more bonded to one another than they could be to a wife of such strength, so she assumed. She did not like the idea of a woman coming here merely to leech their sperm and knowledge of her Tartok origins. She doubted even that Sol or Stjor would appreciate such behaviour, since they were attempting to build something that merely borrowed from their homelands, but was a new creature entirely.
Her skills in speaking their shared tongue was improving with use, but her words were broken with Common. `Simmik would not be` ideal. `My brothers` would not follow her back, `and she will only be willing to take from us`, she said, wondering if he felt differently. `It is their want to have children but not have to` care for them, she explained. No, that wouldn't do at all to bring them a wife that would do exactly as they wanted.
Next, the fire woman considered this Kukutux. `She is Tartok?` Valmúa wondered what it would mean if they maintained a relationship with this woman of the mountain. Surely, she had daughters that she wanted good futures for. This pack of new `blood`, maybe we can recruit from. Maybe we keep exchanging news with Kukutux, she said, thinking it might be a good idea to keep this line of communication. `What do you think?`

Valmúa nodded, knowing that a good line of communication with anyone familiar with the northern ways would surely be of value. Chanel too, the Prinsessa, would make an excellent little addition to the harem she was trying to build. The more women they could get, the easier things would be. `Yes, she will be good for us,` she agreed, pleased that he would be more than willing to make another trip out west to ensure things stayed current. He was more than simply valuable to the Watch, he was completely indispensable.
And then the snap, and the snarl.
Automatically, the fire woman rewound all of the information she had just exchanged with Kigipigak, or at least as much of it as she could remember. None of it was particularly incriminating other than a few of the phrases she had used to refer to her brothers not willing to follow Simmik to her homeland. She had to assume that he had heard everything.
Experience with her brothers grabbing her scruff and neck all of the time to correct her behaviour made her flinch at the sounds Stjornuati made. Her ears splayed and she eyed him, noticing from his gaze alone that indeed, he wanted an explanation for their little affair.
She resisted the urge to tell him to relax, because telling a person to relax generally has the opposite effect. Við erum að tala um nýliðun. Talking about recruitment, she said in both the Stormhaven and Common tongues, her voice feeling rather sharp. She refused to match Stjor's energy level, for what they were talking about was hardly maniacal. She knew that the subject of finding them women would be... not well received. So she redirected. You do not like Chanel?
Inwardly, she prepared for a fight. He wouldn't like any of it.

Bringing up the Prinsessa did not satisfy or divert his attention. As though he was hunting Stjornuati became so focused on whatever it was he thought they were up to that Valmúa knew the only way she was going to convince him of anything was to convince herself that her lie was the truth. She was thankful that Kigipigak did not speak, for she didn't think he had the wits to quite circumvent the nightmare that was her pallid brother on the wrong side of things.
As he took a step forward, she knelt slightly. It was a calculated response. If he really had been wrong to accuse them of anything, she would have held fast and told him he was crazy. But that was not a strategy that was going to work in this scenario, so she averted her eyes as much as possible while still listening closely to him. His snarling rattled around in her skull. How annoying.
We need the numbers, she answered quickly. She convinced herself, letting the new reality consume her. We are too few now to hold forever. We need children born this spring and so we need more women of child-bearing age, she explained. With other packs close by and surely more to come in order to fill the vacuum that the Willow wolves next door had left, she was right. They would need stable numbers and the best way to do that was to bear children.
She maintained herself at the ready. She refused to let him think anything other than what she had just said. And what she had said was, in fact, sensible. He knew damn well that she wasn't about to have children. She chose not to explain that because Sol and he would have breeding rights, they needed women that suited their tastes.

Nope. She wouldn't do it. She wouldn't admit that she would be better at the top than either of them. Actually, part of her was questioning if it was even true, or if perhaps her fascination with Kigipigak had allowed her judgment to be clouded.
She followed most of his words well, nodding solemnly, accepting his rule despite her disagreement. Numbers did mean something, especially in these lands of the south where the distances between clans were not nearly as large so as to prevent open warfare.
When he reached his accusation, thinly veiled, she opened her mouth to speak. He warned her again to be truthful, and she nodded slowly. We should not have sought recruits without your knowledge, she said slowly, carefully. Her tail had tucked itself under her. She did fear her brother's wrath. She knew that she would not get a pass just because they had shared a womb. She wanted to argue with him, because he was wrong, but she focused on what she needed to only. You are right, she lied. Numbers weren't everything. But they were important. And Kigipigak has done good work seeking out the status of others in the area. We are stronger for it, and with it we will be more united, she said firmly, adding to what her Kigicookie had said. Her tail moved from between her legs in order to curl around her side.
These weren't lies. This was truth. Was he so blindly focused on some potential slight that he didn't see the value in what they had accomplished?

Perceptive motherfucker.
She stood there, no longer the fire woman but instead the fragile poppy of her namesake. She wanted to glare at him, instead having her eyes on the dirt at the roots of the spruce tree. Her expression was bent, twisted, like a little girl whose favourite toy had been taken from her. A deep frown lined her face. She said nothing. As often happened when caught doing something she wasn't supposed to be, she was silent, considering her options.
She did not want Kigipigak to see her now. She would have liked to vanish from his view so that he would not see her in this moment of weakness. Valmúa knew well that she would not win in a fight. Even if physically she managed to get her pallid brother to submit, she would not actually win. The whole point of the distractions was to eventually, months from then, convince others that her brothers were weak and had only their own interests in mind, and with this distorted image they would crown her as the issumatar they surely deserved.
Valmúa licked her teeth. Over and over. She felt the smooth surfaces of her canines. She imagined them in her brother's neck, just for a moment. Then, she felt her stomach turn over, and had to swallow as bile slipped up her throat.
Stjornuati took away the only thing she needed to survive.
The only thing she cared about: her freedom.

Kigipigak nodded, but she was still. Her excitement from mere minutes ago had been leeched from her body. Stjornuati left behind a cold, chained creature that had no business being on such a short leash. She knew that this discovery had given him reason never to trust her again. She knew that there was no longer hope of de-throning him in the quiet, calculated way that she had planned for. Where before the wheels in her mind had been turning to find the next phase of their plan, now the cogs were stopped, left to sit and rust. She couldn't think. She couldn't feel.
Now what?
The fires in her heart turned instead to embers. She stood there in silence for some time, chest heaving visibly, staring at the dirt. She moved away from Kigipigak, her footsteps soft, broken, like the ash from the remnants of a blaze. She could not bring herself to look at him, for where once stood a powerful leader, now there was a girl.
Slowly, she wandered on wobbling, toddler steps to the base of a tree. She lay down, curling her red tail in front of her face. The girl became a ball. She would not move from there for many hours.