Jinx's integration into her new pack was so far smooth, but that perhaps was aided by a desire to put behind her all the thoughts and events of her past. She had come to Teekon Wilds to save her pack mates at home from certain destruction if she had remained — Sos' vision had been unremitting in its assurance that staying would only cause strife and tension inevitably leading to the clash of gods — and had founded her own pack. She had done as any good wolf of Atka and Sos would do, and had heeded the gods' summon when it came... But none of the Bon Dye wolves, who had pledged themselves to her gods and the loa, were understanding of the necessity of having done so.

Of course, Jinx was only aware that Pied disagreed with her decision. If she were to meet another former Bon Dye wolf, she would likely be surprised to find that the discontent was shared amongst the group. That any wolf in that splintered pack could fault her was absolute; she had, after all, left them, no matter her justifications. She saw no fault in it, but fault there was. But that any wolf might wish harm upon her... Well, it was beyond the scope of reality.

So as Jinx travelled easily into the Flatlands, having announced her plan to visit the hot springs to her pack mates, there was no clench of uneasiness when the scent of some of her former subordinates met her on the wind. There was no nervousness, no skittish desire to flee before they found her and tried to ambush her, for if they found her, she believed there was nothing they could do. Let bygones be bygones, as it were, which was what she intended to do.

Despite the curiosity that initially prickled when the scent of Hawkeye, one of her most trusted Bon Dye subordinates aside from Kerberos and Lecter, carried dominantly on the southwest blowing wind, Jinx did not turn to investigate. She was not drawn toward the scent of former pack mates. As with Pied, she felt no desire to encounter them and, if it were to happen, had no reason to explain herself. They were all wolves, and they had all, at one point or another, done something unforgivable to other wolves. Her unforgivable mistake — so they might say it was, but she didn't think so — had been heeding the call of a god.

And so, despite the curiosity and the scents of wolves she had very much betrayed, Jinx continued padding along alone until she reached the hot springs. Even in winter, their heat was palpable, coming off them in waves of steam that melted the snow in their vicinity. Tightly clutched in the female's jaws was a stone, a small heliotrope or bloodstone, that she dropped into one of the smaller pools before lightly dropping her body into the water. A gentle sigh pressed from her nostrils as she sunk up to her shoulders in the warm water, with murmured prayers to Sos for wisdom and strength. The bloodstone would infuse the waters and amplify these qualities in her; they would return to her the vigour of a warrior.

As the warmth of the springs seeped into her bones, Jinx felt herself cleansed of worries, if any had existed at all. The heat that pierced into her represented the characteristics of the bloodstone itself entering her body, invigorating her... Reminding her of her true purpose, as the spectral wolverine had intended for her to do. She could have been content to remain there all day in the embrace of the hot springs, infused with the power of the heliotrope, but there were matters to attend to on the coast that would require her eventual return.

She had hoped, at least, for it to be eventual, but as the sound of heavy footfalls pulled her attention back and made her turn her head in the direction of the disturbance, Jinx was struck with the feeling that eventual might be sooner than she had hoped.

The woman striding toward her was familiar. Of course she was; Jinx had momentarily had her memories of Bon Dye jostled, but they had since pieced themselves back together. The approaching female was Hawkeye, the hefty black phase Mackenzie Valley wolf whom Jinx had once ranked highest amongst her subordinates, excluding Lecter and Kerberos, of course. The woman had fit in to Bon Dye as though she had been made for it, and it for her. Blood rituals had appeared to be something that Hawkeye would have enjoyed leading... But Jinx had never been around long enough to find out.

She would have been most shocked to know this particular wolf's feelings toward her and her religion now, having seen her become so embalmed in it when Jinx had led Bon Dye.

However, for the present time, she was unaware of any ill feelings. She remained in the pool, but she moved along its edge to place its centre between herself and Hawkeye, whose direct approach was more than uncomfortable to the primal Jinx within. Her posture remained that of a wolf more-or-less relaxing, though there was tension at having her power bath interrupted. A questioning tilt of her head downward conveyed both her familiarity and her greeting to her former subordinate, and everything about her showed that she expected no trouble.

Not from Hawkeye, who had been so readily accepting of Bon Dye's religion that Jinx truly thought she was a wolf of Sos, and would not discredit her reason for leaving as easily as Pied had.

There was an almost abrupt initiation of contact in the form of what appeared to be... Offence? Jinx's eyes narrowed and her ears tilted to the sides, the perfect portrayal of wolfish confusion: you approached me, her expression seemed to say. Was it not customary for a wolf who directly approached another wolf to be the one to make the address? The fallen Alpha had merely turned to acknowledge Hawkeye, and had assumed the other would divulge her reasons for approaching herself.

That came quickly enough, a deluge of words that were partially nonsense and partially wondrously informed, if not incorrectly informed, for a wolf Jinx had not seen in a little over a month. Her brow furrowed deeper the longer Hawkeye spoke, but she only physically responded when the other wolf lifted her head. Jinx's rose as well, and her ears lifted from their downward plane to sit plainly atop her head, where they suggested authority.

Whoever Hawkeye thought she was — and however she had come upon the knowledge she had obtained, for Jinx had said almost none of that to Pied — she was wrong on both accounts.

I was ever a follower of Sos, from the day I turned half a year, she quietly corrected, thinking it somewhat odd that Hawkeye thought any different. It had been clear that it was Kerberos who worshipped Atka in the pack, and taught of her virtues... Lecter and Jinx had always followed Sos. Much of the tirade was a self-righteous explanation of why Jinx was a terrible Alpha — the same drab points Pied had made. How they had pledged themselves to her, when in reality they had pledged themselves to the loa that she served. How she was meant to live and die for them, and ignore her beliefs and her god, as if she was nothing but a machine that pumped out a product called "pack welfare" for their benefit.

It was at this point that Jinx realized that Hawkeye was just as insincere and false as Pied had been as a Bon Dye wolf, and truly didn't deserve an ounce of Sos' regard. When Hawkeye concluded, in a fashion Jinx smugly thought most melodramatic, contrary — why had Hawkeye even opened her mouth if it was, in fact, pointless to get these wrong ideas into Jinx's head? — and incorrect, the female merely stared back, before the corner of her lip lifted into a knowing smirk.

Oh, she would speak now, for Hawkeye lacked the persistent focus on pack values and the perception of her character based on her actions that Pied had; she seemed to be, instead, deluded into thinking she knew more about Jinx than Jinx herself did, which gave the Kesuk the upper hand. She would speak, because her explanation was not possible in body language, and Hawkeye had made the mistake of making one too many wrong assumptions for her to simply opt for "I obeyed my god" as she had with Pied.

You must be mistaken, she said, in the same cool, quiet voice she had used before. Sos does not care about wolf packs. He does not care about hurt feelings among pack wolves. Sos cares that his chosen wolves obey, and promptly. We are his servants; he does not care about our affairs, he cares that we do as he wants us to. That should have been, Jinx believed, relatively self-explanatory, but then, Jinx was as all-knowing as Hawkeye: in other words, not at all. She could only draw on what she had learned of Sos, which was that he was a selfish god, who would kill his own servants if they displeased him for even a moment. Therefore, Sos is pleased that I heeded him. He does not care that Pied and evidently yourself think I left you; he agrees with my faithful service.

You must also be mistaken that I am a deserter. I am no such thing. I obeyed the summons of my god, for his command is absolute, and when I returned to my forest to give my pack his message, I found that my pack of evident heathens had turned tail on their oath to protect the forest and serve the loa that reside there. This was what Jinx believed. The blood oath had never been an oath from one wolf to another; it had never been from subordinate to Alpha. The blood oath had been from wolf to loa, from wolf to god, from wolf to forest; it was an oath to uphold the values of the pack, and to ever do all things for the betterment and prosperity of the pack, and to maintain the favor of the gods and loa for their protection. Would Hawkeye have felt better, knowing that if Jinx had ignored the loa that guided her to Sos, that the pack would have lost the favour of its protectors?

But there was a final point to make. You are mistaken in what you think my self-worth is. I am a follower of Sos, a servant of his will. He favours me over heathens like yourselves that doubt his power. I never claimed I was better than you. Of course, Jinx did believe herself better than other wolves — it was the product of being born into a large and powerful family, and being chosen by her god of the dark to serve as Shearwater Bay's Mambo. It was also the product of her religion, and as wrong as it may have been, it was every bit a part of her as her fur and her teeth. She thought herself superior — of superior blood and superior wisdom for her god favoured her — but never had Jinx actually said it, or even actually consciously thought it.

It was behavioural, and somewhat uncontrollable, but certainly not outwardly overstated to the point of seeming lofty about it. So she believed, anyway.

Jinx's ears flickered back a moment when Hawkeye's breath pushed through her nose in a steamy gust of what she assumed to be exasperation. What followed next was another series of assumptions, to which her eyes quite physically rolled in her head out of sarcasm. Hawkeye couldn't possibly know any of the things she claimed to know — when had Jinx ever said she would band with followers of Sos? Was Kerberos not a follower of Atka? Was Pied not a follower of Atka? Cuan? None of those wolves had suited Sos' primal rituals, but they had been in Bon Dye nonetheless, in relatively important positions. So Jinx merely shook her head with a sad little smile, wondering how Hawkeye could be so blind to what was right in front of her.

She might have let the black wolf go without another word, but Hawkeye was wrong: Jinx had thought about them. She had thought about them many times. It was not her way to wander off into the sunset and settle elsewhere when she had wolves she needed to inform of her god's good news. That had always been other wolves' way, but Jinx, though occasionally wayward, had always returned home some way or another.

So she had this time, but her wolves had departed, and in anger she had found another group to lend her skills and knowledge to, for Jinx was ever a pack wolf, and could not survive alone. But while Jinx's religion made her delusional to other wolves, Hawkeye's conviction in what were merely assumptions made her delusional to Jinx, which could only confirm that returning to her wolves — had she even known where to find them before — would have been a terrible mistake.

Show me he who claims to know all, she quoted Lecter, pointedly referring to Hawkeye with a narrowing of her eyes, and I shall show you a fool. Jinx's entitlement was subconscious, and therefore, not a recognizable characteristic; if a wolf claimed her to be self-entitled, she would have been confused, having been entirely unaware of it. If anything, all of what Jinx had said made Sos out to be a self-entitled god (weren't all gods, by nature?) and Jinx nothing but a servant to his whims, humble in her belief and her faith to him. Perhaps her belief that they should forgive her for obeying Sos made her self-entitled in their eyes, which a pragmatic Jinx probably would have agreed with if her rational mind was still intact... But it was not as Hawkeye said, that she was so pretentious and full of herself. She was a patron to her god, no more, no less, in her eyes.

Perhaps you should study your reflection more closely before you label others with such words, she advised as the Blacktail leader turned her tail, like all of them had done when they chose to leave the forest and their faith in the possibly make-believe loa that would have protected them all. It is you, after all, presuming to tell me what I am thinking. But, unlike her swarthy once-subordinate, Jinx felt no need to launch into a lengthy tirade of how her whole journey she had thought of her wolves at home, and how they would rejoice in Sos' message to Jinx — who, having forgot the bulk of it, including the part where it was a white bear he feasted on, took it to mean Bon Dye would flourish as the most powerful of all the packs — and felt no need to explain that she had returned and been upset and irritated with their flaky belief in her. She felt no need to explain that there had not been time to inform anyone, and she had taken them for intelligent wolves who would have assumed Jinx's leaving was for spiritual reasons alone. For, as Hawkeye had said, it was pointless trying to get these things into the dark Alpha's head.

Instead, she fell silent and returned to soaking in the hot spring, content to allow Hawkeye to believe whatever assumptions she had made. None of what Hawkeye claimed had been expressly said by Jinx; she could only assume the other female was so strong in her unnecessary hatred of the wolf she had once placed her trust in that she had made up a bunch of rabble excuses for Jinx, and clung so strongly to them that she had no room left to listen to reason, even if that reason was based on a religion that only Jinx truly, fervently believed in.

IC: Had she been a less composed wolf, her jaw probably would have unhinged and fallen into the hot water beneath her chest, and she would have drowned in it. Instead, she remained in shocked silence as Hawkeye dared — yes, dared — to suddenly change her tune. Just moments ago, the woman had claimed to no longer be invested in Sos (could anybody but Jinx, so full of her religion and so certain of her claims, blame her?) and had claimed that Jinx was delusional, and now all of a sudden she expected Jinx to believe she heard his voice?

She heard his voice too, from time to time, as Siku once had and as Lecter had and as Koios and all fervent followers of his had, but to believe this heathen who had moments ago made very clear she had no time for Sos and his ways heard him? It was absolutely asinine of Hawkeye to even suggest such a thing, and the Kesuk felt she ought to rise up out of the water and remove the vocal cords that dared to offend Jinx with such mockery of her god, as she incorrectly believed it to be nothing but good old-fashioned making fun of her.

However, she did not move toward Hawkeye, even as the dark Alpha came toward her with what seemed to be a solution to their strife, hinging on Sos himself. Instead, the woman moved back, hauled herself from the waters, shook out her coat lightly so as not to douse the Blacktail wolf in it, and then openly scoffed at Hawkeye, as if to say, you expect me to believe that? Sos' right-hand servant was Lecter, but even Lecter would not have been told who else Sos whispered to; the god was self-serving, and as such, was crafty enough to make all wolves believe they were his right-hand wolf. It therefore was not strange for Jinx to not have heard that Hawkeye was also a Child of Sos, since Sos kept that information to himself, as far as she knew.

Deciding that this was no longer worth her time, she lifted her lip and her body in a full-on display of outrage, and spoke once more. You sit there, call me delusional, say my god's commands for me are not acceptable to you, then expect me to help you learn about Sos to serve him? You have some nerve, Hawkeye. With a sneer, the Horizon Ridge Kappa turned her back in haughty disregard, shooting one last remark over her shoulder as she began trotting back toward the coast, where she would have a much-needed reprieve from the Blacktail Alpha: maybe when you learn some respect then you will be ready to learn of him.

Jinx, of course, had no way of saying whether what Hawkeye said was true or not. For all the white-coated Kesuk wolf knew, Hawkeye was telling the honest truth. For all she knew, it had been a sudden revelation. Either way, the Kesuk refused to teach a wolf arrogant enough to approach her and discredit her beliefs as delusion, and the very thought of such a wolf suddenly claiming to hear Sos set her blood boiling so badly that she thought her heart might erupt volcanically with outrage. Perhaps in the future the females would be brought together again by Sos' designs, and would be useful to one another... But for now, the Kesuk was deeply offended, and would sleep well if she never saw Hawkeye of Blacktail Deer Plateau again. If Sos designed for Jinx to remain there on this day, then he would instruct her to return, but he did not; she could only conclude that Hawkeye was therefore making fun of her, without knowing whether Sos would bring them together again in the future to bring Hawkeye's truth to light.