“Are we there yet?!” Ira demanded raucously, squinting his eyes at the sand colored elder that limped a few paces ahead of him, attempting to burn a hole in the scarred, graying man’s butt. Given a choice, Ira would have chosen to try to burn a hole by a look to the back of the man’s head, but something the elder called ‘arthritis’ - whatever that was aside from something the elder like to complain about, much to Ira’s chagrin - made it painful for him to raise his head for more than a few moments at a time. Patience was not a virtue that Ira possessed, especially not as a child, when his attention span wavered and motivations changed abruptly and usually without much warning. Ira let out an irritated huff, and picked his pace to a trot, easily catching up the elder, though it took several quick steps to keep up with a single step of the once tall and proud warrior; though if ‘Tark’ the name that Ira knew him as, had once been something proud and majestic it was long dead. Tark was practically a cripple, half deaf, and ill. At least, that was what Ira had heard when he had been eavesdropping on his Uncle and the medic. That had been before the abrupt disappearance of his parents and the attack from a rival pack. Abandoned and left to die, Tark had found him and led Ira away. “Hey!”, Ira demanded, “I was talking to you.” He snapped impudently at Tark who stopped suddenly - as to which caused Ira narrowly avoid slamming into the elder’s left, front leg. “What, child?” Tark asked with a heavy sigh, that caused Ira to glare at him once more, eyes of youthful milky blue studying the grotesque, tattered left ear (since that was what his eyes were automatically drawn too) as Tark turned his body to the side to glimpse at him.

“Tell me where you are taking me.” Ira demanded, having changed his question in the split second, deciding that where he was being taken to was probably more important than if they were at their destination yet. He was angry about his uncle’s allowance of the invaders to take over, and he was angry about his parents abandonment, even though every attempt Tark made to broach the subject with Ira had been met with his blatant refusal to ’talk about it’. He didn’t want to talk about it, because talking about it would force the boy to recognize that beyond angry he was detrimentally hurt. To love is to destroy. It made perfect sense to Ira, given the events that had occurred in such a short span of time. “Somewhere safe, Ira.” Tark assured him, and extended his muzzle tentatively in attempts to touch the boy’s cheek, but Ira flinched away, leathery black nostrils flaring. “Don‘t touch me!” Ira spat, and scowled fiercely. “’N don‘t call me that!” How many times did he have to try to get it through Tark’s brain that he wanted to be called ‘Aethon’, yet still the stubborn old man refused. Tark recoiled, his broad shoulders rising and falling in a deep, choked sort of breath, that made the elder cough for a few moments. “We are nearly there.” Tark murmured, finally answering Ira’s initial question.

Tark’s presence had not done anything to reassure Ira, neither did he feel measurably protected. If anything, Ira had a better chance (slim and near impossible though it was) of warding off predators than Tark did. He could hunt ably enough though he ate very little, giving Ira most of his meal. At first, Ira refused to eat much Tark caught for him, but hunger soon won out his will of defiance (after all not eating was only hurting him, not the elder). Ira padded along behind Tark, his nose twitching when the scent of an unfamiliar pack assaulted his nostrils. He wrinkled his nose in contempt for a few moments, as Tark let out a quick howl where he had stopped - a respectful distance from the borders. Ira moved past Tark, nose stuck to the snow as he investigated, attempting to differentiate the new and foreign smells. “Ira.” Tark warned in a chiding tone, that caused the child to pause in his sniffing, to glimpse at the elder over his shoulder in a condescending manner. Clearly, Tark had forgotten who exactly owned who in their situation. Tark took a heavy breath as he slid down, with a grunt of pain onto his stomach, settling into a weak sphinx-like position. Ira’s ears slicked back to rest half mast atop his skull as he studied Tark’s exhausted form uninhibited. “Wass' wrong with you?” Ira demanded of the elder, though he received, much to his dismay, no response from Tark who continued to look into the territory behind the scent markers. Turning and padding a few steps closer to Tark, Ira suddenly hesitated, one paw lingering in midair, his uncle’s talk of illness echoing in his skull, disjointed and emotionless, for it had been easy to forget the timber and lilting tones of the voices he had once known so well.

Did he really want to be near Tark if this claimed illness was true, even though, if it was, it was likely not contagious? Death was what was wrong with Tark, unbeknownst to Ira. The boy’s ears slicked back against his skull, laying flat as the rattling breaths broke from Tark’s lips, leaving Ira feeling confused (though not to be mistaken with concern - Princes felt no concern for their possessions) and though he had no word for the drowning feeling - hopeless, though Ira had not quite came to terms that it was, indeed, death that was subtly sucking the life breath from his companion.

Deliberation weighed heavy in Ira as he eyed Tark with unhindered scrutiny, his judgments based on words he perhaps had not fully understood as they had been exchanged not-so-secretly between Red Keep’s chief medic and his uncle in the abysmal dark of the night, when Ira had slipped out of the den he’d shared with his uncle upon his parents’ disappearance, following downwind of his uncle, remembering that when he hunted (or sneaking in Ira’s case that night) he should always stay downwind of his prey, target, et cetera. Uncertainty hung, heavy and suffocating like fog in the air, pressing down on Ira as he took in the grotesque scars that marred Tark, markings of a time once passed, realizing that he had grown to, tentatively as it was, trust Tark. The elder had not led him into a trap, had put up with him and failed to suffocate him in his slumber. Ira’s lips parted to speak, “Hush Ira. Tark snapped before Ira had even gotten the chance to vocalize whatever it had been that he had wanted to say to the dying elder. "I didn’ even say anything!" Ira was quick to jump to his own defense, silver fur that layered the length of his spine, pricking and ruffling in childish indignation. For a second, Ira considered screaming at Tark that he was dismissed, that Ira had no more use for a grumpy old man, but stopped, his temper dissolving as quickly as it had sparked to life at the look of aged sorrow Tark was giving him. Brow furrowed, nostrils flaring, inhaling the sickly scent of Tark, before his nose scrunched in contempt, taking a few steps back from Tark.

"Wass? Don’t look at me like that." The child huffed in a clipped, commanding tone before he turned around - so if Tark decided to ignore him at least Ira no longer had to see Tark staring at him. An shape seemed to merge from the shadows of the lands behind the scent markers, ivory, tall - probably taller than Tark if Ira had to guess - and marked with a wound that was probably fresh, though Ira’s eyes did not linger there. The female’s gaze touched Ira’s for a moment, and Ira blinked at her, slightly mesmerized as she then turned her attention to Tark.

Ira glimpsed quickly over his shoulder at Tark to see the elder’s head rise, though he - likely because he could not - rise from the snow. “It doesn’t matter who I am, I am a dying man,” Tark replied, before the brazen child let his attention go back to the female, who was like some sort of Amazonian Warrior Goddess, obviously. “The child is important. He is called Ira. His parents were led astray by his ruthlessly ambitious uncle and killed for the throne of Red Keep. His uncle’s arrogance set off a chain of events that left Ira, abandoned to die as Red Keep was invaded by a neighboring, rival pack. I brought him here.” Ira’s ears slicked back to his skull as he listened, for once, without having anything to rudely interject as the ragged timbers of Tark’s once deep drilled into his skull, speaking of ultimate betrayal. To love is to destroy, to be loved is to be destroyed. He would love no one ever again, and would keep all others from loving him for what choice did he have? Everyone he loved and that loved him had died. Despite that these concepts were things he was beginning to understand in greater detail, this felt resolute to Ira.

Numbly, the child turned his eyes to Tark, eyes sharp and unforgiving, wondering why the elder had never told him this before. Not that it mattered, there was nothing Ira could do but reluctantly accept his fate. Whatever it was, though Ira felt that what would happen in the next few moments would be key. “He needs a home, someone to raise him, to love him.” Tark gasped out, causing panic to shoot through Ira. "No!" Ira snapped, breaking his eerie silence with an abruptness. "Not love. I don’ want love." He protested. He watched Tark’s eyes flash, alarmed, to him before they went back to the woman who had come upon them. He didn’t have to explain his outburst - not that he was going too anyway.

Tark let out a cough that rattled in his chest, causing Ira to scrunch up his nose. Was it just him or did Tark sound like he was getting worse? When they had fled his cough had been moderate, his energy still fairly good. It seemed to Ira that as soon as they had arrived upon the borders of this…place - where-ever it was that they were - Tark had lost any remaining amounts of energy he’d had. Was losing his more and more of life with every second they lingered there. When the nameless woman turned her attention down to him, Ira did not shy away from her gaze. He had always been brazen, and was not afraid like most pups his age had been. Where they shied behind their parents’ legs, or pointedly avoided eye contact or in some cases conversation, Ira was not accustomed to using anyone as a shield; neither was he adapt at being timid. The woman spoke then, with her eyes still upon Ira, inquiring as to what made him important. Why did there have to be a reason?

"Jus’ ‘cause." Ira replied before Tark could, it seem, even gather enough breath to reply. Ira squinted up at Jinx, having no intentions of accepting that “just because” was not a sufficient answer and therefore having no intentions of elaborating. The fact that he had escaped as far as he had before Tark had found him surely meant he was important somehow. That, or just a good escape artist. “He is a child,” Tark began. “The fact that those who invaded our home had not caught him sneaking out, that I was able to bring him here proves that he has some sort of role to play in the future. Does that not make him important?” Tark asked, tiredly. Ira itched to peek at him, but, at the same time, did not want to take his eyes off of the warrior goddess before him. Whether it was because she was memorizing in her own way, or if he was still annoyed that she asked what made him important.

“If you, or your pack do not want him, speak now. I will take him elsewhere.” At that Ira did break his gaze on Jinx to shoot a dubious look at Tark. He couldn’t even stand, how exactly was he going to take Ira elsewhere? Each breath Tark took caused him to wince in pain, and Ira - vaguely grasping the concept of death - wondered why he was not begging death to take him. It wasn’t as if Ira and him had known each other all that well. Ira scowled deeply at the thought that Tark cared for him, that, that was why he was fighting death’s grip. Death would win, of course, Ira was convinced. Care for was the same thing as love to Ira - any sort of affection would trigger the curse - Tark would die. Ira looked back up at Jinx, ears thrusting forth atop his skull to listen to what she would have to say next.

His defense had been weak, and had inspired a chortle to come from the warrior woman before him. Ira’s eyes narrowed in displeasure, despite that he knew there had been nothing behind it to back up the verification that he was important. He was a Princeling of ruined lands, of a pack that had fled to the winds. Or at least, those that had been lucky enough to flee, at any rate. More than likely, he was the Princeling of chaotic carnage and the dead. What good were the dead to him? Ira had just been about to let her mocking (at least, this was how the child had taken her chortle to be) go, an advantage of his childs’ short attention span (making it obnoxiously hard to hold a grudge of any sort), except for her following words which had been basically been comparing him to her butt. Leathery, black nostrils flared in irritation, as his pupils narrowed to near pinpricks in their pools of milky blue irises, as his eyelids lowered. His lips wrinkled back in his (probably humorous irritation). "I am not like your ass!" Ira spat at her brazenly, not caring in that moment that even injured as she was, she could end his life in a single, fluid moment if she wanted too. The truth of the matter was, he wasn’t afraid. Of her. Of Tark. Of death (not that he fully understood the ramifications of death).

“Ira!” Tark reprimanded sharply. Ira simply rolled his eyes as his irritation turned to sulking (he hated being reprimanded), as he stared absently at a stray rock whose grey, rounded top peaked out from it’s blanket of snow, glaring at it wishing he could burn a hole through it - as he had earlier when Tark had been ignoring him. "Well she said it…" Ira grumbled to himself, though if Tark had heard him, the elder chose not to comment. When Jinx spoke to Tark in regards to her ‘Gods’, despite Ira’s best efforts his curiosity was peaked. His parents, nor uncle had never spoken of any “Gods”. Never mind Gods that had an interest in him. "You saw me in a vision?" Ira inquired, his previous anger at Jinx all but dissolved; though Ira had attempted to make the question sounded skeptical, he could not entirely conceal his interest. “Whatever reason you take him, take him. I cannot help him…any….” Tark gasped, “anymore.” He took one more labored breath before his head dropped to the snow and his chest refused to rise or fall anymore.

Ears slicked back to Ira’s skull as he watched prudently for any sign of life, breath, a twitch of the elder’s nose, but was meant with nothing. "Tark?" Ira asked, slinking forward cautiously, as if the elder would spring up as if his death were a joke at any given moment. Midway between the elder and Jinx, Ira stopped, ears pinned back, before he took a deep breath, his shoulders rising and falling with the motion before he turned around and sought Jinx’s camouflaged form with his cold eyes. Though he desired to ask her ‘what now’, he did not, instead choosing just to stare at her until she gave him instructions or told him to get lost. He was suddenly too exhausted to put up too much of a fight, regardless. Unsure of what he felt about Tark's passing. He was just numb, and tired.

"Well I don’t." Ira replied protesting Jinx’s further comparison. He was not like her butt, and that was that. Likely, she would keep thinking that he was, and he would keep thinking he wasn’t and it would be a tiresome verbal game of cat and mouse. If this warrior woman did, indeed, decide to take him in - something in which he wouldn’t protest, Ira was not ignorant and understood without an adult he would not survive very long - he wondered, as briefly as the thought had fluttered into his mind, if it would always be like this. While Ira did not enjoy being insulted, it didn’t really dig further than scratch as his skin until he was mildly irritated. He did not know her - didn’t even know her name - how was he supposed to feel mortally wounded by her insults? Ira had found in the case of Tark, it was easy to not feel anything when you never let anyone in. He had felt detrimentally hurt when his parents had abandoned him (though he now knew they had been killed). Overtop that pain he had felt anger; and after he had cried in isolation in some abandoned den far away from the den he had once shared with his parents, he had vowed no creature would ever hurt him like that again.

Youth or not, it had been enough for Ira to understand he never wanted to feel that again.

He did not cry as he studied Tark’s cold and lifeless body because he had not let the elder in, slamming the proverbial doors in his face when he had tried to breach in. There had been no love for the elder, no affection. The man had helped him flee, kept him alive so he could reach this point. While Ira had felt grateful there had been little else. Loss, Ira had discovered, was easier to deal with when there was nothing truly binding between wolves. "I didn’ know him," Ira spoke, unable to help but wander, fleeting though it was, if the fact that he successfully felt nothing meant there was something wrong with him, at Jinx’s question. "He was lil’ more than a stranger," Breath was taken and left out in a plume of white steam. "why pretend to feel something I don’?" Ira answered with a question of his own, before he fell silent, sort of feeling awkward knowing their was a wolf carcass behind him.

For a few moments, there was nothing but Jinx and himself as he stared at her, waiting for her to chide him for being indifferent towards Tark’s death, waiting for her to demand to know what was wrong with him, as other wolves might have. In truth, Ira did not feel like anything was wrong with him, for more or less not caring about the elder’s death. It was just as Ira had told Jinx, he had not known the man, had not loved him or even felt affection towards him. He had been a tool to see him this far. Just as Jinx would be a tool to raise him to adult hood. Or, at least until he was capable of surviving on his own, at any rate. Instead, Jinx seemed pleased by his behavior, the praise smoothing over the child’s fur like a hand reaching down to pet him. Indifference towards the existence of others was good then? So, he wasn’t wrong after all. Despite developing his individuality Ira was still highly impressionable and when he was met with positive reinforcement from Jinx, it would only serve to encourage him to continue such - as it was with any child.

Jinx’s explanation in regards to love being for the weak, sparked his admiration once more, as his milky blue eyes widened as he peered up at her, ignoring her gesture for him to follow for a few moments. He had his own theories about love and suddenly desired to share them with her. "To love is to destroy," He breathed and finished with, "To be loved is to be destroyed." Though it was different from her abruptness in her feelings of ‘love’ it was also measurably similar. Only the weak allowed themselves to be destroyed. Ira had been destroyed once, but no more and never again. It was easier…and less disappointing this way. "Wait!" Ira demanded of her, glimpsing back over his shoulder at Tark. "Are we gonna let it here?" Ira asked, not because he truly cared, but because there was a wolf carcass a respectful distance from their scent markers, and he considered the idea that it might attract unwanted attention.

"Ok," The boy accepted her words of focusing on himself willingly, not wanting to dispute her way of thinking since it basically sort of matched up with his own. "Wass your name? Orrrr…what do I call you?" He asked, suddenly, realizing that he did not know her name and had nothing to call her, though she knew his given name.

Ira watched Jinx’s reaction to his once coveted mannerism of thinking, not sure what he was expecting, or rather, what he was hoping for from her, only that he was waiting for…something. He watched her contemplate it with ravenous milky blue eyes, before what he more commonly associated with relief wash over him when she told him that it was an ‘interesting concept’. She did not mock him for it, neither did she on what was the opposite end of that spectrum to Ira, attempt to convince him that how he thought was wrong, that love was something to be cherished in an attempt to smother him with something he inherently did not want. Of course, she had said herself to him that she had no tolerance for love (or so this was what Ira chose to take away from it) and Ira had settled contently with the idea that she would not force this destroying emotion, concept - whatever it was - upon him. Lips parted to suck in the cold, stinging air as he drew it within his body, feeling it travel through his windpipes and into his lungs, the sickeningly sweet tickle of decay that was coming from Tark. It was possible he had begun to smell like that even in life, subtly, and that Ira immune by the scent of death, blood and decay that had lingered in the crevices of his lungs even weeks after putting as much distance from Red Keep as they could, had not noticed.

"Know my crows?" Ira repeated her words, testing them out on his tongue, all the while contemplating the idea she had teased into his brain. He had almost asked her what need he would have for crows (despite that she had given a few reasons) when he could just have wolves do that (after all, was that not the purpose of the Hunters?) but the idea of capturing a infant or injured avian and nursing it (or nursing it back to health), all the while earning it’s trust and unrequited affection was…intoxicating to the child, never mind that he could barely take care of himself let alone a bird. Nevertheless, Ira doubted he would forget such an idea, not while it remained a novelty to him. He wanted it, and that was good enough. For now. "Will any avian do?" He inquired, attempting to keep pace with Jinx, figuring if he didn’t have to get specific, he might go for something equally as fierce. A raven. A hawk. Unless his interest faded into oblivion when something else rushed in to tempt him. "A king can have whatever avian he wants." Ira informed her in a childish matter-of-fact tone, before the subject sort of vanished with her following word - maybe not from her mind, but from his, for the moment.

She introduced herself as Jinx, and added that he could call her ‘Mambo’ if he wished, though the child pouted some, not liking that he had been given the option of either or without any influence from her. What was the point of a name if she didn’t go by the one she wanted too? At least this was what he had been trying to convince everyone when he had decided he had wanted to be called ‘Aethon’ instead of Ira. Ira sounded like such a girls name to him; and everyone knew girls were yucky. Except Jinx. She didn’t particularly strike him as ‘yucky’ - probably because he was stubbornly determined to keep thinking of her as a Warrior Goddess. "Which do you want me to call you?" Ira prodded unabashed, because in this instance his childish mind needed direction; needed her to make the decision for him. "Princeling. I like that," Ira spoke enthusiastically and then trailed off in consideration, whiskers quivering slightly. "Aethon. It’s what I want to be called instead of Ira." He told her sternly, though of course, Jinx was free to call him what she wished. What Ira failed to understand at that point and time in his young life was that just because he wanted something did not automatically mean she had to conform to his wishes (this went with virtually anyone he tried to boss around).

Ira was young and had much to learn yet.

Ira simply picked up his pace to keep up with Jinx, adjusting it with little trouble, used to the long legs of adults, and realizing that not all of them would stop and wait patiently for him to stumble along after them. Soon enough his paws would outgrow him and he would struggle to keep up with the free agileness he mustered currently. Ira contemplated her words, remembering that crows were not the only blackbirds he knew of, but found himself unable to tell the difference between a raven and a crow. "How do you know the difference between a raven and a crow?" Ira asked Jinx inquisitively, wondering if she would be able to explain what made them one or the other to him. No one had really stopped to explain the difference to him before - though to be fair he had never thought to ask previously.

"I know," Ira replied when Jinx mistook his question and explained the difference using a comparison with his own. "I meant do I call you Jinx or Mambo? Or doesn’ it matter?" Ira elaborated hoping that she caught his meaning this time. Jinx began with saying that Aethon was a good name, and Ira drew in a breath to pompously say ‘I know’, only to cut off with a expel of breath when she continued on to say that ‘Ira’ sounded stronger - or so that was how Ira took it to mean, at any rate. "Ira is such a girly name!" Ira protested stubbornly. Ira did not realize that it spoke volumes about his true nature, that there was nothing truly girly about ‘Ira’. That it was the latin name of a deadly sin; but he did not know these things so it was still, until his mind changed otherwise, girly. "Where are you from?" Ira prodded without even a moments hesitation. Somehow, he doubted she would be from a place where they gave their children girly names - especially since her name was so cool.