Horizon Ridge say yes, say yes

@Akhlut Set after this thread and this thread, but before my thread in SC. Sorry if you're busy and can't reply right away; I just wanted to get all these threads rolling before the weekend ('cause I'll be busy til Wednesday starting tomorrow evening) in an attempt to get Jinx out of timeline limbo! All this is therefore quite vague. This would be the thread you mentioned wanting to have in MO, but done a little differently so it works out better for my own plans!

She had been haunted again in the night, as she had been the night before and the night before that. Plagued by dreams and memories of what had happened with Lecter, and nightmares of never finding him again. Never hearing the croon of his voice on her inner ear, or breathing in the scent of blood he wore so well. She feared losing his knowledge, and losing him. No, Jinx did not love the shaman—did not love anybody, and probably never would—but there was a certain possessiveness that was born of the carnal act they shared, and it burned hot in her belly whenever she thought of it, fuelling the possessiveness she had felt even before that.

She had to vent it somehow. She could not possess the shaman, not so long as all she claimed here was a rank beneath a wayward wolf whose face was scarcer than rain in winter. She might be able to draw him back into the fold of her command, if only she could gain command... And so she would aim for something she could possess. The pack, which was falling apart, or so it seemed to her. Pied had been grievously injured just days ago, and even though Jinx felt little love for the Delta (now Gamma, not that she knew that), she felt less love for the Alpha that had allowed it to happen without response.

Her head tilted back into the misty morning air and she unleashed a howl whose purpose was singular and clear: she sought to claim Horizon Ridge and lead it where Akhlut was failing. It was a summons for the leader, that he face her and atone for his mistakes, and hand over the reins of his flagging pack to her, so she could bring it back to a state of unity. It was also a summons for the wolves to rally under her, to favour this arrangement, to approve of Akhlut's removal. Most importantly, however, was that it was not a question. It was a demand.

Jinx's howl froze Akhlut where he stood upon a lesser ridge-not his pack's namesake, but another, further south. The fur along his spine stiffened, and a snarl was upon his lips as the Alpha's long limbs were carrying him home faster than he'd thought possible. Fury roiled in his gut at Jinx's challenge, for that was the nature of her complaint voiced long and loud, and he knew then that Pied's anger at the pale woman was utterly justified. Jinx had abandoned Pied's former pack, and had clearly abandoned Shearwater Bay to be here, and a portion of Akhlut's mind stopped to wonder if Nanuq had truly left her children Jinx and Kaskae behind, or if that was a lie, twisted half-truths intended to conceal another of Jinx's shortcomings. Loyalty was not a word that the Gamma knew, and now she would never serve as his Gamma again.

Akhlut erupted from the trees and nearly bowled Jinx over in the process, his stance fierce and his dark far standing like rigid spines all over his body. Ivory teeth were bared beneath curled dark lips, and ice blue eyes raised to meet Jinx's orange ones, the color of dead leaves in fall. An ugly color, now, just as Jinx's features seemed ugly to him, now that she was a traitor. "My mutinous sister," he snapped, throwing their relationship back in her face. He'd thought she cared little for his mother, but had held some respect for him, but perhaps she was just biding her time. "I'm pleased to see no one has come to support you in your insipid attempt to take over."

His words sounded saccharine with their sarcasm, but the tone underneath was as hard as the rock of the Ridge. "I don't make a habit of drawing the blood of my family members," he hissed through clenched teeth, "so I'll tell you one time that you need to get the hell out of here and not come back. This is my pack, who have all sworn loyalty to me. You had not a thing to do with it, and now you never will." Tail arching high over his back, Akhlut seemed a more feral creature than he ever had before; understandable, for he was defending that most primordial of things, the seat of a born ruler, son of Siren Queen and Warchief, two of the most formidable she-wolves who'd ever lived. Beside them, Jinx seemed pathetic and meek.

He came on with the rolling fury of a bear, and Jinx did not bat an eye, even as he came so near her she felt his rage in the wind he generated. She had stood in the face of disbelief and disloyalty before, had stood down every test flung her way when she and Kaskae had taken over Shearwater Bay when their mother had left without word... So too would she weather the failed Alpha's storm. Whilst Akhlut would claim that she was disloyal and mutinous, it was Jinx's belief that she was the exact opposite; to this pack she would give her life... To Pump and Kisu and Aethon, to Dublin, even to Pied, but not to he who had done little for it. It was loyalty that made her rise up against him... But of course, when he began to spit and hiss like a cat, she remained stony, unperturbed, and did not argue that.

For she welcomed his violence. Let the self-proclaimed Lord of Light draw the blood of one of his subordinates in fury that she did not cower to him; let them see what kind of man of "light" he was. No wolf arrived to rally under her, which she didn't understand... But it took only a moment of thought. The wolves of Horizon Ridge must not only be lazy, she thought, but utterly stupid in her own opinion; none here would support her, solely because she had once had a pack, had once left them for a fortnight (on religious business, no less), and had returned to find them gone. Claiming they would have starved, as if Jinx was their sole provider; weak-willed, pathetic creatures inhabited the shore. It was the only explanation for why they would support an absent Alpha over her.

She had thought that Pied might at least step up. She was blind to the way the dappled wolf spread around rumours of her. Spread around truths, but flavoured for betrayal, with no thought to the former Alpha's feelings at all. Jinx ought to have been pissed, but overall she believed herself to be justified. Akhlut told her to leave, and she stood tall, refusing with her stance and the burn of her glare on him. She was tempted not to speak—to maintain this posture until he struck, and then to maintain it more, to prove she was not so insecure—but she decided against that.

"Your pack?" she snorted, her ears snatching back for an instant as though the thought was amusing. "I suppose your upbringing would make you believe so. However, if I recall, it is your subordinates filling the caches, tending the borders, and maintaining the pack, and without your subordinates there would be no pack at all," she reminded him, deliberately sharp and direct. "To be frank, I haven't seen you do fuck all for this pack. I haven't seen you at all, haven't spoken to you in weeks, despite having reports to give that unfortunately you haven't been around to hear." Sadly, the only other member who seemed even remotely moved to care had been squashed by an orca, and wouldn't have supported her, even though she thought Pied might.

"Now, you may think it's your pack, but it's actually yours least of all. Nobody deserves an Alpha who is scarcer than the prey in his land. And if you don't remember, I was your first follower, so as much as you think you built this pack all by yourself, you'd be an arrogant fool to believe it." No doubt he would then bring up Bon Dye and Shearwater Bay, since everybody she met, it seemed, were so quick and judgemental that she could almost predict their trains of thought, but he was a Nereides whelp, not a true Shearwater Kesuk. She certainly didn't expect him to understand her reasons, and as Jinx was learning, nobody cared about her reasons anyway. Nobody actually gave any thought to her side, because most of them had already heard the other side, and had already formed their opinions. She was bad guy numero uno, regardless what she did... She might as well earn the title. "So you will shut your mouth," she said levelly, "and remember that you have had every opportunity to prove yourself and you have failed to do so."

Her words were sharp and biting, as if her own teeth had sunk into his sides, and internally Akhlut winced. She might be disloyal to him, but the accusations she levelled against him held some merit, however skewed they were. Still, her first action had not been to seek him out, or to track him down, or to find him in the early hours of dawn when he could be found quite reliably upon the beach, his fur tossed by the sea breeze. No, her chosen course had been to let her frustration build, and bide her time, and unleash her complaints in the form of a challenge, a betrayal that he couldn't address in any way except to staunchly defend himself and his position.

"You can berate me as much as you like, Jinx," he growled, for he did not think of her as his sister now, "but you've undermined yourself in this. Why not come to me with your grievances from the first? Why not seek to bring your experience as a leader to bear and act as my advisor, instead of as my usurper?" Akhlut's stance did not waver; he remained poised to spring upon her, if she should make a move to attack him. His words were as calm as he could make them, but still were issued in a low and throaty tone that threatened to spill over with his fury. "The way of the Light would be direct, forward, honest, and loyal. Instead you've clung to your frustrations and turned them into a twisted plan to overthrow me, but not without first hurling insults meant to disarm and weaken me."

What was meant to be a harsh laugh came out as a half-snarl. "Tell me, Jinx, if Horizon Ridge was yours, what would you do then? Pied would not stand for it, and with her would depart Kisu. Dublin would go with them, I think, and Bristol with her. Naga is my sister and she would follow me to the ends of the earth. That would leave you precious few subordinates to command. I know the weaknesses in our borders and defenses better than any. You could not hold the Ridge for long." No, every tree and stream and ridge and cliff and drift of sand was known to the Sun Prince who walked it during the day and again at night in his dreams. Nothing would tear him away from his home, least of all this Kesuk woman who was power hungry and a fool.

OOC: I'm kind of rolling along with the assumption that Akhlut was more-or-less inaccessible even if he has been in HR just because... That's sort of the assumption everybody went with, and it seriously messes up a lot of my recent threads if suddenly the assumption is that he has been here the whole time. I don't mean it to be rude or anything, and I know it's probably frustrating, so I hope you're okay with it, I just don't want Jinx stuck in a massive hole caused by a shift in assumptions.

IC: Akhlut was missing one very crucial component of his reasoning, Jinx thought: he hadn't been there. If the Alpha rose at 2am and sat on the sands, that didn't make him any more accessible to the wolves who rose at 7am and couldn't find him in his meditation. Jinx had walked all of Horizon Ridge easily dozens of times over, pursuing her calling as a Warrior, tending the borders, and the like... And on none of those occasions had she come upon Akhlut. Not once had she seen him tend his borders or stock his caches. It was one thing for an Alpha to be there and another for them to be present, interactive; regardless what his reasons were, and regardless whether he'd technically been in the packlands or not, Akhlut had not been present by her definition of presence.

Next he chose to bring up his precious Light, to which she almost sneered. She refrained, if only in respect to Atka. "The way of your Light might be direct and honest and loyal," she said instead, "but the way of wolf is to find order, and when the Alpha is seemingly missing, it is up to another to find it. I do not fathom how you expect me to bring you my grievances when you are nowhere to be found, Akhlut. No amount of Light can justify your scarcity here." Her ears tilted forward, challenging as always, defiant as always; if just once in her life Jinx found a legitimate wolf, she would die happy knowing somebody understood the way of things. She could die happy knowing somewhere out there was someone who thought with their head instead of their pathetic, emotional hearts. But in Teekon Wilds, there was no such thing as a real wolf, she was beginning to understand; not one wolf would listen to her logic, and consider it even remotely valid. Not even this "fair" Sun Prince would give it a moment's consideration, despite being apparently honest. If he was so honest, she thought, why did he not admit to his own failures?

"Frankly, you would not deserve my advice," she said, somewhat snootily, though she believed this fully. "Perhaps if as an Alpha I had seen you on the borders alongside myself protecting them, you would deserve my advice. Perhaps if I had seen you making an ounce of effort to get to know your followers and connect with them, I would have offered you guidance. However... I cannot put my faith in a wolf who does not appear to do any of the things he expects of his followers, and who appears to be gone much of the time. You cannot rule from afar, Akhlut, your wolves lose confidence in you." She was interested when he brought up his followers; what did he know of Dublin and Bristol? What did he know of Pied?

"Pied is one of those who is concerned with your inaccessibility," she pointed out, her ears tilted aggressively now. Maybe Pied wouldn't follow her, but maybe Jinx had changed, and maybe they could put it behind them for the sake of the pack. She would've believed that wholly. "Dublin and Bristol have no reason to follow Pied and Kisu anywhere, and may well stay here, you do not know. Pump would remain with me even if you poisoned the minds of all the others, but do not forget I have proven my worth to them." Say what he would, and bring up her past all he would; Jinx had contributed to Horizon Ridge, and had done so fervently and consistently. That was why she was Gamma, why she maintained her high rank. Perhaps he too forgot that, in his mad panic to retain his dignity.

"I know them better than any," she corrected him suddenly. "I patrol them every morning and evening. I have stopped wolves on them, brought them to the sanctuary of the pack or turned them away accordingly. I have chased away those who seem threatening, and escorted away those who had no business here. I am the borders' keeper... You are naught but the Alpha, but you have done nothing to prove to me you are as devoted to this pack's safety as I am. Why, dear Akhlut, have I not seen you in any of my patrols? They are frequent enough."

"Only the gods are without flaws," was the only admission of weakness that Akhlut would make. Jinx's woes were numerous and while some seemed legitimate, other claims felt false. If there were any whose challenge Akhlut would accept and allow himself to submit to, it might be Pied, but the dappled female seemingly held no ambition to his position, even before her attack. But Jinx as Alpha would be utterly intolerable; she was insufferable and arrogant and though she claimed to know what this pack needed, Akhlut couldn't help but think over and over you don't you don't you don't. She had had her chance, from the sound of things, at Shearwater Bay and at Bon Dye. Yet she ruled over neither, now, and coveted his own Ridge. Whatever his own shortcomings, he was young and permitted to make mistakes in the course of learning to lead. As the rightful Alpha in Horizon Ridge, he could ask forgiveness from those whom he had not been supportive enough of, and he felt earnestly that they would give it. Surely none of them despised him for it as Jinx seemed to, for none had come to support her claim for leadership even now, when their angrily snarled words surely were loud enough to garner the pack's attention, even at this early morning hour.

"The burdens of leadership are different than I expected," he acknowledged, "but I am adapting, learning to fill the role that the pack needs from me. Strip it from me, and I will never see the way to lead properly. Overthrowing me is not the solution to your qualms, Jinx, and would only leave the pack in chaos. What the Ridge wolves need now is stability as we go into spring, as we perhaps bring a generation of pups into the world to call this shoreline home. Would you shear apart our future for your own greed, as a wind might dissipate a thunderstorm? If you have so much care for the fate of this pack, you would not do this." Not that Akhlut had any intention of allowing Jinx to remain among them; the moment she veered from her resolve to throw him out, he would turn the tables and send her away. Still, he was careful to keep his tone as reasonable as he could, working hard to contain his fear within himself and not to let it seep into his voice. Some of it was a fear of losing his position, but moreso it was a fear of what Horizon Ridge would become with Jinx at its helm. There was no telling.

"If you wish to bring this to bloodshed, there is nothing I can do to stop you," Akhlut said with steel in his voice, "but I would sooner have my blood flowing over these rocks and my life gone from me than to leave the Ridge of my own volition. This is my home."

Much of what Akhlut said was true, and spoken gently; disarming, as it were. It worked on Jinx's quiet blood, the small part of her that still retained her compassion, buried deep down inside. Nonetheless, she would pull back her lips at his suggestion that her challenge was out of greed and not necessity, for as ambitious and advantageous as Jinx was, she would never tolerate being considered greedy. No matter how true it was that she had overreaching goals, the Kesuk denied it so fiercely that she believed wholly that she was doing it for their own good.

"You are blind," she stated simply, sincerely. Could Akhlut not see that the only instability in Horizon Ridge had originated with himself? Could he not see what his inexperience was doing to the pack? "I once was inexperienced. I once led a pack I did not know how to lead. I figured it out... But not by hanging back and hiding from my followers as you do." Of course, Akhlut didn't intentionally hide... But he nonetheless succeeded at hiding, if only by circumstance, and if only in her eyes. "I walked among them day and night, I let them mold and shape me with their lack of faith and every challenge they threw my way. I earned my place. Shearwater Bay thrived beneath my sister and I, the wolves came to accept us and respect us for overcoming their trials, and I would give anything to be back there with them where I belong." Say what anyone would of her; she had been loyal to Shearwater.

"I gave up my home and family to keep them safe," she told him firmly, "because I saw strife with my sister growing to a level that would destroy the pack, and I pulled away to protect them all. Had it been instead a wolf who was concerned with my leadership, had I also been so inaccessible as you, who threatened my pack rather than sibling rivalry, and had I known it was myself to blame, I would have also sacrificed my home and my position for my wolves." Her implication was quite simple: step down, it said. This was the true story of Jinx Kesuk, who had done something noble once: she had left her home not because she had abandoned them (her heart ached for them every night) and not because she had failed, but because she loved them, and would not allow her spats with Kaskae to be the pack's undoing. Strife and flames, she remembered vividly, the Bay incensed, torn on policies of war and spirit.

The Bay in flames.

It might've been amusing how everyone thought Jinx would turn the pack into some kind of evil legion if she was to lead it, but of course, she knew nothing of that. Neither of her packs had been evil legions... But again, she was unaware.

Before Akhlut could hand over the pack, as she felt certain he would do upon realizing that he was the cause of the problem, she said, "but, you are right. This pack needs stability. You cannot provide it, but since you are so keen to learn by mistake, go on leading. When you come to a point where you have no choice but to give it over to someone who is better equipped, then you will learn something." She took a step back from him, refusing to allow him a further inch of respect from her; he was her Alpha no longer, and this was clear in her eyes even before he had a chance to tell her to leave again. Besides, the desire to seek out Lecter was stronger than ever before, and pulled back the reins on her challenge quite mightily indeed. "As for me, I will not support an Alpha who is too proud to admit he is too inexperienced to lead, nor will I support an Alpha who does not even interact with his wolves," she said with a note of finality.

"Best of luck," she said, sarcasm heavy in her voice. "When you finally realize that you were the only problem here, do not come to me expecting forgiveness." She would turn to leave then, disinterested in him any longer. She felt a twinge of sadness at leaving behind some of the wolves, including Pied, and she knew they would come to think of her as nothing but a traitor and deserter... The insecure little girl in her breast winced at that insult, but Jinx could not subscribe herself to Akhlut's leadership any longer. She could not sit idly by wondering when next he would show his face. And so she would leave, and find strength elsewhere.

Akhlut was coming to sense that some of Jinx's criticism and indeed her own narrative of her time at Shearwater Bay might bear some truth and resemblance to his own situation at Horizon Ridge. The feeling that perhaps she was, in some part, right settled in his stomach like river rocks, and it made him feel sick and cold all over in a way that had naught to do with the chill of the late winter's morning. For the briefest moment his facial features faltered from their angry resolve and for a flicker of a second, the time it took to blink, his mask dropped to reveal his uncertainty and insecurity and regret, even, that it had come to this. Perhaps it truly was he who was splintering the pack, little by little. In the next instant, his features rearranged themselves to a semblance of solemn determination, however, as he fortified and cemented his resolve in his mind.

"I am not blind to the passion that fuels your words. I see that you sincerely want to see the Ridge safe and sound under the care of a capable leader." The words were earnest, but still given somewhat grudgingly; Akhlut tried to keep bitterness from flooding his words. He hated the way that this had all played out, and the wedge it had driven between himself and Jinx, who was still, as she reminded him, one of the first to claim allegiance to him. Yet where had that faith gone when his inexperience made him falter? He could not forget that her response had been an ill-chosen challenge instead of something more amiable, like an offer to lead alongside him. "The difference in opinion, then, is that I know that I can continue to strengthen myself as Alpha, and correct my mistakes, while you feel that I should step down and defer to the greater experience of another." Jinx, his mind supplied helpfully, for it mattered that it was Jinx who wanted to lead, to show him how it was done. Another, he might accept, but her? He never could, for reasons even he knew were ill-defined but nevertheless staunch ones. "I will take your words to heart, though you may not believe it of me," Akhlut said, his tone low and a bit unsteady, for he felt that the tension of the moment had not yet passed and the wrong words might set her anger ablaze again, instead of the cold distance that she had adopted.

"You think that I will falter and fail, and you'll be there to say 'I told you so.' I say that I will change and grow, and become the stronger leader you do not think I can be. When you realize that I have succeeded and that I am worth following, then we may speak of this again." Now he couldn't even bring himself to cast her out as ruthlessly as he had once intended. The Alpha swallowed hard to quell his own uncertainties, and said quietly, "I will not forbid you to stay, Jinx, but if you cannot tolerate my leadership, maybe it would be best for you to go. You will have a place to return to, if you desire it, when the wounds we've inflicted upon each other this morning have healed with time and the changes it brings on both of us."

It was the only thing he could offer, for in his heart he hated to cast out a woman who might have been his sister in affection if things had gone differently, and he knew that it was in large part his own fault that things had gone all to hell. All he could say was that when the passage of days months years had blurred their recollections of this morning well enough that the sting had gone out of the accusations flung from both sides, that he, at least, would be willing to give her a home once more. The dark alpha turned his head to look out over the sea, then realized his own avoidance and turned again to look at Jinx, to see the effect his words had on her, and to try and discern her true emotions in the matter.

Akhlut's fury seemed to simmer, though whether it was upon realizing she was right (which she preferred to think, being quintessentially self-entitled) or whether it was the realization that he had lost her loyalty, she was uncertain. The morphing of his features was lost upon her; never had she been particularly observant of others, and such was the case now. Finally, he gave something resembling an admission of guilt, along with a reference to her loyalty first and foremost to the pack... But he still refused to give the answer desired, so despite what was undoubtedly a bout of generosity on his part, she refused him still.

"I will not be here to say anything," she said, with a chill in her words. She would scream I told you so from afar, maybe, but he could count on never hearing it in the cup of his ears where she might have longed to whisper it. In this, Jinx was undeniably disloyal. He offered to allow her to remain, to speak of it another time or to reconcile one day, but those few words she had spoken plainly said that she would not see that day come. Not upon these shores.

"My shaman has returned to me," she said suddenly, with such a fervor that it seemed utterly out of place in the conversation. "He will show me where to find the strength I do not see in you." To be fair to Akhlut, the Alpha had pledged to improve, to be better... Maybe he would and maybe he wouldn't. Jinx was no more tied to her half brother than to the mother he came from... Neither wolf an inspiration to her, neither hers to hold as idol. Jinx would from that point on find little inspiration in any but her shaman and her deranged friend, Clarice... She would go to Lethe as Lecter had, and though she could not trust the old Herbalist any more than she now trusted Akhlut to improve (for Jinx was judgemental at best), she trusted her shaman.

So that would then mark her departure from the Ridge, likely for good; she did not have the heart to cause disorder enough to regain order, and she knew in some deep, dark, vulnerable part of her that he was right; she would splinter them if she took over. Neither would she bow to him; so with a final defiant look that said in silence all she had said in words twice over, she parted from him.