Phoenix Maplewood stitches

Maybe @Saena can go aggro-crag on Reggie? :P

The young coyote skulked along a narrow footpath that cut through the center of the woods. It had been a week since the attack and her wounds were healing quite well. But now she had some sort of flea infestation. She couldn't be sure if they were related somehow (perhaps the blood had attracted them?) but never in her life had Regipre felt so itchy. At every opportunity, she rubbed herself against tree trunks and shrubs. Even as she walked, she nipped and nibbled at particularly bothersome hot spots.

Reggie considered calling Auntie and asking if she knew of a way to get rid of the fleas, yet she had a bad feeling it would involve another dunking in the stream. She would do anything to avoid that, even if it meant putting up with having little bugs crawling around in her fur. The pup snorted and shook her head, smashing her cheek against the base of a maple and rubbing at an itchy spot near her right ear before moving on along the trail.

Saena swaggered through the forest, her belly full from the pronghorn the pack had felled that morning. It was good to have a hearty meal and even better to have a crisp, cool forest to burn it off in. Her first instinct was to head to the borders, but the full alpha was feeling a little too bloated to do any chasing should she encounter anyone. She could leave patrolling to someone else for once.

Her first thought was Arion, but the male had been around less and less. More likely it would be Reek tending the borders for a time, if not Citali, who was proving to be one of the most dutiful wolves in the pack. Nochtli was similarly motivated, but seemed to prefer travel. As Saena mused over who might pick up her slack, a flash of tan drew her attention and she stopped in the middle of a deer path with gaze fixed on one of the two resident pests.

Regipre and Sart had done nothing to earn Saena's anger, yet she felt it justified and righteous. She stood rigid, watching the young coyote for any sign of displeasing behaviour, though she was feeling rather trigger happy. When Regipre rubbed her cheek against a tree, despite it being a completely innocent thing to do, Saena shot forward and aimed to nip roughly at her like she would a misbehaving subordinate wolf. Her teeth weren't quite as gentle as they might've been had Reggie been a wolf and not vermin. No blood, but possibly a nice bruise if she did manage to connect.

The constant itching preoccupied Regipre so completely that she didn't even notice the Alpha female's approach. If she had, she would have made herself scarce by moving off the trail and melting into the surrounding brush. Instead, she found herself suddenly fielding an attack from her left which came with no warning or preamble. Saena struck the pup right behind her left shoulder blade, earning a single shrill yip that was more surprise than pain.

Instantly, the youngster flattened herself, her thin tail curling between her legs and her large ears pressing forward submissively. She made no other sound aside from her initial startled yelp. Reggie blinked rapidly, wondering at the motive for the attack. Perhaps there was none, besides Saena's obvious distaste for coyotes. She didn't know if groveling would satisfy the Alpha female. She would wait and see. If not, Regipre would make a run for it.

Maybe she was merely testing the youngster. Even Saena didn't know what was going through her head when she successfully bowled the small coyote puppy over. It was a good sensation. She was rarely ever this callous and rough with fellow wolves, but Regipre was lesser. She was insignificant. That made her a good target for all of Saena's aggression and frustration. The pack lacked an omega, but maybe the coyote pups could jointly serve that purpose, and for the first time Saena wondered if it wasn't such a bad thing they were here.

She didn't think any further on it. She came to stand imperiously over the young coyote, her face pinched with displeasure. It was unlikely the alpha female would ever accept the coyotes and liking them seemed an impossibility, but now she tolerated this one. She didn't dispatch her like she would have a week ago. Secretly, Saena feared Reek's wrath if she did anything as rash as killing his pet. She fancied herself the strong of the two alphas, but that didn't mean she wanted to invite his ire.

"Name," Saena snapped in Regipre's face, crowding close and removing any personal bubbles. Had she known about the coyote's current affliction, she would've been much further back. Sadly the alpha didn't have microscopic vision, and it wouldn't be until days later that she would realize she shouldn't have got so close to the disgusting little creature.

Saena seemed implacable. Reggie considered showing her belly to appease the inexplicably angry she-wolf, though fear stayed her. If she exposed her underside to the wolf, what would stop her from tearing Regipre open with her teeth? The pup wanted to show submission, yet she didn't want to lose her life.

The Alpha female sniped at her, demanding a name. "Reggie," she said both quickly and quietly. She wished she could ask Saena why she hated her so much or what she could do to make the situation better. But the whelp held her tongue, breathing shallowly and fighting the urge to scratch as she waited to see what the she-wolf would say or do next.

Sorry I left this one so long. I've been encountering serious mind blocks deciding how Saena would proceed here but I think I'm gonna just wing it.

The she-wolf narrowed here eyes on the coyote cub as she immediately replied with a name. Reggie. "Isn't that a boy's name?" she asked, momentarily sidetracked from her current mission to scare the ever-living shit out of the pup. Not that Saena had anything against oddball names, given that her brother's name was oddly feminine, but because it was Regipre and not a wolf, she felt it was more appropriate to make comments about it. In (very far off) hindsight she might be ashamed of herself for discriminating, but it was only natural, after all.

"Where'd you come from?" she wondered in a tone that sharply suggested Regipre answer the question. The alpha female continued to loom, not because she planned to kill Reggie (she wanted to but it wasn't worth pissing Reek off) but because she wanted to make it very, very clear who was in charge. Reek might've brought them here but it was through Saena's tolerance that they remained, or so the yearling liked to tell herself.

Whether or not what Saena told herself was true, she intended to make Reggie believe the situation was wholly in Saena's control, not hers.

No worries!

The pup didn't know what to say. She didn't know there was such a thing as boy's names and girl's names. She doubted Saena wanted any kind of answer anyway. So Reggie pressed her lips together and remained silent, still fighting that rising urge to scratch at her itchy hide.

Perhaps because the pup hadn't answered Saena's rhetorical question, the next one sounded quite sharp. Regipre opened her mouth to obediently answer but then closed it again. She didn't know the name of her birthplace. Mentally, she scrambled before saying, "A place with long grass. There were wolves there but they went away. Then it was only mother, Sart, Papref and me. Then Reek came and took us away."

That was the truth, the whole truth (or as much as she could remember) and nothing but the truth. By now, Reggie sensed that no answer would truly placate the irate Alpha female. She braced herself for more blows, verbal or otherwise, and hoped for this confrontation to be over soon.

Regipre answered. A place with long grass. Such a place existed just next door in Dawnlark Plains, so Saena assumed that's where Regipre was from. That there had been wolves there recently was unsettling news, and immediately it grabbed Saena's interest. For the moment at least, Regipre had proven to be useful, and so the alpha female took a step back and dropped some of her imperial sternness.

"Who were they?" Saena asked, "how long ago did they leave?" How did we not notice them was her most pressing question, but it was one the young coyote couldn't supply an answer to. Regipre could possibly answer the others, though, so for the moment Saena forgot about her aggression toward the poor young thing and focused on what information she could leech out of her instead of scaring the crap out of her.

Some of the Alpha's sternness vanished, replaced with candid curiosity. Regipre almost gave a sigh of relief, yet she swallowed it. Who knew when Saena might lash out again? In the meantime, the pup would do her best to stave off the possibility by answering her questions. She still hoped the she-wolf would get bored and dismiss her sooner than later.

"I don't remember their names," she admitted, "but the leader was the Khal." She dimly remembered the slave master, though she hadn't known any of the other wolves. They had left before Regipre was old enough to meet them. "They left when I was very little, before Reek brought us here."

She hoped her answers sufficed. Truthfully, her days living on the plains were fuzzy at best. She hadn't really gotten to see or do much there, considering her age. But Saena seemed most concerned about their departure, so hopefully the Alpha would be satisfied knowing they were long gone.

She paced the narrow space between two maple trees, scarcely three feet from Regipre, but it was evident she had no intent of attacking now. She might think about it later, but right now, Saena's mind was occupied with the thought of nearby wolves. Not many made their north their home. Since Nova Peak and Redtail Rise both burned, the taiga was devoid of wolfish life, save for them in their forest. Perhaps someone had moved in and she hadn't noticed. She made a mental note to take a trip across the taiga sooner rather than later.

"Weird title," she murmured. Saena was woefully unfamiliar with other cultures and the names of their leaders, so khal was a strange and foreign word to her, a tongue so far removed from her own that she could only guess as to its true meaning. "What is a khal?" she wondered aloud, dissociating it from the concept of leadership. Perhaps it was something else. Something religious? Maybe Regipre didn't know, but the alpha's indigo eyes roved questioningly over the coyote's face nonetheless.

The she-wolf began to pace and Reggie watched her. The back-and-forth movement made her tense for reasons she could not explain. She had just decided to look at her feet instead when the Alpha female asked another question. The pup's ears fell back slightly and she licked her lips as she tried to think of the correct answer.

"Khal, like... father. No, like master," she corrected herself, feeling an unpleasant flush and wondering if Saena would rebuke her for the mistake. "Like you, like Reek." An Alpha, in other words, though that term didn't occur to her, since it wasn't one with which she happened to be intimately familiar.

"Master?" she mimicked with an expression of confusion unfurling. She'd never thought of herself as a master of anything, but with the thought planted, it did make sense. It was an accurate enough description. She kind of liked it. Master. But it held more weight than that, in a way, and still begged the question of how some coyote cubs had ended up in a pack of wolves. They must've been involved, or Regipre wouldn't have called the khal her master, would she?

"Why were you there?" she asked next, turning a critical eye on the coyote cub as she seated herself. Reggie was a fount of information, that much was for sure. Perhaps the value of these coyote cubs was higher than she'd first imagined. She would have to ask Reek his plans for them, if she could ever get past her anger with him for bringing them here. "Didn't the Khal try to eat you?"

Fortunately, the she-wolf did not berate her for the mistake. She had yet more questions for Regipre. The first one momentarily stumped her and her heart pounded uncomfortably as she mentally scrambled for a response. Somehow, her demeanor remained cool, giving away none of her internal anxiety.

"I was there because of my mother," Reggie said honestly. "We were zafra." Unaware that the word was Dothoran, she didn't explain further. "No," she added simply. The Khal had certainly treated the coyotes like a lesser class, yet he hadn't been particularly unpleasant, as far as she could remember (which wasn't far at all). She would have remembered if he had tried to eat them and she knew nothing of her newborn siblings' fate at his jaws.

"What the fuck's a zuhfruh?" she asked aloud, though she didn't really expect the coyote to answer her this time. The little cretin was obviously a primitive beast with a primitive language. This was the first she'd heard of that tongue and, if she had anything to say about it, the last. She wouldn't have these coyotes chattering away about her in some foreign tongue. If ever she caught them at it, the lead female would skin them head to toe. Maybe then she'd bed down on their pelts, see if Reek was ever any the wiser...

Startled by these violent thoughts, which were uncharacteristic, Saena shook her head and said, "nevermind. Go on then." With a sharp jab of her snout toward the trees, she dismissed the young coyote so that both of them could go do more important things. Not that coyotes had important things to do as far as Saena knew, but she certainly did. Alphas weren't alphas for no reason.

Reggie's ears splayed slightly at Saena's sharply voiced question. Again, she mentally scrambled for a response. Did she know another word for a zafra? But the Alpha female's patience abruptly gave out and she dismissed the young coyote sans an answer.

She didn't need to be told twice. Pressing herself flat to the ground, Reggie skulked away. She remained crouched for a hundred yards before finally straightening up and shaking out her tawny coat. Her skin crawled and momentarily she attributed it to the nerve-wracking confrontation.

But, no, it was the fleas. Suddenly remembering them, she began to furiously nip and nibble at her hide. She had wanted to consult with Catali but after her encounter with Saena, Regipre couldn't bear the idea of another wolf encounter. She would just have to deal with the fleas on her own.