Ankyra Sound sheepskin

Vigilante— making irritably slow progress and without any cheer— dragged his feet north into the thickening saltine air. A deep and tumbling mist preceded him, absorbing sweet sunbeams and turning them flaccid grey as it went. The fog was indomitable; persisting despite the high winds that swept through like a stern broom. The haunter's field of vision fell into obscurity, but his other senses marched him faithfully towards the sea. He remembered his intention (to draw inspiration from the invulnerable ocean) and he let it be the only thing leading him forward besides the occasional hunger pang.

He thought today might be the day, as the outline of a coastal weald began to materialize ahead of him. Through these woods, I'll find the sea, he surmised, a moment before suddenly grinding to a halt. Before him was the clear and present border of a diligent, well-partied pack. The wolf backtracked carefully, the boughs ahead morphing once more into a conglomerate silhouette as he distanced himself from the claim.

After a brief pause during which he chose to randomly head back west instead of east, Vigilante began to hunt plainly for a way around this present obstacle.

Since his injured body had washed ashore and he had been returned to Grimnismal, the ghost had done his best to regain some of his strength. He had forced himself to wander the borders of their pack until he could not carry the weight of his own body. It was in this that he hoped he would find his fire again. Each trek seemed to take more from him than it did to restore his spirit. Still, he was mindful to keep the pack territory marked and safely guarded. As hobbled as he was, the old man was still stubborn as a bull and would not cease his work within Grimnismal.

Making his way toward the only real entrance to the sound, Kierkegaard caught wind of an unfamiliar scent. He quickened his pace, forcing a limp to his tired limbs. As he closed the distance between himself and the entrance to their claim, he regarded the stranger with furrowed brows and a thin-lipped expression. Drawing his tail upward some, the ghostly brute pulled himself closer and snorted softly to the stranger. Not sure what his business was, Kierkegaard remained a dutiful sentry and stood as a block between the unnamed wolf and the ocean that he seemed to be searching for.

“What do you want?”

Vigilante hadn't been scouring long when he was accosted. A jagged titan with a hitch in his step came near. The ghostly warden threatened him mostly with his staggering presence, but if Vigilante felt a daub of fear on him, it was impossible to tell. He hid whatever he felt in that moment well behind a cool, unaffected expression. Bodily, he regarded the packwolf respectfully: he assumed a non-threatening stance, and forwent any defensive posturing. He was not afraid.

In fact, he was allured. This was a wolf he would have liked to have met in his prime. A wolf he would have liked to have run with; to have called his fearsome brother. But this haggard guardian's "running" days were long gone. He now seemed more of a "strong trot" fellow, and Vigilante would be the first to admit he wanted to take advantage of this. For if this was the patriarch here, then he saw the prospect of a win for himself. How easy would it be to take what power this male had? To become comforter to his daughters and granddaughters when he "suddenly and mysteriously" died? Vigilante felt a little giddy and forgot about the sea.

"A home," he told the fierce buffer flatly. "A reason besides myself to use my teeth."

The dim stranger turned to face him with faded yellow eyes. The ghost regarded him with a hollow expression. He was neither unimpressed or dazzled by the shape of the other male. His molten stare lingered on the darker wolf’s frame before latching to his face with a frown. The response was also not impressive to the ghost, even in the slightest. He did nothing to hide this from his face. One ear swiveled atop his crown and his brows furrowed slightly.

“And? There’s chance for home in at least ten other packs in the wilds. Give me a real reason,” the old brute stated in a prickly baritone. Really, he was just testing his luck with the male. Wylla would have needed to be present for a real acceptance, anyway. Kierkegaard did not care; he knew that she did not seem to be fond of wolves who were unable to dwell with the Grimnismal brood. The ghost was merely testing this stranger.

And? Though not expecting the situation to go easily—for how often was it that a familial pack took in a complete stranger?—he was put off by the question. As for the "ten other packs," he could neither confirm or deny the veracity of that statement. He only knew of one other pack in the mountains, and that was not where his interests lie at that moment.

Vigilante's dour expression seemed to deepen. "Location. Preference. Random choice," he listed off some things, trying the words like he was solving some sort of annoying puzzle. "I would also rid myself of a  need to try anywhere else, if you let me prove I can belong here. How many reasons is it do you need exactly?" He spoke tartly, but his body remained attentively lank. The last thing he wanted was to seem like a threat... Right? "Instead of putting me to task, you'd rather rebuke my bid to serve, and influence me to try my luck with a neighbor— a competitor?" The dark wolf scoffed. Some loyalist.

But, maybe they were already strong enough in their ranks without any new additions. Maybe it didn't matter to them if one of the other ten packs around here got another able body to their schemes. In that case, maybe Vigilante was losing interest. Or maybe he craved that would-be power, hidden in the coastal grotto, and he would double down on trying to obtain it. It was difficult to tell by his deadened expression towards which side of the fence he was leaning.

As the unnamed male provided a more detailed reasoning behind his choice in pack, Kierkegaard’s expression fell further. Though the drab younger creature held his posture, the ghost could hear the sharp tones that were used, and he was still vastly unimpressed with the other male. The gleam of his stare did not fade from the other’s face. The hair along his neck and shoulders rose with displeasure at the comments made and he took a step forward, feeling the ache in his limbs. His dark lips peeled over his canines and he snorted. Both of his ears splayed atop his crown, but he did not show that he felt any weakness despite the injuries that adorned his ragged figure. He had fought under far worse circumstances; the insolent tongue of the youth would never be a reason for the old man to let his guard fall.

At the boy’s last comment, the old mercenary snickered and shook his head in a mocking nature. “I don’t know you, boy,” he snapped in response. “I don’t have any reason to put you to work, or to put even a fraction of faith in you. You haven’t given me a reason to.” Drawing his tongue across the whiskers of his muzzle, the ghost drew his skull upward and regarded the other wolf with a cold glint in his eye. The ghost thought to call Wylla, but he wasn’t sure she would be impressed with the greasy little figure. He didn’t want to be the one to present him with what he’d offered so far.

While being called boy might've triggered a younger Vigilante, these days he saw the mild insult for what it truly was: a sliver of insecurity. An aging wolf peering into the face of a would-be usurper. Something not lost on the male, and something that he instinctively wanted to take advantage of. Disregarding the male's posturing and flash of buttered teeth, the loner responded by taking a seat. He wasn't intimidated by the ghostly kraken—he was confident he could outpace any stiff-legged move the beast made for him—but he seemed ready for retaliation anyway; despite his newly prone position.

"Obviously you don't know me. Isn't that the point of this?" the menace sniffed; "and I've certainly given you reason, but if you were too abashed to give me the chance I asked for, then that was all you had to say." His tail curled at his feet, flicking thoughtfully as he watched the geriatric guard with great care. He waited to see if he would be chased off, as he assumed, or if the brute would see any worth in him at all and get to know him, as he thought was the point of this process.

Wylla's just watching for right now. They would be able to smell but not see her.

She returned from the cape bloodied, bruised and exhausted. She favoured her left forelimb with a limp and her face was caked in dried blood from the gouges in her cheek, which still wept even now. Aches and pains wracked her every step and she wanted nothing more than retire to the grotto and sleep it off, but she was reminded as soon as she passed the borders that someone was still in estrus, and she was further reminded that the grotto was an unsavoury place with the heavily pregnant Caiaphas denning there.

Lycaon's scent was heavy in the bay as well, tempering her from going after whoever was stinking up her home now. Instead, she was suddenly inflamed with the desire to confront the obvious source of the witch's condition—Wylla was rather done with being ignored and undermined as the authority of the strand. They owed her respect, damn it, or so she haughtily told herself. It was too little, too late now, but she nevertheless sought out Kierkegaard with every intention of reminding him that he was the lowest of the low in her ranks and would have nothing to do with his illicit, unsanctioned children on her watch if he wished for them to survive. So it was that she followed his scent up into the trees.

He wasn't hard to find—he smelled faintly still of injury and pain, and the musty smell of old age as well—but Wylla paused in the shadow of the tree when another voice, young and arrogant and just begging for an ass kicking, sounded. Had it been Lycaon or Ingram on border duty, her injuries would not have stopped Wylla from planting her teeth into the face of the offending lone wolf, for she sought with a fury to remind everyone just who was in charge here. Since it was Kierkegaard, however, and she had every reason to suspect his motives and hope the two men would take one another out and spare her the effort, not to mention said injuries, she hunkered down to watch for a time.

As cocky as he was, Vigilante was not all-knowing, and his mental picture had fallen entirely short of Kierkegaard’s true thought process. Aged as he was, he was never frightened of youth for their potential, but the lack of it. This male was setting a stunning example regarding lack of potential. So far that the ghost nearly laughed in response to the flurry of verbose mistakes he continued to make. What the stranger did not know is that Kierkegaard did not care for his rank or the idea that another might take it from him. He cared only that his mate was within the pack with a swell of pups in her belly, and she would soon deliver them to the world. It was his family that he protected so fiercely at the edges of the sound, and it would be them that he would die for, if that time came.

Without warning, the ragged hound lunged to snap his fangs over the other’s muzzle and rake against him with his teeth. He may have been aged and stiff-legged, but Kierkegaard had seen far more battles than the whelp had, or possibly ever could. He was sure with his aim and drive, and even the limp in his limb did little to deter him from showing the greasy pup his place.

Pulling back from the insolent brat, the molten-eyed brute regarded him with a cold stare. “You’ve given me nothing but lip. Go find a pack foolish enough to take you.” As he stated this, the scent of Wylla was brought to his nose and he wondered if she would approach him and reprimand him for turning away a potential joiner. The ghost was not certain she would want him, but he did not imagine that there was any wolf who wished for another to make assumptions on their behalf. Instead of turning away, Kierkegaard waited. He would watch the disappointment leave and he would not move until he had.

Despite his ill-conceived presumptions of the reasons behind the resident gargoyle's actions, Vigilante was to miserably find that his conclusion was still accurate. This wolf would not allow anything he could not definitively defeat, anywhere near his prize. It only made the stranger all the more eager to take it; for whatever the ghost protected so jealously was certainly worth the fight.

And still, he remained aware that harming a packmember (for whatever reason) was tantamount to treason. It made him hesitate to retaliate after spinning away unscathed from a pair of gruesome, snaggling teeth. He had been faster than anticipated, but Vigilante was no spring chicken. He was near the plateau of his prime, and he'd seen enough of the fight to be good at it. The guard's rush had brought with him a revelation of new scents and weaknesses: he was still recovering from a recent depletion, and of his sapped reserves, he seemed to be moving mostly through the use of sheer determination.

As they stood apart from one another, bristling and agitated, Vigilante was still weighing his options when the brute spat at him. "Still trying to lure me off to another pack? I decline. I like it here," he returned nastily. "You want more than lip?" he snapped, then began to pace as his desire to fight warred with his know-better. He snarled, preparing to be reckless, when the scent of another wolf hit him. He bristled defensively, inwardly furious at the need to be reined. He had no way of knowing that she would not come to her sentinel's aid, and he was not dumb enough to let himself be outnumbered.

"Damn it." He stepped backwards. "If I ever catch you alone, I'll kill you." Vigilante retreated with the ominous intention of returning.

As much as she wanted the two men to take one another out and spare her the dirty duty of confronting Kierkegaard at long last, Wylla wasn't one to abide threats to her pack mates from belligerent outsiders. Vigilante scarcely had time to breathe an ominous word before the Alpha was snarling and lunging from the trees, and as he sought to retreat from their borders, she came close enough to snap at his tail, but made no hit. She might have pursued further and pushed the point, incensed as she was, but her injuries held her back.

Once she was positive he was gone, Wylla turned back to Kierkegaard with a dark expression. "Did he hurt you?" she had to ask, because after all, he was a pack mate. Only once she was certain he was not harmed by an interloper did she slowly seat herself, wincing as all her wounds pulled taut, and gravely said, "I guess you're the reason Caiaphas is rolling around pregnant without my say-so?"

The slick-furred rodent found his tongue and Kierkegaard regarded him with the same lackluster expression that he had upon first arrival. He was not impressed that the whelp could leap from his snapping jaws; was the boy expecting him to applaud the agility behind his spindly limbs? Then, the lashing of his tongue fell against the ashen guardian and he snickered openly, spreading his dark lips to reveal aged and yellow fangs. It didn’t matter if Vigilante liked the backside of a bison’s ass, Kierkegaard would not allow him to step one foot beyond where he had stood without suffering severely. Just as the pup was rearing himself for battle, he seemed to have caught wind of Wylla. Before action could be taken, Vigilante fled from their borders with nothing more than a childish and empty vow. The mercenary watched him until he had faded from sight and then fixed his gaze on the leader of the sound.

Wylla had suffered wounds of some kind. His molten gaze roamed her figure with a hint of moderate concern and he positioned himself so that he sat lower than she, with his tail tucked close to his frame. “I could be missing three of my legs and that runt wouldn’t have touched me,” he assured her with a dismissive splaying of a single ear regarding the stranger at their borders. It was then that she mentioned Caiaphas’ state; she had not been silent about her struggles through pregnancy. Though he would never admit it, her cold snap and wicked gaze had been his primary reason for stepping out of the grotto to patrol the borders. With Wylla waiting on his answer, Kierkegaard felt it best to respond with honesty, and he offered her a respectful, “yes.” If there were ever a real reason for her state, he supposed that he would be it.

Still holding his posture well beneath her own, the ragged old hound peered at her wounds with a quiet interest before he inquired, “who did this to you?” It was not as though he was pleased with the injuries to her body. It seemed that the ghost was intent on returning the favor, if he could. While he had not found much peace in Grimnismal, the old brute admired the smaller numbers and the ideals of a sharp family to hold their ground. He did not see that he could have much in common with their young leader, but he would still have fought against those who caused her harm.

Wylla wanted to chortle at Kierkegaard's rejoinder—she knew little and less of the stoic old man, but she valued his skill as a warrior. She refrained only because she had asked him a question of a more serious nature and wanted the answer to it. She hitched her foreleg up, removing weight from it and wincing as the painful burn of relief webbed out from her injury.
If you were to ask Wylla where babies came from, she would be unable to say; there had been no sex ed in her youth. Lusca might have imparted some wisdom on her children had they been present at the time, but in her case, she had gone missing at six or seven months of age, so she'd missed out on the birds and bees discussion. All she knew was that it took a man and woman. Caiaphas was the woman, and she'd suspected Kierkegaard was the man. His confirmation was succinct, as she expected, and her expression darkened.
She more or less ignored his concern, waving it off with a murmured, "not important." It would be if she wasn't focused on something else, but she was determined to reduce Raptor, at least in her mind, to complete insignificance. She'd spent enough anger on that douche canoe to last a lifetime.
"You won't get away with it, you know," she warned him, lips drawing into a terse line. "You broke pack law. There'll be consequences." For the time being, it was said lowly, ominously, and she kept her anger to a simmer, but only because she hadn't noticed soon enough to do anything about the pregnancy.
But there would be consequences in some form. Wylla was not a leader deserving of respect, in sooth, and so she deserved what came to her; but she believed she was, and her ego was large enough now to feel personally attacked each time she was undermined by a subordinate, and that wouldn't do.

The girl dismissed his inquiry almost as soon as it had left him, so he released his curiosity and nodded his head with a solemn expression. Kierkegaard was not fond of words, so he preferred that she did not wish to discuss it. There was a portion of him troubled with the thought of another wolf having assaulted Grimnismal so closely, but he did not wish to test his luck with the sniping female. He had heard her tongue on the borders. While he had wits about him, he knew that he was no match in a verbal argument with their leader.

Wylla turned in a moment and fixed him with an expression that caused his coat to rise. She began with warning him that he would not get away with ‘it,’ and he was cast into confusion. Then, she told him that he had violated their pack law and she would make sure that he would pay for his actions. Kierkegaard could not hide the surprise that etched into the harsh lines of his face. The mercenary parted his mouth to speak but could not find the right words to fill the moment. He darted his gaze to her and then to the ground, his mind pounding in the effort to answer, but there was a bubbling of emotions within him. The old brute felt a bristle at the thought of his pups taking any of the punishment, or of his mate; he knew that if he should shoulder it all, they would be looked after.

“I will face the consequences, Wylla,” he stated in a steady voice. A frown creased his lips and the ghost looked at her, searching for what was going on behind the dark mask on her face. “But no harm will fall to the pups, or Caiaphas,” he warned. “If I am not enough, we will all leave.” The young girl may have been his leader, but he was firm in what he said. Kierkegaard would have wasted every last shred of his own strength in order to protect them.

"Caiaphas gets her own consequences, she's as much to blame as you," the Alpha insisted, lips twitching and muzzle buckling, "but I don't plan to hurt her, jeez." She was many things, but vicious? Nah. Wylla didn't really have enough incentive to do something like that, and she wasn't keen on giving Caiaphas reasons to try to take her out. She rather liked her comfy position at the top of the hierarchy, even if it came with its fair share of bullshit in the form of Chusis and Arrilles.
"I don't care if you leave instead," she said in a manner reminiscent of a dismissive hand wave as she turned for the woods and began to limp away. It was true; she didn't really care for either of their senior citizens. Them leaving would have been easier for Wylla than trying to justify letting the witch stay despite the threat from weeks earlier. Lycaon's love went only so far, after all; she was still torn on Caiaphas, evidently. "Never asked for either of you to stay here, anyway. But if you do stay, then next time that guy shows up, make sure you kill him."

Through no fault of their own, Kierkegaard did not know Wylla well enough to judge if she would harm his mate or his children. He had only ever seen her approach those on the edges of the pack or passing across the beach. They had truly had very little communication between them, so his judgement was based purely on her age and the few moments he had heard the sharp crack of her tongue against an unsuspecting victim. There was something to be admired in the way she bolstered herself with words, but he would never recognize it. Skill with a tongue was lost on the weather-worn mercenary. He had only ever found his regard to have grown in those who could match him physically. It was something that would likely never change. He would find the bottom of the ocean before he revered the wordsmith.

Wylla seemed as though she had concluded her ominous conversation with the ragged ghost. His ears swiveled atop his crown to meet her word of warning before she turned away. The young leader did not need to worry; Kierkegaard would have bled openly on the edges of the sound in order to protect the land that Caiaphas coveted. If Vigilante did return to their borders, he would be met with a healed warrior; he would be met with astounding fury.