Bearclaw Valley A life of pain is the pain of life, and you can never escape it

Since the challenge, and only after recovering his strength enough that he was not an easy target, Aventus spent a great deal of time pacing around the yawning mouth of the valley. He sat atop a flat rock near the entrance, as some feral wolf-dog long before the birth of his father had done before him, and surveyed the meadow beyond from his vantage point. He splashed urine upon the earth in great swathes, reminding everyone that he was Ursus. He was Bruin-jaw. He was leader.

As for Merrick and Astara, Aventus went out of his way to not spend long periods of time with them. He could practically taste their disappointment, and thought it was wildly unfair of them, considering the alternative was him ceding his place in the pack to his sibling who hated and disrespected him. What choice did he have? He hated her, now, too. He hoped she never returned, and if she did, he hoped she pissed all over her own belly for his forgiveness.

That was the least Avicus owed to him for attempting to humiliate him in front of everyone the way she had. He stalked up the hill toward the meadow with his scabs pulling and itching, scarred muzzle wrinkling with an errant violent thought, then shook his head as though warding off a fly. She was gone. No longer a concern of his, at least not today.

Ashlar was not one who made bold gestures. He more often could be found listening than speaking, but this was important. It was a question he would have asked Avicus, but she would likely have given no answer. And she was gone now, a fact that bothered the boy deeply. Enough to be lurking now, watching her brother and working up the courage to ask the question hounding him.

Why did you fight? He managed to get it out without a stutter, though the tone cracked at the end and betrayed his nerves. Ashlar kept his posture low as he slunk out, but there was an obvious, pained curiosity when he glanced Aventus' way. He had never spoken with this other boy before.

It was a question important enough to be asked because it was the root of what he struggled to understand here. He only hoped he could finally receive the answer he was looking for.

Aventus dropped abruptly to the ground and stretched a hind leg up to scratch behind his shoulder, scowling. He could do without the rippling ache that accompanied every strained movement he made.

Mid-scratch, a timid voice drew his attention around to a deep brown face emerging from nearby. Aventus' lips remained downturned for the duration of Ashlar's low-slung approach and question, the only indication that he'd heard anything being the minute cock of his ears in the other wolf's direction.

She challenged me, he said flatly, as if he didn't understand the question. What else did Ashlar expect him to do? Lie down and let her walk all over him? He was not Avicus' doormat, and she was not as godly as she believed herself to be.

Ashlar still didn't understand and Aventus' answer did not help. He did not wonder why the fight was answered, but he did wonder why it began in the first place. He hadn't known Avicus started it but frowned at this.

You're family. Why? His bearing never changed from downcast humility, but he did gain a slight air of agitated curiosity. Everything here was so strange and he was beginning to wonder if he would ever learn the secret to it. How could he become useful if he did not know what they needed? Wanted? Why they performed as they did? He would never know the right things to do, and was destined only to disappoint.

Avicus had always favoured brawn, while her sibling grew to favour cunning. In this initial assessment of Ashlar, Aventus felt there was a distinct lack of both. What kept this brown-furred pacifist within the bear's valley, he wondered, eyeing the man with open scrutiny.

What kind of question was that?

She betrayed family, Aventus pointed out. She sought to kill me. Ask her why. Wherever Avicus was now, Aventus imagined she wouldn't wander too far from the valley. No doubt she was biding her time out there, waiting for another opportunity to strike at him. She thought she was so much better than he, but it was Aventus standing here speaking with Ashlar and not her.

But no amount of victory could give Aventus any insight into his sister's state of mind. She wanted to kill him because she thought he was weak, and (he believed wholeheartedly) she wished that he had died at Nyra's hand. That was the notion he subscribed to, but as for her true reasons, only Avicus knew those.

He said it wasn't his choice, but he had answered the call. He'd fought her back, Ashlar had seen it. There was a reason for that. She betrayed family. He wished he could ask her, but she'd left. Ashlar was rocked again by the loss in that; she'd been his only friend here, and since he'd felt like less and less.

Ashlar couldn't leave until he understood what he needed to. He couldn't explain it, but something in Ursus tugged at spaces in him he did not know but needed to. No matter how badly they saw him, he would become something to them. He needed to.

And now, an impulsive idea came to him. He could feel the familiar anxiety curling up and encouraging him to let the words die, but he forced them out before he could be prevented. Then fight me. If words couldn't explain it, then maybe he needed to see it. And maybe an answered challenge was the only way to do so. His voice was bold, but it barely made up for the slight tremble in his legs as he stood ready.

Aventus gathered, in that instant, that Ashlar knew nothing of what it was to live as a pack wolf. Family or not, there existed a hierarchy among their kind, and Avicus sought to disrupt that, not by merit, but by force. He had answered in kind and ended her foolish crusade. The hierarchy shifted with the passing days and the moods of its wolves, but at the end of the day, there were leaders and there were subordinates, and one must respect the other. Ashlar must not know much of what it was to be wolf if he had to question why a leader would answer the challenge of a subordinate with flashing teeth.

He was no pushover.

Ashlar's voice cut sharper when the boy demanded that he fight, and the change in Aventus was severe and instantaneous. He was still gravely injured from his sister's teeth, and this ratwolf wanted to fight him? He swept his tail into the sky, squared his shoulders, let his hackles rise in full ridges, and rounded on Ashlar with his lips skimmed perilously back over his teeth, snarling full-bodied as he thrust his muzzle into the other wolf's space, breath hot and rancid and threatening violence as he boomed, no.

Avicus picked the fight. Avicus lost. Aventus deserved his place and he did not need to prove it to the woolheaded Starbone. How difficult was this to understand? He was Bruin-jaw. He had the right of dominance within the valley and he meant to exert it now. No fight. No proof of worth. Only the sheer will of one wolf seeking to suppress the other with his display alone, to remind Ashlar of his place.

Any of the force he'd summoned to ask for the fight disappated the instant Aventus responded with a flash of teeth. Ashlar lowered his gaze again and dropped immediately, though now he had another new development to nurse.

They would not explain it and they wouldn't show him. There was an overwhelming frustration beginning to pound on the door in his mind, fed by the disconnect between what they said and what it meant.

She'd attacked him because she wanted to prove something, but Ashlar couldn't understand what. He'd fought back because he'd needed to, but Ashlar couldn't understand why. He'd never been a part of a pack where challenges reigned, nor had rank ever crossed his mind as something to aspire to. So to him, defending a position would never seem more reasonable than refusing to harm his family. Why had Aventus not refused?

Maybe if he'd fought he'd have seen clearer, but the other man didn't think the lesson was worthwhile. Probably because he felt, as Merrick did, Ashlar had already proven himself useless. But they were wrong, and somehow Ashlar would show them. He would prove it.

Yet he could not even fight this order.

Just fight him. A part of him urged this, but it wasn't strong enough. So he glowered at the ground instead, resentment weighing on his chest.

While Aventus was completely unaware of Ashlar's inner turmoil, he understood on some level that the other wolf was frustrated by the lack of answers. As a result, he relaxed his posture the moment Ashlar showed proper deference and, apart from a brief flash of his tongue across his teeth, appeared as unruffled as if nothing ever happened. And for a long while, he thought of how better to phrase it.

I earned my place, he said at last, his voice a coarser rumble than before. A gentle reminder that he wasn't exactly in the best of moods, either. Any other day might have seen him treating Ashlar with more tolerance, but he was sore and itchy and still feeling slighted by his sister's challenge. Ashlar's came at a poor time and in poor taste, he felt.

She wants to take it. Not earn it for herself, but steal it. I will not allow that. I either fight, or let her take what she does not deserve. His silver eyes glinted when he glanced at Ashlar again. Perhaps the man didn't even want to hear him out now. It didn't matter. Aventus believed he was in the right, and he didn't need anyone else's affirmation. I did not want to fight, but I earned my place and will not let her take it.

Did that make more sense than his clipped responses from earlier? He hoped it did, but while he was certainly more loquacious than his sibling, he was still not the best at putting words to his feelings and beliefs.

im good to wrap this! Since it's an oldie and I've been slow on him <3

Ashlar heard the strain in the other man's voice and he felt himself instinctually cave, folding before it with no further protest. The strange anger persisted but it was not enough to overcome a lifetime of compassionate passivity. The boy was incapable of turning himself into such an inconvenience.

So it was not his decision then, but Avicus'. If Ashlar had wanted answers he would have needed to ask his friend, but she was gone now. If it was like others who had gone as well, he would never see his answers, for friends who left rarely returned.

She'd done so once, but for perhaps the first time, he could summon no hope that it would happen again.

Okay. He said it quietly. Then his ears splayed as suddenly, he was embarrassed for the way he'd confronted only moments ago. His belly dropped until it met the ground. Sorry. Thanks. Meekly, he began to seek a way to leave, sensing he'd bordered a line he failed to understand in the moment. All of the brief urge to fight left him, and in its absence nothing but the desire to do no more harm remained.

Whether Ashlar understood or not, Aventus couldn't glean it from his response. He watched the man go, watched the silvery slash of fur on his back rippling with his retreat, and wondered how long Ashlar would last in Ursus without Avicus to vouch for him.

Aventus didn't see whatever it was that Avicus saw in Ashlar, but there was time to turn that around. He resolved that when he was healed, he would test the worth of the Starbone and find where it was that Ashlar fit in Ursus, if he fit at all.