Redtail Rise Shelter

Woops, I spent my whole day today thinking it was the 9th and it's not. >____> Round two ends July 14!

The first wolf to arrive was Gunnar, looking worse for wear but healthy enough. She flashed her viking friend a toothy grin and then asked with some concern, "are you feeling better?" She'd assumed his disappearances of late were due to a summer cold, but she had no idea the extent of his pain. Before she could ask anything else, Reek arrived and came to stand beside her. She smiled warmly at him and greeted him with a wave of her stubby tail. The same gentle, barely perceptible flutter of who-knows-what passed through her tummy, but she hardly noticed.

Next came Arion, whom the alpha fixed with a concerned stare for a moment or two. She hadn't seen much of the Greek warrior since her intervention with him and Reek, but she could tell there was a difference. He wasn't as lost looking as he had been that day. Satisfied with this and knowing Reek would tell her if Arion started using again, the alpha grinned at him as well. She wanted to ask how he was holding up, but decided it would be better for a one-on-one than here in front of everyone.

Wynter came next, quiet and tense. No doubt she was still suffering the effects of having left, however temporarily. It tugged at Saena's heart to see her friend's head hanging, and so she stepped forward to offer Wynter an encouraging nudge as she passed by, but other than that, Saena didn't press the issue. Wynter would come around in her own time, the alpha believed.

The last to come was Oliver. She was surprised by this, having taken the aspiring healer to be one of the more prompt members of the pack, but then with a jolt she remembered his face when they'd gone after Sebastian. She had no way of really knowing whether that was the reason for his being the last to arrive or not, but Saena decided it probably was. She searched his face for clues, but found nothing in his stony visage.

She breathed in deeply through her nose, then addressed the pack with a, "hey everyone. We gotta talk." She passed her gaze over each of the gathered wolves, then said, "for anyone who wasn't present to learn of it, we've found out what happened to Junior. Some of you didn't know her—she was my sister, a founding member of our pack. A warrior and an outrider." An asset, in other words. Saena would've chosen her for beta female if OJ had accepted, but her flighty sibling hadn't. "She went to Redhawk Caldera of her own accord, behind our backs, and attacked one of the youths there. She was murdered for it."

She let that hang in the air for a moment, then said, "while she probably deserved it for what she tried to do, Junior was one of us. She was family. That is why Redhawk Caldera is an enemy of the Rise, ignoring the attacks on Reek and myself." Breathe in, breathe out. "Some of you saw that firsthand. We chased one of their wolves out of the north." Sebastian was probably dead, but she didn't say that. "For those who knew Junior and hurt for her, I hope this has helped you cope. For those who are newer to our pack, I'm sorry you had to see that side of us out of context.

The wolf we chased away was not on pack territory. That was the first—and last—time we go out of our way to chase a Redhawk wolf out of neutral territory that isn't directly adjacent to us." She didn't think Reek or Arion would approve of this decision, but Saena meant it only as a pack decision. If an individual encountered someone anywhere in the wilds and wanted to beat the shit out of them, well, that was up to them. "The land around us and our home, however, we protect. I hope this puts some of you at ease. The north should be safe enough if we defend our own area from them.

But now they, and probably everyone, knows we're here to stay. Even if we plan to keep to ourselves from now on, if we want to persist here for years, we need to know the surrounding area inside and out. We need to know what grows there, what prey lives there, how we can use those areas if we absolutely need to. So I have a proposal." Here she stood straighter and told them, "go out into the wilds around our home. Explore them. Get to know them, and bring that information back to us. Whenever you're out there, remember that we are not to hunt north of our  northernmost borders as part of an agreement with the Nova Peak pack, but exploring there is perfectly fine." She flicked her ears, then finished with, "whoever does the most exploring and cataloguing of the areas around us by the end of summer may just find themselves leading this pack alongside Reek and myself for their contribution to our cause." As a beta, of course... after all, no one ever told Saena that there couldn't be two betas of the same sex. By then, she hoped to promote Reek, since she had no intention of taking a mate and promoting them to alpha simply for being her mate... not like Peregrine did with Fox. Whoever Saena eventually took as a mate, they were unlikely to ever deserve the alpha position more than her closest friend did.

Here she stopped and let those words sink in, with the open invitation via her body language for questions if the pack had them. If Reek had any input, as always, her beta was welcome to voice it, which she indicated to him with a friendly nudge to his cheek.