Swiftcurrent Creek you whole lotta crazy

She could have wandered like that forever, possibly even out of the territory and on to greener pastures elsewhere, had Ira's voice not called to her from behind. Part of her sanity had locked temporarily into her mind, seeking reprieve from the crushing guilt and grief for her unborn children. She rounded on the approaching adolescent, her dull eyes finding his and for a moment not recognizing him. She saw only a young wolf, his name fleeting in her memory. Why should he live, she seethed, why should he live while mine die, why should he see where mine are blind, why should he hear, why should he live...

For a frightening moment, the Gamma teetered on the edge of insanity, toying with the temptation to grab that child and shake him until he was as limp as her children. She took a step toward him, yearning to bare her teeth and scare him, but then paused and fished her shattered rationality back into existence. Ira, she remembered, miiiine.

He was the closest she would ever have to a son, even though she didn't view him as one. Even though she didn't love him, something had been shaken in her when her litter aborted itself, and now she beheld him as something he had never been. Hers.

If he hadn't spoken so frankly and asked a direct question, she might have swept forth to pull him into the curl of her arms and rise upon his back, to claim him in some unorthodox manner as hers, and guard him from the world. It would have been a strange and unwelcome sight, but Jinx would have likened it to Lecter's possession of her, and mounted Ira not by some perverted sexual drive and gender confusion, but out of sheer possessiveness. Myyyy princeling she would have crooned, securing herself the title of creepy lady for good. Instead, she remained where she was, mulling over his question as her mind enveloped him as the culmination of her life's work up to this point, even though he wasn't hers in reality.

"Cougar," she said, and in that moment the grief-stricken Jinx giggled. It was a joyless giggle, one suggesting she had lost her grip on the world (albeit temporarily), but it grew into an uncontrolled cackle. "The idiots attacked a cougar," she laughed, expecting Ira to share in these hysterics with her, as if it was hilarious. She sobered in an instant, however, and fixed her piercing gaze on him to project her seriousness forward. "Never confront a cougar. It will leave you alone, yesss... But if you attack it, it will take all you consider important with it."