Duck Lake gold slugs

He rolled on his belly to face her. Reggie stared at his blue nose. She was curious about it, though not enough to ask. In response to his question, she barely bit back a snort. From the Khal whose name she no longer recalled to the majority of the wolves in Phoenix Maplewood, she had yet to meet a truly kind wolf. Even Reek had lied, which was pretty nasty in her book.

"Everyone," she said simply. Her ears splayed and she corrected herself. "All the wolves." Her mother, Papref and of course Sart had never done wrong by her. Hell, even the male coyote (Devil) hadn't trespassed against her in any way. It was just the wolves. "They treat me like..." Well, they treated her like she was a lesser being, a slave. And for the longest time, she had believed it was her place.

But Regipre was really starting to question that, even as her distrust in wolf-kind grew day by day. "Trash," she eventually said, once more unaware that she had spoken in a foreign language. It was the best term she could come up with to describe how the wolves seemed to view her, at least until another occurred to her: "Vermin."

She paused for a long time, almost ponderously, before saying, "I am not trash. I am not vermin. I am a gift." Originally, she had been a gift from her mother to their Khal. But none of that applied anymore. And she certainly wasn't a gift for Reek or any of the Phoenix Maplewood wolves. No, she was just a gift of the natural world now, a wild creature, an autonomous entity slowly becoming aware that she had worth.