Silverlight Terrace Then there's me, I'm seventeen

Farstep's unease was echoed by his companion-of-the-moment, who stepped forth with much more bravado than he could ever have exhibited. Yet it was free of arrogance in a way—maybe not wholly free of it, but less obvious about it than the pack wolf's own display—and further justified the wolf's respectability in Farstep's eyes. Perhaps if Dash had not been so intent on showing his own display to a pair of lone wolves who showed no signs of threatening the boundaries of his pack, he too would have been respectable; as it stood, Farstep now knew which pack he should avoid, and which wolf he would sooner follow.

Dash's growl was met with a loud warning snarl of Farstep's own. The drifter would never engage in any display of aggression on his own, but with Taggarik showing similar signs of affront, the male's courage was bolstered. His neck stretched so that his head raised as well, though it fell short of Taggarik's own both because Farstep was the smaller and because he willed it to be so, but there was clear defiance there now. His ears pressed upward into a sign of self-assurance, now that he was certain his fellow lone wolf felt similarly, and his tail even gave a few tense snaps at his hindquarters.

It was a simple stand off, really. Dash would relent or he would not, and the behaviour of the lone wolves would follow his.