Lake Rodney the story of small pox and barf face

"And should I keep calling you Barf face, or do you have a real name too?" asked Charon, his eyes dancing. He felt put down by her comment about him being a first-class bear biter, but he swallowed down the resentment it made him feel, because he didn't want to argue with her. When she said that he was a little asshole when they'd last met, he snippily said, "Well, I'm Alpha of the largest mountain in the area now, so, y'know." Not that there was much to know from that — wasn't like assholes couldn't be Alphas — but whatever. He couldn't think of any better retorts in the moment. It was like seeing your high school sweetheart happily married at your reunion and telling them about how successful your career was.

Anyway, he wondered if she intended to help at all, since so far she mostly seemed to be mocking him. Charon had never liked being mocked, as much as an adult as he had as a child. "I don't want anyone in my pack to die, least of all Dhole," he said snarkily, trying to use Dhole to manipulate her into helping, even though he was sincerely beginning to doubt if she knew anything about fighting bears at all, or if that, too, had been a laughable joke. "So it'd be nice if you'd help out, you know... If you even know anything about battling bears like you pretended to." He said this casually, hoping to manipulate her into feeling offended at his apparent lack of trust in her abilities. If she was any good, he hoped this was the way to draw her out into helping.