Porcupine Ridge Seasong saints

She could hear Taggarik thundering behind her, having to encompass his longer stride when attempting to keep pace with the fleet sea wolf. She turned her face out over the stream, searching for the thinnest opportunity to jump across, but the alpha on her right clarified his earlier statement, and it threw Diane completely out of her fleeing mood. The girl— well, adult now— skidded to a halt, her feet digging into the loamy soil on the bank as she swung her face towards the dark male. If a wolf could ever look so incredibly surprised, it was Diane.

"Jhala's... gone?" she echoed, thinking back to the last time she had seen her; the two of them had played by The Hole, an unexpectedly light-hearted moment for the troubled she-wolf. Jhala wouldn't have just left, so something had to have happened to her. She wanted to ask, but her thoughts had turned to what Taggarik had further stated, and after a moment it connected to what he had been saying before. "You want me to take her place?" she squeaked, a task that suddenly seemed lightyears beyond her— too big a concept to draw her mind around.

Diane reeled. There was joy and excitement, a great deal of it, but it couldn't surmount the fear she had for being a position that had power and genuine responsibility. What if she failed, and disappointed him and Capriccio? What if the power went to her head and she became a tyrant? These worries, both rational and not (and everything in between) flooded through her thoughts in that moment, and she was frozen for some time, staring blankly at a spot around Tagg's shoulder. "You... you think I'm good enough? For this?" she asked quietly, golden eyes shifting to his face, though nothing else about her moved.