The Hard and the Easy

Already the male was having some second thoughts about joining a pack which was in its infancy. He'd made no questions about how quickly he'd been accepted- and had figured that he'd been accepted by Kat with such swiftness simply because he looked the part of a confident, reliable pack mate and because of their relations. After having met Turq, however, he wondered if every vagrant who wanted in, got in simply because the pack needed members so badly. Or possibly Kat, in her youth, had not learned how to screen wolves like Turq out during the application process. He wasn't sure what the cause was, for accepting her into the pack, but he intended to establish himself within the pack above such wolves in order to help his aunt make better decisions in the future.

So as the newly appointed Bo'sun, Lawless set about fulfilling his duties along the border with a daily regime, re-marking the scent markers and howling to warn other predators away. This was no place for competition among predators, he felt- the pack's territory shouldn't be so kind as to allow coyotes or cougars to roam freely through their packlands. An opportunistic cougar might take advantage of a weak pack member and opt to have them for dinner, rather than be a polite guest. If there would be pups in the spring, they'd have to know already that pack lands were off limits.

His strong voice carried out as he howled again, once again a tenor bell proclaiming that this land was their, and that predators should keep out. From experience he'd known that wolves and cougars could live in peace, but in their respective territories. They were cats and dogs- it wasn't natural for them to hunt together so they were, therefore, competition. The evening light was still quite bright, the sun had not set and no stars marked the sky just yet as Lawless made his final pass around the borders, still considering how to make the pack better without grabbing the reigns from his aunt.