Blackfeather Woods I'm sitting in a railway station, got a ticket for a destination

Kjalarr follows after Potema, unable to help the admiring sweep of his eye on occasion as they make their way through the Woods. He moves with unbridled caution though: a stiffness to his actions that anticipates attack at any given moment. Did Potema still have the jurisdiction to decide his fate and take him back in as her prisoner? The absence of the girl that had called herself Dark Master during his first time in these Woods did not slip unnoticed by Kjalarr who ( though again he has no right to judge anyone and he knows this ) sees this as poor leadership. Perhaps she wasn’t even Dark Master anymore, he thinks.

Even as Potema treated him no leader appeared and his howl had been a summons for leadership and not just Potema. Not that he was disappointed that only Potema had showed ( on the contrary ) …and it occurs to him suddenly that perhaps Potema has taken up the mantle. She had no corrected him when he’d called her High Priestess but there’s much that Kjalarr simply doesn’t know about Blackfeather Woods and for all he knows High Priestess might be her official title across the board: Alpha or not. “Do you assume the mantle of …what is it called…Dark Master now?” The prisoner inquires with a slight tilt of his head as he focuses upon her out of his partially blind eye: watching as her wisp form writhes and dances just out of his reach. It’s been a few months since he’s been here last, after all and he knows from personal experience that it does not take long for a pack to have an upheaval of leadership. He's not even sure if he's meant to know the answer to that and he is ready to backtrack if he's stepped out of line. He's never been a prisoner before and admittedly isn't sure what is ok and what is taking too much liberty. Still, even prisoners should know who their leaders are, after all, he thinks.

340 words