Ankyra Sound bleary will, barely still

@Caiaphas hehe

he found that officiating a pack seldom required the certain eminence he once thought it entailed as a child. Wylla presided over them with no distinct metamorphose as an individual. she had not cocooned for a week, emerging wiser and apt as a monarch. perhaps eventually, as she aged and gained confidence and flexed her compelling force of personality, she would become the luminary he saw in Caiaphas. as it were, Lycaon was just as clueless in his own position and had his own insecurities to conceal, but he was delighted to stand alongside her in leadership, to also learn what actions were appropriate and which were not, as her beta -- her aide and her abettor, for better or the more likely outcome -- for worse. despite their  underdeveloped familial bond, due to that pesky separate upbringing of theirs, he was already feeling the need to insulate her from the enormity of the world -- from riptides, grizzlies, scorned packmates, and dalliances with philandrous boys. 
you know, the typical causes of screaming meemies. he had to supervise. that last one, he felt, required the most scrutiny.
still, it wasn't the same protectiveness he possessed for their brother. similar in its visceral nature, but summoning less emotional complexity from him. longevity of the relationship was, no doubt, the binding cause.
as he strung along the coast, alone as usual, he brushed his fur against the shrubby facsimile of the forest that flanked him and mused regretfully over his last interaction with Ingram, and all that heartache that had ensued. he regretted his severity towards him, and the image of Ingram's devastation flashed vividly in his mind. although when he thought of the girl, bitterness ripped violently through him. she was actively stealing something from him he thought was surely inviolatable -- his brother's attention and affection... and attention... and affection! up until they found Wylla (and Caiaphas), the only thing that yoked him to anything resembling an identity was the reflection of self-worth he saw when his brother looked adoringly at him.
presently, he could not see past his own hurt to instead see the healing Chusi could do for Ingram's own happiness. that should have been the most important thing to him, but Lyc was nothing if not still young, self-seeking, and obscuring the inflamed lashes that bespoke unresolved trauma still fresh in his youth.
he sighed and abruptly, without giving it much thought, took a sharp turn into the shrubbery, breaking through the closed palms of ferns that revealed to his eyes a vert, moss-carpeted forest -- all untouched by the gristbite of winter's teeth. he stared up, awed, tail falling motionless at his legs. fear that consumed him when he was on the outside looking in, fell away like a maudlin silk. 
it looks the same. he thought. it's all the same. he took a step further in, allowing the overgrowth to draw shut behind him. his head craned in a daunted manner as he turned his gaze to the gargantuan trees that rose up like idols of yore. they dwarfed him as a child, and they dwarfed him with no less immensity now as a matured wolf. he touched his nose to the bark, it's coldness strewing across the nerves of his nostrils and causing him to shiver and snort with surprise. if he were to venture to a higher elevation, he would find that this forest wasn't as impervious to winter's impact as he first thought and that every living thing was inhumed in several feet of snow -- foliage and fauna and idols one and the same. 
here, though, near shore, verdure was the ever prevalent sight and Lycaon felt nostalgia surge through him. he began pacing over the flat steps of rock and lichens and nurse logs, searching frantically for something, though he was so disorganized in his focus that it was anyone's guess as to what that something was.