Moonspear plateau phase

"Did not say," he replied. "Smokestep and black wolf leaders. Black wolf reckless." Their leadership was shaky, that much he knew, and he had hopefully seeded more doubt by letting Smokestep know that his co-leader was also an idiot. Perhaps she would be watched more carefully or kicked out entirely. In any case, they did not have the bond that the leaders of Moonspear had.

Speaking of, there was Amekaze. Dune made himself smaller, showing the proper amount of respect to one half of the alpha team and the entire beta team. She looked weary, but he assumed it was for the same reason his own mother had looked weary around this time last year. Dune had no trouble putting two and two together. And it was this timing that he hoped would be in his favor.

The white wolf's attention was on Amekaze for the most part, but he did not ignore Hydra in the least. He assumed she would be part of this decision, too. He felt his heart tick along a bit faster than usual, but he began anyway. "Prove myself to Moonspear," he stated, not as a question, but as a fact. "Puppies come soon. I work harder." Putting this into words had never been the easy part. "Want recognition." That, really, was the meat of it.

While Dune had been hunting, scouting, and making himself known to his pack mates, it was not a totally selfless act. He was ambitious, and his current rank failed to reflect that. Sure, others had been here longer than him, but some of those had parted ways in a flash, so surely it was not only longevity that helped one rise through the ranks. If this came with terms, or even if it meant he had to prove more, he was up to the task.