Blackfoot Forest laus veneris

Some mild, brief gore. Could suit both Bon Dye members or curious outsiders...

Leto felt a fierce pride at the birth of Bon Dye. It was not that she was overly familiar with the beliefs shared by Jinx and the few that seemed to have known her the longest--the Beta, the Gamma, and the Sigma female that had seemed half-unhinged whenever Leto saw her at a distance. Leto knew next to nothing of the bear gods they spoke of, and so it was not this--at least, not yet--that held her fast to her bond of loyalty to Bon Dye. Instead it was a simpler and more instinctual canine desire, that need to belong and, more importantly, to possess. Blackfoot Forest was theirs now, and within it, there was much to be done to secure and maintain the pack's ownership.

Leto was determined that she would not be outdone nor overshadowed as she had always been in Emerald Forest. No one here had made mention that she did not look entirely wolf, and no question of purebloodedness had been posed, but still she lived under the serpent of past experience and felt that she had more to prove than most. Always, she held herself to a higher standard than the rest, upholding the unrealistic expectations now that Rastaban Asterope was not there to do it for her. And so she slept little, in the first days of Bon Dye's existence, instead going on night-time jaunts to ensure their borders were not being breached, and to reinforce them with urine. She spent her days patrolling and becoming familiar with their chosen territory.

As time passed, Leto even took grimly to the apparently bear-inspired habit of some of the other wolves to smear things with animal blood, and this was her mission on one gusty afternoon that was sweeping the earliest of autumnal hued leaves from the boughs of trees. A fat squirrel's body hung limply from her jaws, and whenever she found a particularly good location, a quick slash of claws would open a new wound that oozed crimson blood, easily smeared onto rocks, trees, and earth. Presently, Leto dragged what was left of the tree-dwelling rodent's body across a fallen log.

The length of the once-great pine was impressive, sprawling out into the edges of Wapun Meadow, and Leto paused to look northward for a brief moment, her front paws lightly poised upon the log. There were other packs near; of this she was certain, and the one-year-old felt a stirring sense of mingled curiosity and caution regarding them. She'd only caught their scents sparingly on the wind, and knew nothing about any of them, but as nearly all else in the half-coyote's life, they would be perceived as a threat until proven otherwise. A moment's thought was devoted to the subject of outsiders, before the Sigma blew a sigh out through her nose and trotted back to the scent lines, carefully lifting her leg to mark a thorny shrub before continuing on.