Ankyra Sound dog-eat-dog

Though he had recovered by now from the violent ordeal up on the cliffs above, Svalinn had been irrevocably changed by the experience. Physically, he now had his own battle scars: tooth-marked all along his forelimbs and across the broad set of his golden hindquarters. Mentally, the boy had hardened, aware now of things like his own mortality and the fleeting life of others. He couldn't bear to think of all the what-ifs, or alternatives to how things had turned out, so he had focused wholly on returning to peak condition, and soon whatever grudges he'd held over the situation were gone altogether. Several weeks more had gone by in relative quiet, so he was not expecting the challenging summons, and considering he had never been challenged before, he approached the silver-ghost caller with a most inquisitive nature than a wary one.

Upon arrival the boy stood back, wisely keeping his distance from one of their newest recruits, which wasn't his typical prerogative, but he was used to being the instigator— not the instigated— so he exercised a measure of caution with the behemoth. Save for his own youthful lankiness, he rivaled the titan in size, something Svalinn himself wouldn't have noticed, given that he had been raised and whipped by a she-wolf half his size; a fact that made him feel smaller than he actually was. But this could not compare to the other's apparent battle-worth— with a layer of adult musculature and three times as many scars.

Svalinn swallowed dryly and cocked his head slightly at the male. "Yeah?" he asked, straight-forward but unable to mask his uncertainty in that moment.