Phoenix Maplewood home is what you make of it

brisbane's words earn a chuckle from the pale slyph as she eats another berry. the blackshark offers a small quirk of his lips as he plucks a berry from the other side of the bush and eats it, swallowing thoughtfully as she explains. he agrees. can't argue with that, he replies; there'd been nothing sweet about his own life but the end result ...or rather, the result he finds himself in presently isn't much to complain about. he'd risen through the ranks of blackshark bay quickly, stood as their beta and left in search of new horizons that were better suited for his ambitions which had grown too big for their hardy band of coastal wolves.

she says that they are of the same 'lone wolf' cloth and explains that she'd rather build herself a home instead of 'pestering' another for space in theirs. part of brisbane wants to point out that taking newcomers what generally what packs were meant to do but doesn't. building a pack of her own was an ambitious undertaking ...but was it any more ambitious than usurping? probably not. it was, in a way, of the same vein of ambition. usurping proved to be hard without support and without support a fledgling pack couldn't form.

for some reason, building something of his own'd never occurred to him; but maybe there was a certain flavor of pride he craved by unseating the sovereignty. grog's hatred and forced submission was like a bitter, dark roast coffee that the blackshark enjoyed drinking with no milk or sugar. perfect the way it was. could always usurp too, skip the pestering all together. he suggests casually with an errant shrug of his shoulders; but usurping didn't usually garner the same level of distrust and dislike in the wolves of blackshark bay as it probably did others of these wilds.

yeah. he replies to her last inquiry, though he suspects that it's probably pretty obvious that he isn't from around here.