Sleepy Fox Hollow To the house in the pines where the road ends

Mahler countered Wylla's expectations at every turn. Where she expected him to snap at her muzzle for shoving it into his ear, he laughed instead and hastened after her. Hopefully she'd conveyed what she couldn't say with her words. If not, then it was only a matter of time before they were at odds again. Knowing them, that was inevitable either way, but she hoped for a truce for a time so their navigation of their joint situation didn't need to be so rocky.

Wylla wished to dispel the tension that had developed between them further, return to a more friendly sort of banter, but she also had thoughts of her own on her mind. Canting her muzzle, the grizzled she-wolf shared one of them with him: I intend to move up the ranks of your pack. Not to his lofty position, of course, but she was an ambitious wolf and wouldn't sit idle as the lowest for long. Whether or not she would stay in the spring when she could range longer and wider in search of her daughter, Wylla wanted more regard than that.

It might make him unhappy to hear, for it had the potential to cause unrest among the pack's members if Wylla sought to climb the ranks, but she didn't mean to do it hastily. She gave him a chance to intervene by asking, any suggestions?