Whitebark Stream It's deciding where to die and deciding where to fight

To hear a solemn voice rise from Whitebark territory outskirts roused nothing but dread in the pit of his belly. Artyom at first regarded the call only with a backward twitch of a gilded lobe while his dark eyes lingered in the direction of Dawn's whelping hollow. His whole world was hidden away in there, their future uncertain as his mate laboured through the day, and for some time his reluctance to leave his post kept him rooted to the spot.

Only when a curious pack-mate was drawn in by the scent of birthgiving did the pale leader head toward the summons at a quickened pace, so eager was he to return to his family. Daylily would not hesitate to seek him out should anything change, Artyom knew, and so his crippling anxiety over the ashen Alphess' impending delivery of their offspring was held at bay. He worried, naturally, as any new father-to-be would, and he hated to be gone too far from Dawn should she need him.

He found Kavik at the borders, looking rather miserable, and the heavily pregnant Grezig stalked angrily past him. Artyom could feel the tension in the air, the weight that hung over the area, and he let his gaze follow the agouti wolfess for a moment longer before he turned to fix her raven companion with a firm stare. A deep frown tugged at his ivory muzzle and, with a lash of his tail to communicate his own annoyance, he strode forward to close the distance between them.

"Not quite the welcome you hoped for?" Artyom asked coolly and canted his head slightly, curious to know why he'd left in the first place. His thoughts turned to their first meeting, to the promises Kavik had made, and how poor that first impression had been. He felt right to have doubted the obsidian brute then, and the same uncertainty was resurfaced with ease to have seen the fury on Grezig's face as she departed.