Swiftcurrent Creek all of my worries

Paar smiled, amused, when the young leader crunched her face up at the likely mental image her comment had roused. Yet another question was asked, once that the bi-coloured medic truthfully hadn't been expecting, and she held her breath for a few moments to keep herself from giggling. When Bazi started to bleed from her lady parts, she very much doubted that keeping it out of her fur would be her main concern. "You could groom yourself," Paarthurnax said, then gestured to the water that they dipped their toes in. "Or you could sit in the water?"

When she was asked about her own family, the one she'd left behind, Paarthurnax felt her heart skip an uncomfortable beat. Her expression faltered somewhat, enough to be noticeable, and she continued to gaze down at her own reflection. She studied those bright eyes that stared back at her, that sleek muzzle, those fine cheekbones, eyelashes that so many other girls might kill for. A delicate desert flower. The most lovely of Nita Frostfur's children, an exotic beauty wherever she went. "My parents were leaders of a pack called Samarkand, far South of here," she started, feeling uncertain. She stalled for a short time, not sure if she was ready to share her awkward birth-pack, but figured she could trust Bazi with some less fragile information until the time was right to share the rest. "They were not an Alpha pair in the traditional sense. The Alphess - or Shabanu as we called it - could be challenged by any of the other females in the pack. My father had many wives, and many children, though my mother was never defeated when it came to her rank. She held the title for as long as she lived there, until she and my father retired and moved on, leaving my older brother inherit leadership of the pack." And my father's leftover wives. Paar paused then, eyeing Bazi tentatively for fear that she might think of the unusual hierarchy she had left behind.