Bearclaw Valley lionizing

Aventus did not hate his sister.

The feelings he held toward her were vastly complex, moreso than he was capable of untangling on his own. Before Nyra, Avicus was the ying to his yang; he thought their blood beat in tandem in their veins, demonstrated in the way they corralled the younger pups and tormented them, and though he had deferred to her in their earliest days, he had come to view her as his equal in all things. They could have stood strong and united before Ursus, together. Before Nyra.

His life was divided neatly in the middle by the white-furred Saint. Before Nyra, things were good. After Nyra, things were not. In the time since his attack, after the chilling encounter with his sister where she revealed that she wished him dead, or at least he thought so, Aventus could have benefited greatly from some form of therapy. He had never sought it, and his parents had never advised it, so he had never recieved help. Paranoia festered and rooted in him, growing alongside ambition, strangling him until, in desperation, he seized Evien's rank by praying to the bear to kill the gentle doctor.

Love for his sister turned to fear, turned to defiance, turned to threats. Quiet wishes for her demise, so that she would not threaten his own life. Prayers that his parents would see and recognize his loyalty, and not allow her to overturn him and send him from his home. Becoming Bruin-jaw had assured him, but now her howl thundered over Ursus and turned his blood to ice, knotted his stomach.

Aventus did not hate his sister, despite his spite toward her, but he wasn't sure how much longer that would hold true.

Both were capable, whatever she might think of him, or he of her. The son and daughter of Astara and Merrick were evenly matched by virtue of their birth. While Avicus spent her days slaying beasts and tasting blood, Avicus spent his studying the ways their parents operated, their tactics in battle, the way they moved. Each had their merits, and they would have operated excellently as a team, but there was a rift between them, and within, seething lava.

Aventus did not shy from her challenge. He approached with danger in his eyes and his voice, throat rattling with the force of his snarl, tail flung high over his narrow hips, hackles raised in a serrated ridge down the entire line of his spine. His tongue flashed over his teeth, threatening violence if she did not back down. Perhaps things could have been mended between them, but not like this. He stamped one forepaw and stood his ground, lashing his tail, pinning her with the heat of every betrayal against him curling in his iron eyes.

He suspected only one of them would remain to Ursus by the end, the other driven away by the teeth of the victor, unless sire or dam intervened.