Ouroboros Spine kuli ⧫

"Guess I was just thinkin' too small."

Lane tore her gaze from the river to settle her amber eyes on Zane. That last line of his sounded dangerously like agreement. She was not a great reader of faces, but the look Zane had fixed her with appeared to be something akin to awe. Flattered, the yearling flattened her ears demurely, and her eyes flicked toward her paws as she fought to keep a small smile from flitting across her expression. She was still a very young lady after all, quite a long way off from the day when she would be impervious to a handsome older man's praise and attention.

Lane's intentions were fairly straightforward. Marrying Zane would earn her a quick green-card into the ranks and the hearts of the moonwolves, and her status would elevate yet again if she managed to become a mother. Lane had surmised all of that from her own conversations with Kukutux. 

But what would Zane get out of the arrangement? Only Lane herself, it seemed. In her own self-deprecating opinion, that was hardly a consolation prize. Would Zane earn any additional rewards or comforts from the moonwolves? As she had stated before, the ways of pack wolves were still mysterious to her. 

"Will it work?" she asked, bringing her gaze back up to meet Zane's. She clarified, "Will it be worth going through with it, I mean? Like, as far as the advantages outweighing the costs." He was the one who knew these wolves, after all. Lane would trust his estimation of Kukutux's reaction over her own. Would marrying elevate both wolves in the eyes of the leader? Mutual benefit was important to Lane-- she liked to avoid being in anyone's debt, if she could in any way help it. She would move forward with this as long as they both had everything to gain, and nothing to lose. 

"Not that-- I don't mean to make it sound like just some scheme--" Lane shook her head. Down to earth as she was, she often favored cold logic over feeling, and when she debated a choice she occasionally forgot to pay lip service to the emotional side of things. "I would like to have.. like.." She bit her lip. The emotional side of things was definitely the hardest part to voice. "...an actual connection." Her gaze trailed off over the water once more.