Blackfoot Forest ROLE CALL · River seeks the deep

Pied had done her best to prevent a fight, only for one to seem inevitable anyway. Leto surprised her—and likely everyone else present—by staunchly refusing to bring it to blows. Wondering how else they could possibly sort this out, Pied looked expectantly at the half-breed, waiting for some resolution to this quandary. Leto surprised her again by indirectly seizing on Pied's own suggestion and offering to claim the Beta role, allowing Hawkeye to step up as Alpha after all.

Pied's earlier impressions of Leto were effectively wiped away in that moment. She no longer seemed at all pretentious. In fact, she was the picture of humility. Pied almost didn't trust this rapid change in image, yet she gave Leto a long, hard look and decided to trust that she didn't have ulterior motives. The piebald yearling even forgave Leto for calling attention to her supposed sacrifice.

"Well... that settles it then," Pied said, almost framing it as a question as her eyes shifted from Leto to Hawkeye, then scanned the others gathered. Although she wasn't cut out to be a leader, she felt like she'd played the role of mediator pretty well and she would see it through to the end. "Hawkeye will be our Alpha and Leto will be our Beta."

Stepping toward her friend, Pied smiled up at her and then gladly bumped her snout against Hawkeye's chin in a gesture of submission. Her tail waved from where it dangled low behind her. After acknowledging the new leader, she turned next to Leto and did the same with her. She then withdrew, giving the others room to welcome their new leadership.

"That worked out even better than expected, Mag," Pied remarked under her breath. Instead of one leader, they had two, making the foundations for the new hierarchy very strong indeed. She smiled. There was still a lot to work out—would they keep the same name? the same territory? the same beliefs?—but, for now, Pied simply reveled in her sense of relief, as well as pride for her new leaders.