Firestone Hot Springs i live for the applause

There was an almost abrupt initiation of contact in the form of what appeared to be... Offence? Jinx's eyes narrowed and her ears tilted to the sides, the perfect portrayal of wolfish confusion: you approached me, her expression seemed to say. Was it not customary for a wolf who directly approached another wolf to be the one to make the address? The fallen Alpha had merely turned to acknowledge Hawkeye, and had assumed the other would divulge her reasons for approaching herself.

That came quickly enough, a deluge of words that were partially nonsense and partially wondrously informed, if not incorrectly informed, for a wolf Jinx had not seen in a little over a month. Her brow furrowed deeper the longer Hawkeye spoke, but she only physically responded when the other wolf lifted her head. Jinx's rose as well, and her ears lifted from their downward plane to sit plainly atop her head, where they suggested authority.

Whoever Hawkeye thought she was — and however she had come upon the knowledge she had obtained, for Jinx had said almost none of that to Pied — she was wrong on both accounts.

I was ever a follower of Sos, from the day I turned half a year, she quietly corrected, thinking it somewhat odd that Hawkeye thought any different. It had been clear that it was Kerberos who worshipped Atka in the pack, and taught of her virtues... Lecter and Jinx had always followed Sos. Much of the tirade was a self-righteous explanation of why Jinx was a terrible Alpha — the same drab points Pied had made. How they had pledged themselves to her, when in reality they had pledged themselves to the loa that she served. How she was meant to live and die for them, and ignore her beliefs and her god, as if she was nothing but a machine that pumped out a product called "pack welfare" for their benefit.

It was at this point that Jinx realized that Hawkeye was just as insincere and false as Pied had been as a Bon Dye wolf, and truly didn't deserve an ounce of Sos' regard. When Hawkeye concluded, in a fashion Jinx smugly thought most melodramatic, contrary — why had Hawkeye even opened her mouth if it was, in fact, pointless to get these wrong ideas into Jinx's head? — and incorrect, the female merely stared back, before the corner of her lip lifted into a knowing smirk.

Oh, she would speak now, for Hawkeye lacked the persistent focus on pack values and the perception of her character based on her actions that Pied had; she seemed to be, instead, deluded into thinking she knew more about Jinx than Jinx herself did, which gave the Kesuk the upper hand. She would speak, because her explanation was not possible in body language, and Hawkeye had made the mistake of making one too many wrong assumptions for her to simply opt for "I obeyed my god" as she had with Pied.

You must be mistaken, she said, in the same cool, quiet voice she had used before. Sos does not care about wolf packs. He does not care about hurt feelings among pack wolves. Sos cares that his chosen wolves obey, and promptly. We are his servants; he does not care about our affairs, he cares that we do as he wants us to. That should have been, Jinx believed, relatively self-explanatory, but then, Jinx was as all-knowing as Hawkeye: in other words, not at all. She could only draw on what she had learned of Sos, which was that he was a selfish god, who would kill his own servants if they displeased him for even a moment. Therefore, Sos is pleased that I heeded him. He does not care that Pied and evidently yourself think I left you; he agrees with my faithful service.

You must also be mistaken that I am a deserter. I am no such thing. I obeyed the summons of my god, for his command is absolute, and when I returned to my forest to give my pack his message, I found that my pack of evident heathens had turned tail on their oath to protect the forest and serve the loa that reside there. This was what Jinx believed. The blood oath had never been an oath from one wolf to another; it had never been from subordinate to Alpha. The blood oath had been from wolf to loa, from wolf to god, from wolf to forest; it was an oath to uphold the values of the pack, and to ever do all things for the betterment and prosperity of the pack, and to maintain the favor of the gods and loa for their protection. Would Hawkeye have felt better, knowing that if Jinx had ignored the loa that guided her to Sos, that the pack would have lost the favour of its protectors?

But there was a final point to make. You are mistaken in what you think my self-worth is. I am a follower of Sos, a servant of his will. He favours me over heathens like yourselves that doubt his power. I never claimed I was better than you. Of course, Jinx did believe herself better than other wolves — it was the product of being born into a large and powerful family, and being chosen by her god of the dark to serve as Shearwater Bay's Mambo. It was also the product of her religion, and as wrong as it may have been, it was every bit a part of her as her fur and her teeth. She thought herself superior — of superior blood and superior wisdom for her god favoured her — but never had Jinx actually said it, or even actually consciously thought it.

It was behavioural, and somewhat uncontrollable, but certainly not outwardly overstated to the point of seeming lofty about it. So she believed, anyway.