the story of my life

It hadn't been her intent to make Akhlut uncomfortable, yet no remorse seeped up through her stomach like it normally would have when she realized she had. It was simply a fact of their bloodline—abandonment ran thick in it, whether he wanted to believe it or not. Siku had abandoned family, Sitka had abandoned family, Nanuq had abandoned family... Countless other Kesuks in other generations no doubt had abandoned family.

Vex and Jinx, too. Both cubs had been named by Koios, owing to their less-than-traditional Kesuk names, and both had subsequently abandoned their families... Jinx, at least, thought her reasons were justified, but Vex had wandered away without a word, never to be seen or heard from again.

Arktos perhaps could be considered to have abandoned his family, but... Arktos had been special. Something had changed in him, snapped, and replaced his soul with something more tortured and pained. Jinx had not understood it, and even if she had attempted some kind of exorcism, she was certain the effort could have killed him. He had been taken, by god or loa nobody knew, but taken, assuredly.

Her thoughts strayed back to the present company, who was speaking of himself. She twitched her ears forward and then back in thoughtful consideration of this: Akhlut was not his mother. What, then, was Akhlut? Was he his other mother, the Siren Queen, who had allowed a child to run wild with the title in the true Nereides homeland and destroy everything they had ever stood for by elevating the lesser sex? But perhaps the tradition Jinx had been told of in story did not exist at Echo Cove, either, and Akhlut had not been subjected to a life of inferiority... Surely not, she thought, for here he stood an Alpha.

Naga, he said, piquing the quiet Jinx's attention suddenly. Naga is my full-blooded sister, she revealed, somewhat vaguely referring to a different Naga altogether, which she promptly clarified with, though only family call her that. Kaskae is her name. She rules Shearwater Bay now. Jinx had ruled with her, once, but... It was in the past. Shearwater Bay, Bon Dye, all in the past, washed away with the tide of time, at least in her own belief. Some wolves clung to their disgruntled disagreement with her, but that was their own fault.

Ah, yesss. I was Mambo, and led their rituals. She said this with some pride, but not too much. The Oracle elected me, mmn, chosen me for the role. Thinking back on it, it could have been favouritism on Nutaaq's part, or a desperate attempt to keep his granddaughters from killing one another over the title of Warchief, but then... It would have made sense for Nutaaq to favour an older wolf, perhaps Jello or the Sylvia he had come to covet. Jinx was too illogical and admittedly too stupid to think that a god hand-picking a wolf for leadership was about as strange and out-of-place as an anvil floating on the wind.