~Empty chairs at empty tables, where my friends shall sing no more~{J}

There was a long silence, it's gaping hole of possibilities gnawing at her heart. Was this alpha going to chase her off? So she would die in the depths of the winter still to come, as the cold of snowstorms overtook her and perhaps... Perhaps she would rejoin her mother and father, up in the sky as stars with the wolven host that made up the night sky. But who would then find her siblings, to ensure the eldest Bjorn looked after the youngest Alika? No, she could not die. She wouldn't let herself waste away in the winter, if this park turned her out, then she would find another.

All her inner courage and icy determination melted like the icy trees in a midsummer sun as the alpha finally spoke, his question soft but as loud as the beat of an anvil in her head. He hadn't answered her question but instead responded with another. Did he mean to not allow her in, or just to gain more time to decide? She knew not but she carefully considered her words as she began to speak. "My pack, just made of my mamma and pappa and my siblings, was attacked by wildcats. I-I-I had gone out of our marked territory that morning and they caught my scent, as a little half-grown pup and almost defenceless." She hung her head in shame, the heavy weight of the words she spoke like rocks dragging her to an ocean floor.

"They caught mamma unaware and she was dead and pappa tried to protect her a-a-and he died and I only watched! I could only watch!!" She scrubbed her eyes against the side of her foreleg, wiping away the moisture that gathered there and then raised her eyes a little to look at the alpha. "My siblings fled the other way... I have been travelling for a month to find a good pack."