For a few steady heart beats Ira stood, head tilted up eyeing the strange to him looking wolf with expectant eyes, clearly waiting for an answer to his uncouth question, just as she paused mid-chew and in turn stared at him. Ira stood still and unrelenting as he watched her set the hide down, disturbing the already stench filled air with more of the scent of decaying meat caused his nose to wrinkle with pellucid disgust once more. "Oh," Left the insolent child’s lips in an expel of a breath. "That’s what smells like ass." He concluded in a hiss, milky blue eyes flashing to her form as she leapt off of the long and stood before him, her hackles bristled and tail raised above her in a display he recognized. It was a display of dominance. Ira drew back - not in fear, but in indignation, puffing up, lips curling back ever-so-slightly. Ira had no regard for her, for she was not Jinx and he certainly didn't appreciate the lording of a rank that he did not know. For all he knew she could be of a lower rank than puppies. Not to say that he really cared anyway - he was a Princeling Jinx's Princeling a fact that he took great pride in though he'd rather eat a frog (he hates frogs) than actually admit that out loud to Jinx or to anyone.
Pride in being her ward meant that he was getting attached. Attachment if he wasn't careful had the potential to lead to love. And to love was to destroy.
The irate woman looked him directly in the eyes and growled at him to “get lost”. The child let out a snort of cynical amusement. Was that supposed to scare him? If Ira had been like most other children he would have been scared, would have retreated and crawled to Jinx’s side with his tail between his legs. Perhaps Ira had a early death wish, but he wasn’t like the majority. In his short life he had seen more gruesome things than some mutt growling in his face - things he had wholeheartedly refused to share with Tark. He had seen the Outsiders slaughter the medic and in turn his uncle before he had forced himself to look away, to run away. It was the first time he had felt real terror, and gradually the terror had turned into subtle but potent rage. This rage had not entirely left him, it burned - a flickering flame that refused to be smothered and killed. "You’re not my Mambo," Ira told the woman defiantly, in a tone that bordered snobbish as he spoke of Jinx as his, a tiny hint towards his possessive tendencies. "I don’t have to listen to you.” Ira spoke firmly, unwilling to be bent to her will. Only Jinx could tell him what to do - this was a rule he had set for himself the day she had taken him under her wing.
That was simply how it was. It was resolute to Ira, and put him in control of his life by dictating who he had to listen to and who he did not. Control was something the child liked.