[IC Joining] I'm going on an adventure!

Akhlut had made patrolling the borders a part of his duties and he did so thrice daily. It was a pleasing confirmation that all was as it should be in his tightly knit and well-ordered corner of the world, and so his mood was usually light and verging on cheerful as he went about marking trees and bushes with urine, kicking up leaves and soil onto rocks and dead logs, and generally asserting his pack's presence and through the pack scent, his own authority as alpha.

One late afternoon saw him in just such a fair mood as he approached the scene of one of his newer subordinates, Dublin, and a stranger who, to Akhlut's sometimes critical eyes, was showing next to no deference the the pack wolf on whose borders she stood. Lifting his head and tail, and taking on an air of relative severity, the dark male approached at Dublin's side. The fur at his nape stiffened, but his gaze softened when he looked to the cream female he'd been pleased to add to Horizon Ridge.

"Dublin, thank you for entertaining our company until I could arrive. You are welcome to stay if you like, but if you've got other things to attend to, feel free, " he said smoothly, which Dublin could take as a dismissal of she wished, or she could remain to watch the relatively mundane task of showing this stranger just where she ranked in accordance with Horizon Ridge, if she couldn't even show proper submission.

Akhlut fixed a piercing look upon the newcomer. She was older than he, though not old, with silver fur that was more likely her born coloration than an indication of aging. "I am Akhlut Kesuk-Nereides, Alpha of Horizon Ridge. What is your purpose here, and why do you not think that Dublin is worthy of your respect? " For she surely demonstrated little.