Ravensblood Forest the bigger they are, the harder they fall

"Ah," she exclaimed when Pied launched immediately into inquisition mode, albeit with a more gentle approach than months prior. "Yes, I did," she said, her voice slow as though she hadn't quite thought of it yet, and then rolled her shoulders. "You see, Akhlut is of my blood. His mother is mine own." Perhaps it didn't bode well for Jinx to reveal this to Pied—what she said next would reflect on herself—but it didn't matter enough for her to stop.

"After the Houngan died, my mother led Shearwater Bay distantly." Of course, Jinx hadn't come to this conclusion herself. The pack had told her and Kaskae when they had come of official age, and taken on their roles in earnest pursuit of the Gods' will. In saying all this, Jinx forgot that Pied didn't know what Shearwater Bay was, nor who the Houngan was. So condition was she by her former life that at times she lost sight of its difference from the lives of those in the Wilds.

"She became more and more distant as my littermates and I grew, and one day, she was gone, without a word." There was some loathing here, buried in Jinx's breast... After all, Akhlut's birth confirmed that Nanuq had found a life elsewhere, and forgotten her former cubs. It had never sat well with Jinx to be abandoned by her mother, not when she showed so much promise. "I see this same distance in Akhlut," she concluded, "but he does not have strong heirs to take over when he disappears. I fear his aloofness will be this pack's downfall."

There was the matter that Akhlut had taken what she'd said to heart and upped his efforts... Something she could not know and would not have trusted anyway. "He was not willing to turn it over to me," she said, "and so I cannot stay. I cannot trust him to lead strongly and keep the Ridge stable. My shaman has returned and runs with an old... Friend. For him I would cross worlds, and I defer to his judgment of her as strong and able."