Wapun Meadow Already wrote several letters to you

In situations like this one, Alexander was no good. He could not handle children that were not his own, and especially not those that belonged to his sister; he knew that should he actually do anything to her, whatever ties he might still have to family would be severed. But as the girl further challenged him, he wondered if keeping those ties intact might really be worth it.

“It’s not about what I did or didn’t do,” he shot back, maw twitching; had she been anyone else, anyone unrelated, he might have met her with teeth already. “It’s about what I could have done—about what anyone outside of your home could do to you if they come across you.” Was the environment she’d been born into too soft? Too welcoming? He could think of no other reasoning behind her lack of self-preservation, her inability to perceive danger and respond to it accordingly—danger that he was more than happy to put her in if she continued to push.

“That”—there came a snap of his jaws, backed by a low and growing snarl—“is none of your business.” Don’t hurt her, he had to remind himself. Desna wouldn’t forgive you. Speaking of which: “What the fuck is your mom teaching you? That it’s okay to just mouth off to strangers?” She was going to end up getting herself killed, or worse. “Or are you just stupid? Do you know how many other wolves would have attacked you the second you tried to act like that towards them?” Obviously not, but whatever; it wasn’t his problem, it was for her mother to deal with.

A part of him wanted to take her on anyways, show her that not everyone in life was meant to be her friend, but he held back. She is his sister’s daughter, his niece, and an apparent friend to one of his own daughters—he wasn’t about to ruin any standing relationships he may have just to teach some kid a life lesson. “Of course she’s never complained because Nunataq doesn’t talk,” was his retort. In that way, she had always been more like her mother than she had been him. But the name was one that he had given, and one that he would make sure always remained.

For as troubling as she was, she at least had something he didn’t know already to share: that his father was living with her. Which meant that he had found his way out of the woods and back to the north—he was happy for him, knowing better than anyone just how awful of a place that forest was. “Good he made it there,” was all he said on the topic, however. No one aside from him needed to know about what really went on in Kove’s former home. “Not everyone needs to live at Easthollow,” he answered next. “I don’t belong there, it isn’t my home.” Although, at this point, he wasn’t so sure he had any place to call home.