Blacktail Deer Plateau And I don't remember all of my mistakes

AW but @Erzulie or @Aningan would be awesome!

Her victory over Ying left her feeling little more than dread. She didn't like having to resort to force, even if it was only blunt force with no threat of injury. It wasn't her way, but what was she supposed to do? She was Rosalyn and Erzulie's daughter and she refused to be a doormat. She had to defend her place in the pack, but it didn't leave her feeling all that great about herself. There was also a prevailing sense of anticipation, and not the good kind. Was this to be her new norm, constantly watching her back for the next challenger?

Nieve thought she was a deserving member of the pack, but that didn't mean she couldn't work harder. After spending the entire morning patrolling the borders and freshening up the scent markers, the girl headed inward, intent on checking all of the caches before breaking for lunch. Already she was tiring. She was made for more mental and social pursuits, so these physical tasks took more out of her than she expected, but she refused to take a break until it was done.

Even with not one but two seconds there now, Aningan still did not stray far from the pack lands; perhaps he liked the territory too much to leave, or perhaps his difficulty handling strangers kept him from exploring. Whatever the case, the male was moving through the plateau when a hare crossed his path, rummaging through the lingering snow in search of sustenance. Unluckily for it, the meal was destined to be its last as the northerner was soon upon the lesser creature, jaws closing around its back; adrenaline kicked in and it flailed, yet its efforts at escaping were quickly put to an end when the young leader shook it.

Whilst his own stomach was not presently demanding food, the opportunity to snag a meal was not something to be looked over. So, with the carcass held loosely in his maw, Aningan headed towards the heart of the territory, intending to offer it to someone else. And it was during his search for others that he spied Nieve up ahead, to whom he loosed a muffled bark in order to announce his being there.

Nieve soon found the first of several caches, one closer to the borders than all the others, and unearthed it in short order. By the time she dug down to where the meat was stored, she was beginning to feel dizzy with exertion. She needed a break, a drink of water, maybe a bite to eat, but her desperate need to prove herself worthy overrode all her sensibilities. The meat in the cache still seemed in good condition, but when she emerged to recover it, she found she had to sit down to avoid stumbling over.

That was how Aningan would find her, stooped and panting while her head swam. Her ears twitched at the sound of his garbled bark and she looked up, eyes half-lidded as she fought off a wave of mild nausea. She didn't feel all that hungry until she spotted the hare in his jaws, a sight that lathered her gums instantly with saliva. Hi, Aningan, she said, a little faintly. Are you... are you here to bury that?

It only made sense, and she was glad she hadn't already filled it back in if that was his intent.

Aningan looked upon her with concern, brows knitted together and gaze curious. Was she alright? After coming to a stop before her, he set the rabbit down and asked, “What’s wrong?” Could he help? Oftentimes he wondered if he should learn the basics of medical care for times such as these, just in case someone ever needed his assistance; as it stood, the most he could do was call for someone more experienced. Experienced enough to see that she was exhausted, whereas he could only see that something was amiss and assumed it to be due to illness.

Then asked about the rabbit, he glanced towards it, nearly forgetting it was there. “I was going to bury it if no one wanted it,” he explained with a nod. “Do you want it?” Sure, there was some meat cached away—but fresh is best, right?

Oh, she replied in that same faint, slightly woozy tone of voice. I'm fine! Just... workin' hard, y'know? She let her eyelids flutter shut for a long beat and pulled a slow, even breath in through her nose. That helped settle some of her dizziness, enough that when she opened them again, she no longer felt like her brain was swimming in jelly.

The girl's eyes fell immediately to the rabbit again rather than darting up to Aningan's worried face. The allure of food was simply greater at the moment. Ummmm, she said, musing with her tongue poking out between her lips, maybe just a bite, if you don't mind? A leg would probably tide her over. I was just checking on the caches but I think I got a lil carried away, she explained, an apology lingering in her words and her eyes alike as she swept her gaze over him.

Large, sturdy, and white as snow. Nieve couldn't remember ever seeing Aningan before, really seeing him as something other than just The Alpha. He was an attractive man and it was easy to see how he'd got to where he was, even if sometimes she wished he did more. It wasn't fair to blame him for not searching for her siblings, though. Surely he had his own work to do. Say, Nieve began, pitching her voice to sound more conversational than overtly curious, how d'you get so much respect, Aningan? What's your secret?

The way she spoke alone drew forth a wave of concern—exactly how hard was she working to look and speak in such ways? “Do you want me to get Erzulie?” he asked, unconvinced. She seemed fatigued, over-worked. Was he not doing enough to make her work so hard? Maybe if he did a little more, she could do a little less; it was not an ideal plan, although this he was unlikely to ever realise.

Even before she could get out her um, Aningan was nosing the rabbit closer to her. “You can have the entire thing, I don’t mind,” he assured her; as far as he was concerned, she needed it more than him. He fell silent as she explained herself further, the worry slowly being replaced by a small, friendly smile. “You do a lot.” And, in this case, perhaps too much. “You shouldn’t push yourself so much, though. You’ll end up getting hurt.” Hurt or ill, whichever came first. In truth, he knew little about the woman aside from her lineage but that was enough to earn her his concern, whether warranted or not.

When there was a question to be asked, however, he turned thoughtful instead. “I don’t know if I have respect,” he answered, settling back on his haunches. “I took over as leader by force, when I was angry and scared. I just wanted to keep everyone safe but… I’m not sure that means I’m respected.” The others were nice to him, sure, and let him maintain his role as the Alpha—but he couldn’t say without a doubt that he felt wholly respected. “I think maybe I could have been better respected if I became the leader under different terms. But this pack has always been dominated by challenges, so… I don’t know.” Honestly, there were times where he wondered if he deserved his place in the pack—and he used to wonder if he even wanted the position, after his reasoning for taking it was ripped away from him. “Do you respect me, Nieve?” he couldn’t help but ask, his curiosity genuine. Did her parents? Her siblings?

At the mention of her mother, Nieve shook her head vehemently. It wouldn't do to cause Erzulie undue worry, and she didn't relish having to fess up to her mother that she was being foolish and irresponsible with her well-being. She pulled the rabbit toward her when Aningan proffered the whole thing and began to tear thin strips of meat from it while Aningan talked, making sure to glance up at him and nod every once in a while to assure him she was still listening.

When he got on the topic of being respected and how he'd become leader, Nieve slowed her chewing and eventually stopped altogether to listen. It made sense, really. Nieve respected Aningan because of his title rather than his merits, since she didn't really know him well enough for that. But that was the difference between Nieve and Ying: she trusted that higher ranked wolves deserved their ranks.

But you've been Alpha for a long time, Nieve pressed, refusing to believe that the wolves of Rusalka didn't respect Aningan as much as they could because of how he became the leader. They must respect you to not challenge you all the time. He asked if she respected him and she chuckled. Of course! You're our leader. As for respecting Aningan, the wolf himself? Well, that remained to be seen, but she would never disrespect someone's rank just because she didn't respect them as a person, because a lot of the time that was just due to being unfamiliar with them.

It was true: quite some time passed since he became the leader. Whilst Aningan was aware of this, he wasn’t so sure it made much of a difference either way—whether someone is a leader for a short time or a long time, did it matter? “But others have challenged me,” he shared, thinking back. “I’m not constantly being challenged, as you said, but I’ve still been challenged. Wouldn’t that mean those that did, don’t respect me?” Up until that point, he never thought as deeply about it. He felt betrayed by the challenges, surely, but to think they stemmed from a lack of respect—or, perhaps, they came from somewhere deeper, somewhere darker? Her answer only fueled these thoughts.

“I’m the leader,” he said with a frown. “Is that the only reason I have any respect? Does anyone respect me for… just me? Do you? Does Erzulie or Rosalyn?” There was doubt in his heart when it came to respect in general, and it only grew when he found himself wondering if he, if Aningan the wolf, had it.

I dunno. Isn't that what a challenge means? They think they're better than you? That was the impression she'd gotten from Ying, and maybe that was her fault for taking it personally. Other members of the pack hadn't challenged her and she assumed that was because she deserved the rank she had. She was fairly high, befitting a wolf who had been born in Rusalka and never once left it, but not higher than those who had more to contribute than she did. She thought it was fair.

The one who challenged me was rude to me before, and still wasn't respectful when I won. I don't know what I did to her to deserve that. Little did she know, Ying had expected an actual fight and judged her weak for not engaging. Nieve, on the other hand, believed it was wrong to harm a packmate. You only harmed yourself doing stuff like that. Maybe Aningan's challenges went differently, but her singular experience reinforced her idea that for some reason, a newcomer to the pack had deemed her unworthy of respect.

Aningan's next question was loaded in a way Nieve wasn't sure how to answer. Oh, Aningan, I respect you, she said slowly, tentatively, but... yeah, mostly because you're the leader and everyone's willing to follow you. I mean... I don't really know you at all but I do respect you. She didn't need to know him to respect his position in the pack. She thought it would be much more important to know him if she meant to usurp his title, which she didn't.

Perhaps it was a lack of respect that encouraged those that had, to challenge him—they thought they were better. “I guess,” he muttered, gathering his thoughts. He wondered if he should change, and if changing might eliminate any future challenges before they could present themselves. But, if there was even an inkling of doubt felt towards him as a leader, would little changes really be able to make a difference? There was a second during which he considered asking her these questions but, ultimately, kept his mouth shut; they were questions best left for Rosalyn or Erzulie, he decided.

“Did she not say why she challenged you?” he asked, curious of her own experience. “There wasn’t an explanation?” Explanation or not, continued hostility after the fact wasn’t something he was particularly happy to hear about—truthfully, Aningan wasn’t a fan of hostility within the pack in general.

Her answer that followed wasn’t entirely unexpected, but no less disheartening. “Do you think I’d be respected as myself if they knew me better?” he asked, equally hopeful and hopeless. Maybe it was by his own doings that he was not respected as an individual. After all, he tended to keep more to himself and a select few pack members, rather than the pack as a whole.

She didn't have the answer he sought, at least not to the hows and whys of challenges. There were wolves out there who challenged the hierarchy for any number of reasons. Some sought to suss out a weak link that could be exploited. Others sought to determine whether a pack was strong enough to suit them. Some connected with others by brusquely breaking down barriers via such direct action. Others truly did challenge because they couldn't respect the wolf above them. Nieve... Nieve had yet to challenge and it was because she saw no reason to. Like Rosalyn, she believed in earning respect, not taking it by force.

A part of her wondered if she was wrong to feel that way, and if she would never truly be respected in Rusalka until she flexed a little herself... but that was neither here nor there, and it was swept from her mind when Aningan posed his next question. Oh, no, she didn't say anything. I tried to stop a fight between her and another boy in the pack once and she yelled at me, but she didn't say why she challenged me. To an inexperienced juvenile, these offences were one and the same.

Yeah, sure, she responded next, offering Aningan a warmer smile. Yeah, once wolves get to know you then they'll see you for who you are and I think they'd definitely respect you for more than just being our leader then. She wasn't sure if she was the only one who hardly knew their Alpha, but if there were others, surely they would respect him more if they knew him better. There was also the possibility they would respect him less if they got to know him and found his personality unfavourable... but Nieve, ever an optimistic thinker, didn't think of that.