Stone Circle Whisky’s good proofing water. Tells you who’s real and who isn’t.

no problem - as you can tell by this reply, i'm pretty slow at times myself ^^;

Bat-like ears erected when he saw the eyes on him and the other wolf approached, closer and closer. Charles nervously licked his lips, not a voluntary response but one that drove him instinctively as the larger wolf approached. It wasn't unusual that another wolf was larger; most were. This wolf was buff and strong like the bison, Charles deduced, and he felt a pang of envy as he watched the strong, confident strides the wolf approached with. He felt the urge to roll on his back and show his neck and stomach, but he resisted the urge. I'm family too, he thought to himself, I deserve to be here. And I'm not a pup anymore. Maybe if he kept telling himself that enough he might start to believe it one day.

Up close the other seemed even larger. As he was asked for his name, Charles felt the urge to lie. But not because he wanted to see if he could fool the other. No, it would be a poor lie, or maybe even just a rude remark, something that would make the other strike at him. And would he, then, just like mother, take him to his chest and whisper soft sweet words into his ears? Charles didn't think he would. But he still felt like being bad and getting punished, for some reason.

In the end, after an unusually long silence (though Charles did not perceive it as such), he said: I'm Charles. I'm family. He wasn't really sure what that meant. He wanted to ask the pack mate for his name, too, or maybe even equally intimidatingly ask him 'who are you', but he didn't. Instead he just licked his lips, betraying his nervousness, while his tail hung low at his hocks in a silent sign of submission for the much older, much larger male.