Bearclaw Valley A life of pain is the pain of life, and you can never escape it

Aventus gathered, in that instant, that Ashlar knew nothing of what it was to live as a pack wolf. Family or not, there existed a hierarchy among their kind, and Avicus sought to disrupt that, not by merit, but by force. He had answered in kind and ended her foolish crusade. The hierarchy shifted with the passing days and the moods of its wolves, but at the end of the day, there were leaders and there were subordinates, and one must respect the other. Ashlar must not know much of what it was to be wolf if he had to question why a leader would answer the challenge of a subordinate with flashing teeth.

He was no pushover.

Ashlar's voice cut sharper when the boy demanded that he fight, and the change in Aventus was severe and instantaneous. He was still gravely injured from his sister's teeth, and this ratwolf wanted to fight him? He swept his tail into the sky, squared his shoulders, let his hackles rise in full ridges, and rounded on Ashlar with his lips skimmed perilously back over his teeth, snarling full-bodied as he thrust his muzzle into the other wolf's space, breath hot and rancid and threatening violence as he boomed, no.

Avicus picked the fight. Avicus lost. Aventus deserved his place and he did not need to prove it to the woolheaded Starbone. How difficult was this to understand? He was Bruin-jaw. He had the right of dominance within the valley and he meant to exert it now. No fight. No proof of worth. Only the sheer will of one wolf seeking to suppress the other with his display alone, to remind Ashlar of his place.