Blacktail Deer Plateau show no mercy to the pure

Lasher's soft voice drifted up from the depths, and without responding, Saena bent to pick up her gifts and slid down into the whelping den. The smell of young wolves and milk was almost overwhelming; traces of Blue Willow's normal scent were here, but it was like her aunt was totally different in her scent catalogue. Lasher, thankfully, smelled the same as he always did, even through the sickly sweet haze.

She let her gifts tumble out of her mouth, the piece of rabbit fur flattened under the flesh, and turned her eyes upon the pups. The palest of them was seemingly training to be a bull, while the larger dark pup was training to be a cannibal. Saena watched them fondly for a little while, but when they did nothing more interesting than headbutting and ear sucking, she let her attention go back to Lasher.

"Right, uh..." she trailed off, unsure where to begin. Fidgeting, she pushed a paw forward to tip the rabbit meat toward the pups, then said, perhaps a little quickly, "um, how do you get anyone to respect you?" Realizing this sounded oddly directed, she backpedaled quickly and said, "Well... what I meant was... I'm having a hard time getting anyone to take me seriously. I thought having trades would help, but... well, lots of wolves here still treat me like a dumb little girl, even though I have more trades than almost all of them! The other day a total newbie completely ignored my request for submission, even though I feel like I've earned the right to request it from them, and called me kid! And..." she paused, chewed her lip, then figured it'd have to come out eventually. "And... I really, really wanna help lead here someday... so, you see..."

Here she trailed off, unsure how to phrase this innermost desire of hers—what she really wanted was for the wolves to treat her like an equal, so that when she attempted to rise they wouldn't ignore her as though she had no right to show dominance, but she knew they didn't see her as one. Though they spoke to her like she was an adult, not a single one of them, except perhaps this man, would admit or even act like she was on equal footing with them. She'd seen evidence of that time and time again.

Her eyes wandered back to the pups, and she made a silent vow to herself that, when they were a bit older, she would never treat them like stupid little kids that amounted to nothing. Though she would never allow them to take her place as self-proclaimed heir to the pack, she would nevertheless show them all the respect she felt they deserved, which was far more than was shown her most of the time.