The room was dark, all the curtains drawn across the windows and the door tightly shut. Sunlight still crept in along the edges of the curtains, but it was good enough for the quality alone time Red had wanted. He'd been asked a couple times what he wanted to do when he grew up, and he'd answered without a shred of uncertainty each time. He wanted to be an Alpha. The only problem was that he needed a pack for that. He'd hidden himself away so he could think about how best to fix that.Red sat alone bundled up amidst the nest of blankets he'd set up by stealing all the blankets from the empty beds in the room. The rest of the roommates he'd had had already been bumped up to the junior dorms. So there weren't any freshlings aside from him in the room. It shouldn't really matter that he'd taken the blankets off the rest of the beds, though he'd probably be told to put them back anyway. It wouldn't be much longer before this wasn't his room either so why should he care about it? The caretakers had begun making offhand comments about his rapid growth recently, things like 'he was so big' now and 'they were gonna miss him so much when he was gone!' Huffing out a snort, Red grumbled. He knew they were lying. He'd overheard them sometimes, talking about how he was a problem kid and no wonder he'd been sent here alone and never gotten any visitors.
His mother hadn't come to visit him once during the years he'd been stuck here, not that she'd done that before, but they'd tried to console him by insisting that she would come to visit soon. Why would he want some stranger to come visit him though? He knew his mother about as well as he knew the old headmistress of the school. There'd been a brief upset, some time after one of the races had come out of hiding and then they'd had a new headmistress. Adira or something. It didn't matter much to him. If anything he preferred for her not to visit. What would he even say to someone who'd abandoned him to a nanny without even bothering to see how he felt about her?
No, he was going to grow up big and strong without anybody's help, and once he had he'd move to where the lost clan of grimm were with his pack. Tugging down on his shirt, it was too tight and he couldn't get it to cover up his stomach most the time, he burrowed down deeper into the pile of blankets, narrowing his eyes. He'd be the alpha of a real big pack and they'd all count on him to make sure everything was done right and they'd pay attention to him and everything would go great. They'd go out on wild hunts and he'd make sure everyone stayed safe and when it came time to bring down the animal he'd be there to take it down. His tail thumped against the blankets at the thought of it.
So it didn't matter that he didn't have a pack right now. That the only one he'd had had been with his brother and he'd been taken from him, forced to attend this school where nobody cared about him aside from making sure he didn't get into too much trouble. The only pack he'd stumbled across here that he wouldn't mind being part of didn't want him as alpha. How was he supposed to make sure he was the best if he couldn't even convince Kinley and Jacie to let him take over?
Bandages covered the various scrapes and bruises on him, accrued from challenging Jacie and losing to the older boy. Occasionally he even got to the point where he might have beaten Jacie and then Kinley would come in and side with him and not Red! Even though he'd said he was his friend... Red sighed, tail curling about himself as his ears drooped. How could he take care of his pack if he couldn't even beat up one grimm? How could he make sure they were safe? He wasn't the biggest or strongest of them and he couldn't handle the both of them together.
Red scrubbed a hand across his eyes, willing the tears that had begun to well up into submission. The grimm wasn't willing to let something so stupid bring him to tears, especially since he didn't have Izzy to turn to here. Maybe he should just. . .join their pack. . .and let Jacie stay alpha. Then, when he inevitably messed up, he could offer to be alpha instead? Mulling the idea over, Red rolled over in his bed, half the blankets falling off in the process. It would chafe at him. . .to have to listen to the older grimm, but he could put up with it while he waited for his chance. He already had a shaman lined up for when he was alpha, he just needed to get everyone else in line with his leadership.
In the process of rolling over he nearly fell out of the bed, saving himself at the last minute with an abrupt jerk. Ugh the bed was too small! He had to scrunch up his legs or he couldn't fit in it all at once and no matter what he did he almost fell off of it! Hopefully the bed in his new dorm would be bigger! Mind made up and sick of wasting time in bed, Red rolled completely off of it. He'd go find Kinley and tell him that he'd join their pack. AND that he wasn't going to take over. (Not that it would stop him from challenging Jacie when they'd both let down their guard.) A smug grin on his face, Red adjusted his clothes once more before storming from the room, leaving the blankets strewn about on the floor and the sheets tangled up on the bed. No doubt he'd get fussed at later, but in the moment he couldn't bring himself to give it a second thought.
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