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 Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2007 3:00 pm
Jagger smiled up at her, meeting her gaze. "Good." A relived breath left his muzzle, a large weight having been lifted off of his sagging shoulders. The fears he had about joining a pack were starting to seep away. They didn't seem like they would shove him into a rank and keep him there, or bully him into doing tasks that he didn't want to, or couldn't do. Maybe this had been a good idea... It was a real shame it took most of his life and to be chased away like a hare for this to happen.
Ears perked and he listened to the alphess once more. "I see..." He said somberly. But unlike Calliope, the old male often talked to make himself or others feel better, using himself as the center of his humor to lighten the mood. This time was no exception. "As long as you don't make me run a marathon or fight a wolf in the prime, I think I'll be fine with that." He smirked. "Although I'll fight and run as long or as far as I have to for pups. I might have never been a parent myself, but I think once you get to a certain age you start to appreciate the life inside them a lot more."
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Posted: Tue Jul 31, 2007 3:25 pm
There were few who could lighten the caramel and chocolate female's mood - her mate, Zagreus, was one and generally did so by comforting her but Jagger's light hearted good humour was certainly quite infectious. The thought of the gaunt old male running even the length of the valley, never mind further, was amusing though she didn't disbelieve for one moment when he said he would do so for pups.
She herself knew exactly what he meant about them - tiny little bundles of fur who saw the world from such a different point of view. Her daughters had grown up, now, knowing only this valley - an odd thought - and had made it their own playground. The fact that Aoede was still missing weighed heavily on her, making Calliope a little more sober once more. "I have two, both girls. They're almost grown now though." She shook her head slightly, sadly. "I can't say they've never made me worry but there has been nothing, I think, that I have ever held as more preciouc than them..."
She didn't explain about Aoede, not yet. Explaining that would involve explaining their whole situation and she felt that it wasn't the time for that, yet. She just hoped that the old male's first experience of pack life would be to have the pack broken up. But no. She couldn't believe that. Helios was just a particularly pestilent nuisance andthey'd soon enough run him off...
"The den isn't far from here.." she added, absentmindedly.
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Posted: Tue Jul 31, 2007 3:33 pm
"Ah." Jagger smiled. "That's what pups tend to do, make you worry and worry." Even though he had never had any of his own, he had watched one or two wandering pups while he lived alone.
He fell silent for a moment, only giving the alphess a nod as she announced that their destination wasn't much farther. But after awhile, he couldn't help but ask the question that had been bugging him. "So..." He began. "Is it safe to assume your the alpha of the pack?" After all, she certainly held herself very high in authority.
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Posted: Tue Jul 31, 2007 5:24 pm
Hah, worry, yes, he wasn't half wrong there.
Calliope felt a burning sensation reach her cheeks. Of course she hadn't thought to say it was becoming so normal now to consider herself the alpha female, to take charge without a second thought. Everyone who had come, she realised, had been introduced to her by others. She had never really had the chance to introduce herself as an alpha before. She felt a little spring of girlish happiness at the thought, but quickly came back to herself.
"I'm sorry, I didn't realise" she let out a short, self deprecating laugh "I am the alpha female of the pack, yes. My mate, Zagreus is the alpha male." she added. It wasn't entirely uncommon for the alpha pair not to be mated in these woods, or for there to be only on alpha so she felt the need to clarify it. She didn't really think, in this small group, it made too much of a difference. Apart from maybe the decision on whether newcomers could stay (and they'd not turned one down yet) the two alphas did not live very much apart from or above the pack. Funny. She used to imagine she would be an imperial alpha female, with a pack at her command... Heh... Perhaps all that being an alpha was about, really, was a little bit of extra confidence...
Finally they arrived. A little ways north and across a stream lay a clearing which backed onto a sheer cliff wall. In that wall, she knew, was an opening which held a low cave - suitable for quite a few wolves to get out of the rain. She could not see anyone there but no doubt there was at least one if not more at the cave - the young ones had been warned, afterall, not to go far. "Just across the water..." her ears flicked this way and that, her nose twitching. She could not smell any wolf she didn't know and began to pad forwards across the shallow stream.
She wondered what it must be like to be meeting so many new wolves at once, to be meeting a 'pack' when you had never been in one yet. She turned to Jagger and spoke with what she hoped was not to condescending a voice "are you ready?"
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Posted: Tue Jul 31, 2007 5:38 pm
"That's alright." The old male smirked, having not meant to fluster her in any way. When he sniffed the air over the stream a flurry of scents came crashing into his nostrils. Strange wolves, one of his new home... he wondered how it would be to live here, what the others would be like. But hopefully Calliope was a good example of what her pack was like. If they were all like her, Jagger didn't think this would be as scary as he first imagined.
"As ready as I'll ever be..." He trailed off and stepped into the warm summer stream, following the brown female to his new home.
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