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A stinging pain over Helios' right eye was what had ended the fight. The pain was horrendous, his eyelids swollen tight over an eye that he'd never see from again. A stupid accident in a fight for dominance. He had been the bigger of the pair but Nova was strong and experienced. Nova, that son-of-a-b***h! Helios didn't think he had so much fight left in him - he was, afterall, a lot older than the golden coated, large young male and generally a placid old coot. Helios had thought it was time the mantle of alpha was handed over - especially when the coal-black male had allowed the pack to split - a lot of the younger ones moving away to establish a new territory under Gaea. Some had even gone off to find their way to new groups - tired of the large kin network that had bound them.

Helios had never thought of trying to take the place of Gaea. The new pack, as it fissioned off, had no tradition or a full territory yet. No. He had wanted the prestige of the old pack, the true one. He wanted to be the top of the ladder which he had looked up from birth. His mother was an alpha and he the oldest of her pups - surely that meant he was in the best position to have learned truly what it meant to be an alpha. Of course, it was about time mother retired too, the old hag, and let a younger wolf, a nice pretty mate for Helios, take over.

That wasn't the usual way in the pack. Usually one leader was taken from one family lineage, the other from the other side. Whomever 'proved themselves worthy' his mother had explained to him as a child. Well! He was worthy wasn't he?

His mother, of course, had sided with Nova. b***h! Hag! The whole argument had sparked off when he told her his intentions and she had replied that he would never be a leader. Too pushy? Too arrogant? HAH Helios, thought. She's just jealous that I'm younger, stronger and more intelligent than she.

Nova hadn't even challenged him - he wasn't wolf enough for that! Helios had to make the challenge, though the old male had surely known it was coming. He was too quick, his nips and scratches well placed until that last one, the one which had hurt his eye. It was all over then, really. Helios couldn't see enough to even get back at Nova, his depth perception lost and unable to see down one side.

He was alone, now. He hadn't been thrown out, no, that old male didn't have the guts! Helios had left, swearing he'd start his own pack and a better one at that ! They'd come back and take over this territory, yes they would! And Helios would be a stronger alpha than Nova ever was - stupid, old, crafy git!

His thoughts were cut off by another stabbing pain in his eye. It had been hours since the fight but his wound was still leaking blood and would be lucky not to become infected at this rate. A twig snapped nearby and Helios froze. He hadn't noticed the young female following him - he had been too blinded by rage and muttering curses to himself to notice much of anything - especially the very noticable tracks he was leaving. He knew her scent, knew who she was. "Come to gloat, Erin" he said, nastily, his voice harsh with pain and dripping with distaste. She was a small, unpretty, omega female, who he had barely talked to before and had sometimes picked on when he was really bored.

He felt a warm, wet tongue on his sore eye and he hissed, moving back. "Got to clean it, got to stop it going green..." she said, her voice barely audible, a whisper on the wind. She was doing him a service. Well, she had always been the sort to do what others needed - a servant, unnoticed but vaguely useful. He allowed her to apprach again and clean his wound, feeling the seeping stop and the blood which matted the fur of his face loosen.

When she was done she wandered off again, just as silent as before and, maybe an hour later, brought back a winter rabbit - it's fur turned white from what Helios could see with one tired green eye. He was famished. "Took you long enough" he snapped at her, wolfing down the whole of it while she sat off to one side, head down, ears flattened, tail curled wound her legs. "Sorry.."

She slipped away again before morning had come and Helios wasn't sure if she'd come back. He didn't need her of course but it'd be nice to have someone to do those little things for him - he didn't often hunt for himself and felt it was a bit beneath him. Sure enough, though, just when he was getting hungry, she appeared with another small morsel she had caught, leaving it for him and then dissappearing into the forest again.




Helios had always been proud of his looks and now, as he stared into the pond he had come across, he despaired. The skin around his eyes had torn, the fur now gone to leave a pink, deep scar. Erin's attentions had meant it didn't become infected and leave him with a mass of bloated tissue or worse, but the golden wolf didn't much appreciate it when his face still seemed so mared. As his eyelids had unswollen, too, he realised his vision in it was very blurred and allowed him only to make out vague shadowy shapes. He couldn't focus at all with it and it left him feeling slightly disoriented and vulnerable. This feeling of weakness, however, was expressed consciously as anger. And the only one to rail against was Erin. "Stupid, cowering, ugly b***h!" he growled, as she came back with a vole for him "How is this supposed to feed me! I'm not mangy and small like you." His voice was pure venom, his tone rough.

The small female took it in her stride. She had been picked on by everyone all of her life - if not as vociferously as Helios was doing now. That global disdain had given her a very quiet personality but also a great deal of equanimity if not confidence. She ignored the comments, doing what she needed to do, understanding Helios better than he himself did why he was shouting at her. A while later, when she slipped back, he was more morose than angry. "How will I ever lead a pack with a.. a lame eye! and I'm so ugly, too, no female would have me for a mate." His anger at rejection had finally turned into despair at his lonliness and percieved hard future.

The small female dithered for a moment. She didn't like to see him like this but his other side was none to great either... Still... "Helios" she never really used his name, it was a personal thing and they didn't talked wolf to wolf as equals. It got his attention, though, as required, and he stopped his self-pitying monologue a moment to listen to the small, dappled brown female. "It looks... rugged, handsome.." was all she said, quietly, before slipping off, leaving him to think on that.

By the time she came back he was in full Helios mode. "Thank you, Erin!" It was his first tacit approval of her since she had started following him. She didn't really know why she had except that she had felt slightly sorry for him... Though she'd never let him know that. She had thought vaguely about leaving before but felt she would never be accepted anywhere else if she was barely accepted in her own pack and, well, it had just been easier to do what she was told. Helios appeared to be back on form as she lay down in the slightly sheltered lee of a rock, curling up tightly against the cool late autumn wind and tucking her nose under her tail.

She felt she had a purpose with Helios, something which was her personal responsibility, something she'd never before had, and so she put up with his insults and having to feed him as if he were a pup and his mood swings because through all of it she might find herself, her true purpose in life. She never thoughts she'd really become more than a lowly omega but she did believe, in some small, deep part of herself, that she could be happier than she was now.

The next morning Helios set out again and casually, Erin guided him away from the territories of the wolf packs she had scouted out whilst hunting, silently keeping him safe, never impinging upon his self-aggrandised vision of himself as a strong, youthful, powerful and now ruggedly handsome! male.