Acheron yawned wide, stretching to loosen his stiff joints before plopping down lazily on the grass-coated earth below. He was in a forest, on the fringes of a pack boundary. If he had been standing, his stature and large build, made even larger by the pelt on his back, and more frightful with the skull on his head and the bones around his throat, would have let others know that it was his pack, his boundaries he lay upon, and he would have made a daunting figure indeed. But, sprawled out on the floor, he looked like nothing more than a lone wolf desperate to join a pack to call his own. The odd accessories about him did little to help the image, although, from afar, it held the possibility of making his form look less wolf and more monster.
But his appearance was the last thing on his mind. A sigh, half exasperated, half tired, escaped his lips, and he settled into a more suitable position, one that enabled him to stand and defend himself quicker should one choose to approach or, worse, attack. And there was reason for it, too. His parent’s pack, now his, like all packs, consisted of other wolves, some of which were less than pleased with the changes he had made since his sudden ascension to alphahood. He supposed the only thing keeping him alive now were his small (but growing, he would like to believe) band of supporters, his size (which was much larger than that of his pack, for many were born smaller than he to travel within the dense forest with ease), and the pack’s traditions which, ironically, he wasn’t too approving of.
“Mm,” he grumbled irritably, standing and shaking himself to rid his head of his thoughts. Hadn’t he come out in the first place to stop thinking about his problems? So what was he doing, dwelling on them? Snorting, he set off, away from his territory, hoping the change of scenery would do him good or, at the very least, help him with his original goal and get his pack out of his mind.
