OOC: I can reuse titles if I wanna!

Leto cursed the continued reluctance to move south, as the weather grew colder and colder and left her crankier and crankier. She'd found Iskra and Artemis both here in Boreas and since neither of them seemed inclined to migrate with her (Artemis had even joined a pack in the northern region of all the crazed, brain-fevered places she could have joined) she would either need to abandon them to their weird snow and cold fetish or give up her comfortable winter spent in the heat of Auster to keep an eye on them. The fact that Iskra was dragging around an irritating snot-nosed little brat everywhere certainly added a bit of extra enticement to the former option.

Yet here she was, pacing around the mouth of the mines she was temporarily holed up in instead of in Auster soaking up the heat. Though at least - speaking of heat - her heat had finally ended with the last of autumn coming to an end. No more needing to chase off overly friendly males because they liked the way she smelled, no more concerns about ending up saddled with a bunch of brats growing in her belly. Hey, she wasn't a prudish little virgin, she had needs too, she just wasn't willing to risk it by satisfying that itch when she was fertile, and she wasn't going to embarrass herself by flirting and throwing herself at everyone with a dick just so they'd make her feel pretty like Iskra did either, even if she had had the patience for that sort of thing. If she was going to screw someone it was going to be a straightforward affair and then be done with it, and now she could do just that again if she wanted.

Her jaws cracked open on a yawn, and she abruptly and irritably flopped down under a tree. She was wasting time here. She needed to make a decision instead of avoiding it by distracting herself with stupid shit.

The last of autumn clung to the lands he'd once claimed as alpha and had never really left. Winter would be coming soon - very soon, if he was any judge of weather. But for now, the dismally foggy weather continued to drag at the land, refusing to turn towards snow. Snow would be much more fun. More dangerous too, in the Maw, but that definitely just made things more interesting.

Chaos was heading back from the range, still caught somewhere between impressed and jealous that his brother had managed to seduce (be seduced by?) Artemis Aeris. To think of all the outrageous fantasies he'd entertained of that celestial-coated hunter while he'd been her alpha...! Even with that hint of jealousy he wasn't stupid enough to be the least bit mad at either his brother or Art - it wasn't like he and Art had ever had anything between them, and even if they had it wasn't his business who she chose to mate with, and he wasn't going to cockblock his older brother either even if it had been his business who Angelus slept with, which again it was not.

Still he sighed regretfully as he loped along, unable to suppress an admiring mental tracing of Artemis' elegant flank in his mind's eye. Damn, Angel always was a lucky one.

As if to taunt him with his own less than lucky status, the sky chose that moment to open up and dump buckets of cold rain on him. A startled yelp shook its way out of the suddenly sodden Imperialis and stopped him in his tracks for a moment before he bolted for the entrance of the mines he knew was to be found somewhere around here.

One minute she was sitting mopily under a tree, the next she was getting soaked through with a cold rain. She'd never cared one way or another if she got dirty or muddy or bloody, but this, this was not fun! It was like having snowmelt dumped on her head by some mischievous sky being. If words could provide heat the rain would have been boiling though, as a nasty stream of curses blistered the air around Leto. Wasn't that just great?! What a lovely fucking land she'd found herself in.

She bolted from the dubious shelter of the tree toward her temporary den in the mines, only to slam right into a wall of fur that the mist and darkness had hidden from her barely a step into the mine's entrance. She cursed again as she bounced off the much larger form of another wolf, her voice rising in a snarl as the oaths echoed through the mine in a litany of foul language that would have made the most hardened sailor blush and should have sent this trespassing oaf back out into the rain with his tail tucked, but instead he just looked like he was listening with a great deal of interest. She could almost swear he was taking notes. She finished her tirade with a violent shake designed to empty all the water from her drenched coat onto the male.

Chaos had only just made the shelter of the mines and stopped to catch his breath when something suddenly bounced off his side like a furry little bouncy ball. A furry little bouncy ball that immediately started swearing up a streak that impressed even a self-professed bad boy like Chaos. His lip twitched into a smile, and his brows rose and continued to climb as the stream of expletives continued unabated.

The smile vanished into indignation when the spitfire suddenly started flinging cold rainwater everywhere though. "Hey!" he protested angrily, but the smile returned in a decidedly malicious grin, and the much-larger male proceeded to return the favor with vigor, sprayed a much greater amount of rainwater around the entrance and reveling in the little bitch's affronted yelping. The look on her face made him break down into gales of laughter, til he couldn't breath. She looked like she couldn't decide whether to shake more water BACK at him, or murder him on the spot. Maybe the hesitation of shock had turned the tables from murder to laughter, because she sent more icy water his way. "Truce! Truce!" he wheezed between bouts of laughter, flopping onto his side and raising his forepaws in a futile attempt to ward off the spray.

She had managed to wipe the grin from his face with the spray of cold water from her star-marked coat, but Leto had only a moment to revel in smug vengeance before a rather devious look came over the wolf who hulked over her in the darkness, and she suddenly found far greater amounts of rain water thrown at HER from his more abundant fur. She yelped in shock and stood a moment frozen, staring at him with indignant fury writ all over her smaller form. How dare he throw water back at her? HE was the one who had trespassed in her fairly-cozy little temporary den and gotten in her way, so HE didn't have a leg to stand on here. His grin was infectious though, and she found herself reluctantly returning it as her internal struggle wavered away from the urge to bite him to something more playful. “That the way y’wanna do it, Big Guy?” she taunted, giving a second even more vigorous shake until the male flopped over in giggles, gasping out the word truce. Though it took a moment for her to translate the word through the thick lisp the male spoke in. A closer look now that her eyes had adjusted to the dark revealed that the flash of his fangs hung far below the curve of his lower jaw, and an intrigued Leto poked at the odd flat surface of the fang closest to her. “Well you are an odd one ain't ya?”

The little spitfire ceased the spray of water, but it was clear a moment later that it wasn't his proffered truce that had secured his salvation, when she poked at one of his lengthy fangs. He reared his head back in affront and stared down at her. Well he could see HER better now too, and was she really one to talk about odd, with her bright swirls of unnatural color and all? “You're one to talk,” he spoke the thought out loud with an exaggerated sniff. “Least my teeth are useful and don't just make me look pretty.” A backhanded compliment if ever there was one, but a compliment nonetheless - the odd celestial swirls reminded him of Artemis and her red sister Iskra, even if this wolf bore much different colors than either of them, and Angelus’ conquest of the blue-toned hunter had the younger brother dealing with a great deal of misplaced lustful thoughts so he could not help but compare this darker little creature to the taller Aeris hunter. He ran the tip of his tongue thoughtfully over his fangs. “I’m Chaos Saxe,” he offered.

The male responded with evident annoyance to her comment, but seemed to show no sign of leaving. Pity, that. Or maybe not - the unusual nature of the creature was intriguing. She wondered if he was affected by the weirdness of those rabbit creatures she had hunted earlier in the season, but she dismissed the idea. The male was clearly of at least normal intelligence for a wolf and didn't seem to be nonplussed at all by the mutation, so it seemed pretty reasonable to assume he had been born that way, as he had said much like she and her family had been born with star-touched pelts.

She flopped down beside him, shamelessly pressing against his side. If he was going to be in here taking up all her room he might as well lend her some of his body heat so she could dry off and warm up. Even if he was the big stupid idiot who had gotten her wet again. ESPECIALLY because. “Leto Aeris,” she finally offered in return.

He had to admit it was rather pleasant to have a warm body pressed unexpectedly against his side just now, even if it was a small, not particularly feminine form. Even if that small, not particularly feminine form was soaking wet and cold. He casually draped one forepaw around her shoulders to draw her closers to his core where she could warm up better.

But then Chaos turned his head to eye her narrowly when she gave her name. “Aeris?” he repeated. What sort of coincidence was that, then? Moping around about Angel and Art hooking up and he happened to run into another Aeris? “Do you happen to have a sister?”

Leto squinted back at the sabretoothed male when he sideeyed her weirdly and asked an unexpected question. “Two sisters,” she said slowly, suspicion lacing her tone. Why would he ask? He seemed to have recognized her surname anyway, so he must know Arry or Iskra from somewhere. Or her Mum, or crazy Aunt Caia for that matter, though she didn't think it that likely that he would mistake the older two females for her sisters unless she was supposed to be from a much younger litter, and what were the odds of that compared to her being one of their children instead? Which in Faria’s case she actually was so there was that. “Why, do you have a brother?” she countered sardonically. Not that she knew any other Saxes (nor, though she wouldn't have known the relation anyway, did she know any Imperialises) but if he was asking about her relations she might as well turn it back on him.

A spark of excitement raced through him at her admission that she had two sisters, though he didn't really know why he was so pleased to have figured it out. It didn't matter whether she was Art’s sister, not really. Maybe it was just that it felt like the universe was offering him something with this strange little coincidence. He didn't believe in some higher cosmic power like some wolves did, but it certainly did seem like more than just luck that had brought him here at this very moment, like something was writing some sort of fate for him.

Plus she hadn't tried to wriggle out from under his foreleg or push him away, which pleased his ego greatly.

He did blink suddenly at her question about brothers, though, and he had to suddenly wonder if she had some knowledge of one of his brothers as he did her sisters, or if she was just teasing. “A few?” he admitted with faint confusion. “Two full brothers and two half brothers, plus one full sister and a half sister.” A bit larger of a family than the one she professed to, though maybe that was better because he wasn't sure what to think about the possibility of the universe thrusting more Aeris females at him. “They go by Imperialis though, not Saxe.”

She had managed to confuse him, which certainly pleased Leto since he had done the same to her. He had quite a few more siblings than she did, and not all of them full blooded. My my, his mum sure got around didn't she? Or his da, she revised when he mentioned the other siblings all went by a different surname. “Why are you a Saxe then?” she asked, curiosity piqued in spite of herself. She snuggled deeper against his chest, rolling slightly to brush a paw against his dark wet coat idly. She still wanted to know why he had asked about sisters, but this sounded like an interesting story.

The male grinned to himself at feel the little female snuggle against him. They were both starting to warm, so the feeling was a pleasant one rather than having a cold, sodden pile of fur shoved against you when you are already cold and sodden yourself. The paw brushing against his fur was pleasantly soothing too, so he was losing track of the conversation a bit when she spoke again.

Chaos shrugged, mildly uncomfortable, at her question. “It's not really that interesting,” he muttered. “My mom was the last of her line, as far as she knew, and all her siblings had been pretty crazy so the name had kind of a bad reputation, you know? She saw the way my dad was building a family name to be proud of and wanted a little bit of that herself, to kind of reclaim a family legacy that she hadn't ever really gotten to have. So that's me, I guess, the legacy of a family that no one around here has even heard of anymore.”

She listened to his story with interest, not pausing in stroking at his fur. The words could have been bitter. Hell, she probably would have been bitter and resentful in his place if she had been the only one in her family set aside as some sort of legacy for her mom’s family instead of having the comfort of knowing exactly who you were and fitting together with her family. What would it have felt like if Artemis and Iskra had been Aeris and she hadn't? She wouldn't have felt like she was really one of them. But the stranger didn't sound bitter, or resentful, just matter of fact and kind of… sad. “Sounds lonely,” she ventured, prompting him to continue.

Chaos sat lost in his thoughts and the soothing stroke of paw on fur for a moment, until Leto’s comments brought his eyes open again. “Not really,” he assured her. “Dad never treated me any different than the other kids for not carrying his name, and my brothers and sisters are treated me just like one of them. I guess maybe if we had had all the same parents it would have felt weird to be the only one who was a Saxe, but we came from three different moms anyway so we were already used to our family being a bit different than everyone else's.”

He shrugged again, unable to stop the restless movement. “Anyway, I try to live my life in a way that would make both my parents proud. I do want everyone to know the Saxe name again, and respect it. I thought I could do that by having a pack but… that didn't really work out well. I guess I just don't make as good an alpha as my dad after all.”

“Hm.” The non-committal sound was Leto’s only answer for a long moment. His woes had brought her own nagging problems back to her as well, dredging up old memories of HER father as an alpha and her vague thoughts of making a pack for her siblings and their families. “My da was an alpha too, a long time ago,” she finally said slowly. “I’ve thought about it myself. Sort of taking care of my sisters, you know? Give them someplace they could do more than just survive. But I don't think I could put up with all the shit that goes along with it. Politics, and allies, and idiots trying to join for a free hand out. Bullshit like that. I'm not a very patient wolf. How’d you do it?”

Chaos eyes crinkled in a broad grin at her words, and an explosive snort issued in amusement. "Politics? Allies? No way. I'm not going to play nice with someone just because they found some wolves stupid enough to follow-the-leader with them. If I wouldn't have been able to respect them before they were an alpha I'm sure as hell not going to start cuz they suddenly think having a rank means they have a right to it. No fucking way. That's not the way we did things in my Crew." He gave his head a single hard shake, a deep chuckle vibrating his chest where she pressed against him. "No, my Crew was about taking risks and being independent. We made a game of telling the other packs to go fuck themselves. If they wanted something from us bad enough they were going to have to really work for it you know? They'd know for sure they needed us a hell of a lot more than we needed them."

Leto was careful to make it seem like she was just listening casually to Chaos' explanation of his old pack, but inside she was practically vibrating in concealed excitement. THIS she could do, THIS she could definitely do. Kow-towing to other alphas, she'd never have been able to swallow that. And that seemed to be all you ever saw, the packs all working harmoniously unless an actually evil pack showed up. Well, she wasn't evil, and she wouldn't run things that way, but she couldn't stand the goody-goody, play-nice-with-all-the-other-kids, sunshine-and-rainbows crap either. She'd have gone rather noisily mad real fast if she didn't vomit the first time DIPLOMACY came up. But she wasn't an idiot either, this Chaos guy didn't have a pack now... why? Because his way didn't actually work? Because he'd lost a challenge? Because he'd just gotten bored? He'd certainly given her a lot to think about though.

In an abrupt change of subject just to throw him off again for her own amusement, Leto asked him teasingly, "So why did you want to know if I had sisters? Did you fuck one of them?"

Leto was quiet for a long moment, and Chaos took the time to just enjoy her smaller body warm against his. For having had such an awful start, what with the sudden rainstorm and all, this was turning out to be a pretty good night after all. Pleasant company, anyway.

His companion stirred in such a way that he knew she was about to say something, but whatever he'd expected, it certainly wasn't that particular pair of questions. His breath whooshed out of him in a rather unmanly and not particularly intelligent sounding squawk that he cut off with a faint cough. "No, no, that's not it at all, I've never..." He caught the glint of wicked amusement in her eyes through the darkness, and stuck his tongue out at her. "I asked because Artemis was one of the first wolves to join my Crew, and she introduced Iskra to me trying to get her to join. I had just been curious if you were the same branch of Aeris. You DO look a bit different from them, you know."

Leto let out a bray of laughter at the sabretoothed wolf's reaction, though he'd figured out that she was teasing quickly enough that he only looked a LITTLE bit like a moron. "Yeah, those are my sisters. I don't know where I got my colors from," she admitted, shrugging. "M' mum was blue like Arry, my da was purples mostly. I think his sister was purples too, but I was really young when I saw her so can't remember for sure. They're the only relatives I ever did meet. I guess I'm just a throwback to some ancestor back on the island they came from." She grinned at him toothily, though. "I wouldn't have cared if you did, though, you'd be a step up from some of the idiots Iskra hangs out with anyway. I hate to think what kind of guy is going to end up knocking her up." She shook her head with a twist to the smile on her muzzle, partly mocking and partly puzzled. "She actually adopted some mute brat from somewhere. It's an absolute horror. Someone's going to teach the little runt a lesson like it deserves and it's not going to be pretty, and of course who's going to have to deal with the aftermath? Me an' Arry." She gave an aggrieved sigh. "Siblings, I tell you what."

Chaos couldn't help but chuckle along with her when Leto laughed at him. She wasn't much like her sisters, after all. All rough edges and harshness and no tact at all. "I don't think my siblings are much like that," he started out doubtfully, then stopped to think. Well, Ashmedai had always had a weird soft spot for that tiny little healer from Abaven that had always been dropping by to visit Rhythm - his lip twitched a little in the dull reflexive anger that always accompanied thoughts of Abaven now, and Rhythm most of all - and Rhys and Rhyme and even their dad had been too caught up in the fact that the alpha was related to stupid Rhythm to care how weak and useless the whole lot of them had been. And Evangeline had never really had great taste in males either, come to think of it. She fawned over the worst males, just as long as they were good looking and tough. "Well. I guess. Maybe that's just how siblings are," he amended. "They probably think about the same of us I bet." Now it was his turn to grin wickedly, and he leaned close to her. "You know, I never fucked one of your sisters... but my brother has."