The lass had never been to this place before but could remember going to places like it with her her uncle Luke and her mother Morgan. Luke would play with her in the streams and her mother would either spend her time with Rumble or sleepiglng in the sun. The memory made her smile as it was one before Rum left and Morgan compleately forgot about her.

Her mother had spent a year looking for him and around the same time Pepper gave up on Morgan ever paying any attention to her, he came back. Valhalla was no longer her home and she had been a rouge for almost two weeks when Luke told her that her brother had come back. No longer aloud within the boarder of Valhalla she was forced to wait for him and all she could do was hope. When he finally came to the boarder she was overly excited to see him again only to have it crushed and stomped on when she found out he was leaving again.

She didn't understand then and maybe she never would. No one had ever wanted to stick by her aside from her uncle. As a result she no longer claimed her mother and she was pissed off at Rumble. She was close to only three wolves and everyone else was either a plaything or another who she could manipulate to get what she wanted. Among those three wolves were her uncle Luke a pup named Basalisk and a man by the name of Poseidon. Her close and someone else's close were however two completely different things and her close was someone she occationally had a friendly conversation with.

Today however was a new day. She was part of Glaciem..it was a pack of women who were drooling over the king but a pack none the less. She wasn't close to anyone there and she didn't plan to be. The king was a handsome man but she didn't actually want to get close to him. All she wanted was to be the alpha female and for her children to be important and respected. Isardis just happened to be the only one able to give her those things.

A small fish swam by as the lass lay by one of the many pools. It was a pretty little thing and she had always loved watching the fish dance in the water as if they were floating through life. Her second favorite meal had always been fish but that was just one more thing her mother had neglected to teach her how to do.

~*~ But the hunter was to quickly become the hunted. While the grey wolf below was observing the entertaining ripples of the little fish a stray pool, she herself was being observed by a pair of grey-green eyes. Silverback stood tall and proud out on the high branch of white oak. Her grey claws slid in and out of thier fluffy sheaths, teasing the ancient bark as, with perfect balance, she watched the unsuspecting canine down below. They were such silly little things. And while some of them made wonderfully entertaining pets, they would only ever be a lesser species in her mind. ...Save for that one exception which had proved the rule... That didn't count though, not to her. When she looked at the mangy bag of bones down below, it was no different that seeing a raccoon or a possum or maybe a more slow-mitted weasel. It was a cat-toy that was all the more entertaining because it had a semblance of a mind. Lately Silverback had become quite skilled at condescending to the level of mutts. Desperation makes for strange bed fellows so they said, and since she had chosen to leave hearth and home behind, she was simply making the most of her surroundings. Some others she had had excellent conversations with, one she had shredded the tender muzzle, and another she had therapized over his issues. It all depended on the feline's fickle mood and today, today she was itching for a little bit of 'innocent' target practice. She waited until the wind grew stronger - still blowing her scent away from the canine below. And then she pounced! A good twenty feet to the ground below was nothing- espically when she hoped to have a nice softy heap of dog's fur to cushion it. If she succeeded, teeth would snap into scruff, and wickedly clawed legs would encircle the mutt. She was longer and more thickly muscled than any wolf she had met to date, and when it came to one on one, in the wild, a wolf didn't have much of a prayer - course that was why the intellegent ones stayed in packs where they were untouchable. Out here, it was her game, but Silverback wouldn't be letting it end quickly, no, she just wanted to pin her prey down - not finish it off or even hurt it much. ~*~

The woman was completely unaware of the feline as the fish lost interest. She lifted her head from her paws and glanced around to make sure no one was sneaking up on her, but she never looked up as she had never needed to. When she found no one, she relaxed once more and closed her eyes to the warm sun and her mind cleared of her previous thoughts.

Her ears twisted in an attempt to pick up any sound that might mean another was near by. No such sound was ever picked up and a sigh was released into the silence. Something was making the fur on her neck and back stand on end but she couldn't pin point it. Was something, someone, watching her? The thought was driving her crazy along with the fur that wouldn't lay down.

With a flick of her tail she lifted her head and opened her eyes. She hadn't seen or heard anything so maybe she would be able to smell something. Her nose went to work as her head turned left and then right, all the while her nose was tipped slightly upward. The wind picked up and the woman knew if whoever or whatever was behind her then she would never catch the scent.

Finally she had seen the the black and white mass coming at her, but only out of the corner of her eye and too late to do much of anything about it. She began to twist to meet the feline's jaws but was pinned to the ground on her side with the cats teeth gripping the fur and skin on her shoulder. A snarl was let loos as she snapped at the cat's face.

~*~ The cat's aim was perfect - years of having to hunt goats and bighorn sheep upon the mountainsides had taught her - if you didn't get your prey in on the first bounce, you were likely to have the most wild, nightmarish chase of your life. She lived for those though. In fact she'd rather missed her normal prey since coming to the south. She was going to get fat on these wild pig and rabbit if she wasn't careful. Wolf was something a little more challenging, well, occasionally. Today though, Silverback got exactly what she wanted, a bite into the scruff and shoulder - though she would've preferred something closer to the back of the head - and a perfect pin. She dropped half onto her side, half onto her belly, so she could take full advantage of her the powerful cords of mountain climbing muscle which encircled her limbs, growling and hissing in violent pleasure as she did. The mutt turned to try to make a snap at her face, but Silverback merely sought to dig her claws in deeper - up until then she had been careful not to damage the dingo too badly, but if it dare to mar her face, then all the games would be over. After all, it only took one swipe of one paw to shred the flea-bag's belly down the center and then leave it slowly bleed out. Wounds like that were more typical of wolfkills than leopard kills, but Silverback could be creative. She'd seen what it had done to a young elk once that had managed to outrun it's pack of hunters, only to die two agonizing days later. It probably would've been forced to hang on another day had Silverback not come and killed it with a bite to the spine. That was another one of her talents. Silverback, dodged the snapping teeth, but refused to let go of her deathgrip on the girl's scruff, meaning that she was probably yanked pretty hard. A dangerous, pulsing growl delivered words clear enough to be just heard through the mouth of flesh and fur. "One bite and you're paralyzed, dog; I suggest you stop struggling for a moment." ~*~

With the first snap of her teeth she had come close to the leopard's face...but not close enough as the thing pulled back and dug its claws deeper into her skin. Before she had snapped at the cat, its claws hadn't actually drawn blood and now they were. The flesh on her shoulder hadn't been torn or punctured yet but she knew it would be bruised.

The peppered woman pinned her ears against her skull and snapped only once more before her attacker spoke. The tone would have stricken fear in most any other, but all it did to Pepper was make her want to dig her teeth into the cat's flesh that much more. However the words that were spoken were true, this cat could easily paralyze her...so why hadn't she.

A growl escaped her as she clenched her jaw and lay still on her side. Again the question crossed her mind. She had attacked her, pinned her to the ground, and yet had done nothing more than cause a few punctures and a bruise. Pepper knew she would have done so without a second thought. Blood read and and deep blue eyes closed to the world as she unclenched her jaw long enough to let her voice be heard "Then release me, cat."

She waited for the leopard to either let her up or to kill her. Either way she kept her mind blank and kept herself ready for anything...if she was killed her pack would find the murderer she had faith in them and if she wasn't killed she was ready to dart out from under the feline as quickly as her body would allow her to.