You Better Be Good To Me

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Collision's arrival was alongside Neo - and she wondered just how their meeting at the borders had gone. The beta wasn't sure what to say to the male, but she would find time to talk to her adopted brother as soon as she could. Hate her he may, but she wouldn't let him blindly hate Valhalla, at least hate them for the proper reasons, right? She quieted, listening to her eldest brother talk about alliances, and they were two that brought her joy at first. Glaciem had always been their sister in arms, and Seracia was a pack that she recognized and she was glad that they were on good terms because she was trying to make a relationship with Gideon work to the point of knowing whether or not they had a future together.


Yet his next bout of news brought everything to a screeching halt. The she froze, her eyes widened at the information that replayed in her mind - she was being married to Maverick. The name was somewhat recognizable, he had been mentioned as family to Gideon and heir to Seracia's throne. She was being sent off to secure an alliance, and what better way than making one of your sisters another pack's possible future queen? No, it wasn't the politics of it that made everything in her hurt and filled her head with colors of white hot and splatters of red. It was that she hadn't been told about it, she hadn't been consulted and this was her life that was in consideration. She wasn't a bartering chip or a pretty little prize that he could offer in condolences of an alliance. She was this pack's beta! She had fought and accepted members and done everything that she could to make sure that it flourished.


Cairo had... he had wanted this to be theirs, didn't he? His sons and daughters, he wanted them to have a constant, a place that they could always call home. Yet it wasn't her home anymore - she was to live somewhere else, somewhere far, and leave her family behind. And she couldn't even do so with a male of her choosing. Her ears flicked back, and she struggled to calm her heavy breathing to listen to what else Collision had done without she or Aislyn or... had her mentor known that she was to be sent away all along?


She cued in at Neo's name, and her pupils dialated as she pinpointed him with her gaze. He had not simply run away and found a girl? He had... betrayed them? The girl tore her gaze away - she was a fool. She had fought to bring him back into their family, but he was nothing but a betrayer. Aislyn's words echoed within her head for a moment, a question of whether or not she would be able to punish or kill family should the moment arise where it is necessary. She still wasn't sure herself, as no matter how much anger she felt looking at Neo she couldn't imagine him dead and her feeling obligated to do so. Yet she had no reason to think that it would be hard for Collision - he didn't seem to care for them much at all. She had idolized the male in her younger years, ignored the feelings of being ignored and placed aside for his own duties and... this was all that she needed to know that he had never truly cared about her.


She held her emotions in as well as she could, her lips twitched in agitation, her eyes pooled but the tears did not fall, and she kept her head level as she nodded - agreeing to systematically go through the motions long enough to decide how Neo was to be punished. Lastly she heard that Epiphron would be placed as alpha to Valhalla, in place of Collision's own mate, Soliel. She... hadn't known that the woman was sick - and there was a pang of guilt within her, because she had once been mindful to hunt for the woman and here lately she had been a bit preoccupied.


"Congratulations." She whispered to her sister, trying her hardest to look happy for her because she was. She had known from the beginning that the only lupine that could surpass her, that could take everything that she had trained for and hold the rank with more dignity and honor than she herself - was Epiphron. From the very beginning she had considered her sister her best and only true competition within Valhalla, and look where she was in the moment that she had the audacity to forget it? "Leadership suits you." She held back laughter, letting her smile spread over her muzzle, it was a graceful movement, executed with liquid ease - but one that she found she couldn't hold. Because not only had she passed her in rank, she had managed to be a more useful part of Valhalla than she had, and she hadn't even had a place in the council to do it. Collision saw her as someone that he could depend on, someone eloquent and beautiful and damn strong enough to handle the job of working beside him.


He needed her more. They all did.


This wasn't her home anymore - and unlike Neo, it wasn't that she wanted to leave - but she was being sent away.


Perhaps though, that was for the best. Because she couldn't look Collision in the eye anymore. Although she could never hate her eldest brother, she had loved him far too deeply - she didn't feel anything good toward he or toward herself when she did.