Vengeance

Fable dropped in to join them, at first not seeming to notice her as he spoke to Regulus. Justice stayed silent as she peered unblinkingly around the brightly colored alpha and took the opportunity to study Fable unseen. Her taller brother seemed so anxious all the time since she'd returned. Had he been that way before she left? It troubled her that she couldn't really remember.Everything had faded so much that it seemed that all she could really remember where the brightest, most memorable occasions when they were all together and so happy. Anything less important than that was blurry at best, and so little that she could only assume she'd completely buried anything else in new memories. She thought of Valor, so distant all the time that she had no idea whether he was still in pack lands, and of her two missing brothers, and a spark of anger flared up in them in spite of, or maybe because of, the worm of guilt that writhed in her belly. Well she'd come back, hadn't she? And where were they? While the family fell apart.

He finally noticed her and circled around to her other side. She returned his kiss with a bump of her nose in return, affectionate but distracted. She couldn't help the way her pelt prickled at being boxed in between the two much larger males, not a prickle of fear but rather of irritation. She barely kept herself from snapping at her brother to drive him off her shoulder. She wasn't really sure herself why she was so angry about it, except that it felt an awful lot like being caged in, or like he was trying to protect her and rather than making her feel safe she just felt angry. With the alpha there and the seriousness of the situation she forced the spark of anger down to a sullen coal and stayed quiet.

Her ears burned hot in embarrassment when Regulus' words made it clear her stalking hadn't been as stealthy as she'd thought. "Coyote?" she questioned casually instead, congratulating herself on how steady her tone was. "I know that scent, but I didn't know what they were called." Her ears laced back, a hint of fang showing in contempt. "Horrible, nasty creatures." She'd had to step quick to avoid becoming lunch for one of the canines more than once while she was gone, until she'd gotten big enough to fight back and had sent them yelping instead.

She did tilt her head to the side slightly, nostrils quivering as she let the scent filter through. She frowned. Worming out from between the two males she circled, nose to ground, but couldn't find any better trace and shrugging returned to face them across the scent trail. "It's pretty old," she ventured. "Old enough that if it was prey I wouldn't bother following it. I'm not sure how to tell how long ago, though."