Let's Start A Riot! [Raid meeting]

Dragon and Avalon seemed to be pretending that the meeting with Lykos had never happened - or at least, neither his brother nor his mother seemed to be acting as though anything had changed between then. Strange... to Gryphon, it seemed as though everything had changed. He eyed them both impassively a moment before turning his attention to the rest of the pack. Several were strangers, including one strangely-colored and -marked male that drew his curious attention. They all seemed to be anticipating something with various degrees of excitement or dread, and Gryphon felt a shiver of apprehension. What did they know that he didn't? What had he missed at the last meeting?

It seemed to take entirely too long to find out, as the pack trickled in so, so slowly to take their seats. But finally the meeting began, and Gryphon found himself staring at Dragon with an expression gone completely neutral with incredulity. He held his peace through the presentations of the two apparent scouts, though, turning that same impassive gaze to both a stranger and one of Esa's pups in turn as they spoke, but finally Sterling concluded and he could stay silent no longer.

"Let me see if I have this right," he began with only a dry tone to his voice. "We live on a continent with more plant life than the northern continent will ever see and multiple forests and water sources much nearer to us than the western packs, and you want everyone to risk their lives raiding packs in Boreas for herbs and water?" Towards the end the neutrality cracked and his incredulity snapped through his voice. "Its the middle of winter up there. They will have less herbs than we do! At least we still have herbs in the forests, they don't even have that. And their water is going to be as hard to find up there as it is here if not more so. Everything is frozen. There's snow everywhere. The pack is already going to be tired from a long journey anyway but trudging through snow the whole way is going to be even worse, and then you want them to fight after that? So you will drag the pack up there only to not find the resources you claim we need. We'll be dead tired, fighting in cold weather aren't used to against fresh wolves who are used to the cold. Wolves will get hurt, maybe maimed, maybe killed, fighting another pack for nothing. Are we going to climb down into their dens to take their stored herbs? Because that would be suicide," he added. "Neither of these packs has done anything to us, have they? except one who chose to defend themselves from our trespassing. And as soon as we raid one of them we make a possibly dangerous enemy. Hell can you really honestly claim that someone would have gotten off easier trespassing here? They would be chased off with tooth and claw, or captured, not just shown hosility. Trespassing, Dragon! You sent an untrained yearling and a blind woman to antagonize other packs to see what would happen and you are surprised when one doesn't send you flowers? Someone could have been killed." Incredulity, and now a healthy dose of disappointment in tone and expression.

This was what had changed in him that day, when he had challenged to take control of the family from Avalon. No more was he willing to sit back and accept things just because a family member said that was the way it would be. He would work to protect them from a continuation of the bad decisions and unsound thinking that had plagued their leadership since they had left Imperium. This was a bad idea, wolves he cared about would be hurt, and he wasn't going to just sit there like a good little child and hope someone else had the courage to say something. Yes, Dragon was alpha, but Gryphon would be damned if he didn't call him out on one of his idiot schemes. He'd be damned if he would sit there without questioning an obviously flawed decision just because Avalon had decided the pack should be run by an irresponsible boy without experience. If no one attempted to rein him in now who knew what would happen once Dragon got the bit in his teeth? Yeah, maybe Dragon would be embarrassed and pissed that he would call him out in front of the rest of the pack, but he kept his black-and-golden head high, meeting Dragon's gaze challengingly. Obviously someone in their family needed to.