metal's awfully chilly on the underbits

A soft grunt was his only reaction to her cleaning the wounds, taking the pain stoically and refusing to twitch and whine about it. His mom never would have put up with that sort of nonsense and would've pinched his ear and scolded if he'd squirmed around making a mess of her herbs when he'd gotten himself hurt. He sighed, and just grimaced when she pressed a ground-up herb into the wounds. "I grew up in a pack that laid claim to the Range, Buffalo Knolls, and the Orchard down in the south," he told her. "Those were my father's lands and the pack he had raised there was full of strong warriors. I don't see the need for a harsh land to make a wolf strong, and the good hunting there will let us spend that strength where it's needed instead of just surviving on the edge. I tried the 'harsh land, strong wolves' thing with Crew, you know, and it just didn't work out the way I'd thought it would. We spent most of our time trying to keep ourselves alive and warm and not enough of it training and building up the pack. So I'm going back to what I know worked, and claiming the Range and Buffalo Knolls to work on building up the strength I already know you guys have." He gave her a boyishly charming grin.