We'll fight until you forget who you belong to

This, he considered grimly, has escalated rather quickly.

Sirius' words were met with a scoff and pinned ears. Hackles stood suddenly and fiercely as the emotions raging through him, and Dove shook his head. "Care for me?" he scoffed. "You've known me for but a day and have somehow convinced yourself that I need protecting." The wind was still now, as if sensing the volatile tempers in its midst, and Dove couldn't help deciding that gone was a better place to be than where he currently was.

The other wolf was clearly in straits as dire as Dove's own, and usually, that would have caused him pause. But the man was daft if he actually believed that Dove owed him this. "You have no idea what you ask of me," Dove retorted, horror dancing in his vision as memories surged forth, of his brothers, his father constantly backing him in a corner and forcing him to fight his way out -- only to be allowed out after hours of being unable to overpower either of them. Beyond that, his father never cared for close quarters with his youngest son, unless he needed a scapegoat for his rage; his brothers, thoug-- Pain screamed in his right shoulder as he crashed back into the present, backpedaling wildly until there were feet between he and Sirius.

Fear, his own, permeated the air, and the shudders he'd been attempting to suppress wracked his body. His hackles still stood, despite the presence of both rage and fear, and his ears were pinned tightly to his dome. He kept himself tall, but his tail, which had previously been stiff behind him, tucked tightly as he bared his teeth and snarled. His gaze landed on Sirius with a glare. Blood, his own, soiled the ground between them, a testament that he should have initially listened to his instincts as he had his entire life.

Bitterness coated his words, and he spoke in a hollow tone. "You're just like them," he spat, eyes meeting the other wolf's icy gaze. He knew Sirius wouldn't know who them was, even if he could take a vague guess.

Never again. It thumped in his head, an intonation that he would never again be where he found himself just then. And it was like a tonic had been sent through, clearing his mind so he new what was needed. He lowered his stance, head coming down to hover above the ground. He didn't want to fight. He had never wanted to fight, and for some reason, so many, too many, wrought judgement upon him because of it. But what else could he do with this rage? Where else could he put it? Who could he give it to? Because for the first time since he'd left the kingdom, he was so very tired of being angry.

Part of him knew the reason that he didn't want to fight was because he did not know how. The 'lessons' he'd been given, if one could call them such, had only left him battered, bloody, and bruised. And once his siblings had become old enough to understand that Dove would not, could not, fight back, they had been relentless. "Fine," he said tersely, knowing he would likely lose anyway. It was a brutal truth. But Dove had never been the warrior his father wanted, craved even though he had two elder sons fit enough to do the job.