Willows

His eyes twinkled in amusement as Malalia spoke about the size of her alpha. “Aurielle is about your height and regularly trounces me in training. She lives up to her the Valhallan rank name for alpha, too, in personality and appearance.” His lips quirked in a mischievous smile as he left it at that. Should the girl ever meet his Spirit, he didn’t want to rob Malalia of the experience of meeting a pure white, shimmering, glowing wolf with long canines and a mane and tail and a marking around the left eye.

At Malalia’s congratulation he chuckled, admitting, “Thanks. I’m always pushing to do better than I did before, so I guess it’s working. Still not perfect in the basics, though. I don’t personally expect to reach beta until I’m about four, maybe even six, but I won’t stop till I get there.”

His eyes softened sympathetically as she spoke of her reasoning for being out here, gaze shifting to study the surroundings before turning back to her. It was the first expression of uncertainty the younger wolf had shown.

“You’ll get there. But breaks are good. Aurielle regularly kicks me out of the pack territories to explore Boreas and Auster, though I haven’t gone that far south yet.”

And that led into her next query. He was more careful with his response, though none of the guarding showed in his demeanor or easy grin. He was still stating truth, after all. Just not enough specifics to be used against his pack.

“Technically my family’s in a lot of places. By blood, it’s myself and my siblings in Valhalla, and one cousin that recently joined—I haven’t had a chance to meet her yet. By longstanding adoption, my family is most of Valhalla. Aurielle’s my adoptive cousin, but I really don’t distinguish, personally. She’s family. My great grandfather gave her great grandmother his surname and his love-confession the day prior to his death by old age, and it followed her descendants down the line. But I have blood cousins from my uncle’s children wandering around as rogues. I only met one of them the last time I went to the mangroves. Figured I’d test my luck again.”

He grinned, tail waving gaily behind him. He was pretty sure he’d skirted well around the numbers and specifics. He’d never stated how many sibs he had, nor how many were in Valhalla, though he supposed if anyone were really that nosy, they could hike all the way to the border and give it a good sniffing, as the whole pack generally scent marked the wall for the added warning that the wall was not just a landmark left behind by man. Man had nothing to do with it save for the inspiration.

Walk ---- "Speak" ---- "Hear" ---- Think