Hallelujah (I'm Not Dead)

Cináed saw his father waving him closer, but he was only sitting a couple of feet from Vulcan and that was plenty close enough for him. Celosia came to sit with them, sitting close to their father and Ciná scoffed quietly as Ignis bent and whispered to her as she made such an obvious show of flaunting herself. Was he the only one that felt that their father's absence outweighed the need for his favor? Of course Vulcan and Infrit wouldn't have that issue, would they. He scoffed softly and and he kept his golden gaze pointedly focused away from his father, instead watching as the other wolves filed in. His uncle Casso and his mate, their children, Song, Kirsi, their kids, and a couple of other wolves he wasn't as familiar with and that was it. A hand full of adults scattered among all the younger wolves like himself. His gaze lingered on Onyx and Bronze for a moment, glad they were here since they were the ones he had spent the most time with. It bothered him that the two wolves he was closest with weren't even from his own family, but considering three members of his family had up and left without a word it was hard to have the truth be anything else.

He gave his father a glance as he began to speak, but his gaze quickly shifted away to stare out off the edge of the ship, looking out toward the icy ocean in the distance. He kept a flat, neutral expression throughout the delusional, self righteous speech about how he didn't care that he had been away, blaming wolves that had left in his absence for speaking ill of him without stating any proof, saying how he had "opened his eyes to the truth of the word." Well, one thing was for certain, Cináed certainly felt that his eyes had been opened to the truth of his father as well. The truth that this nameless voyage had more importance than his own children and was comfortable leaving his pups alone to fend for themselves in a decaying pack. His jaw was tense while Ignis continued, naming off some promotions and ranks for everyone in the pack and naming all the pups to be apprentices that needed to chose what rank they wanted to strive for.

He didn't speak right away, seeing what others might pick. His uncle said something about being willing to take lots of apprentices as needed, but that didn't interest him as much as Onyx's bold statements discrediting what his father had said. His gaze turned to focus on her as she spoke, a smirk pulling at his lips. He appreciated how she pointed him out in particular as one that had trained with her. She had been his most frequent sparring partner and he quite liked her company. Bronze's statements weren't far off from his sister's and one of their other siblings that he hadn't met yet spoke up to spoke up to say how he just wanted to build things like his father. He supposed that was as good a thing to choose as any. But then it came down to what he might want to chose for himself.

The easy answer would be to say fighting like the others since that was something he had focused a lot of his time on. He'd keep training with Onyx and her siblings either way, but he felt the need to be more bold than that - something that might actually force his father to take note of him for once. He turned his gaze back toward his father with a firm look. "I am interested in challenging for the position of Princeps." He wondered if any of his siblings would bother to fight him for it. He almost hoped that they would so he could show the progress he had made without his father's help. "I've been working diligently on my fighting skills and I'm certain I have a better view of what has been going on in the pack than most." Most certainly better than his father, Vulcan, or Infrit - that much was for certain.

Cináed Praetor