Hephaestus' life hadn't really changed since the challenge. He wasn't inclined to wander so sticking around his den wasn't unusual for him, nor was he inclined to socialize so the change in packmates hadn't really affected him either. But it did seem like his littermates were avoiding him, which was at least a little unusual though it hadn't really sunk in for the stoic young male quite yet. It had, however, forced him to confront an issue he'd been avoiding since his mother left.
His new younger siblings.
He just didn't understand. The rules of their family were quite clear about babies, weren't they? You weren't supposed to have them unless you were married, and even then you were only supposed to make them with your spouse. Hephaestus was still a little - probably deliberately - vague on how babies were made but somehow, for some reason, his mother had broken the rules and made a second batch of babies. Which also led to the realization that he didn't, somehow, have a father either. Wasn't that... bad? Did that make him bad, for being the product of it?
But that wasn't really what was bothering him about them either. It was the fact that having those babies had taken his mother away from them. She'd had to go away because they'd made her sick somehow and Aunt Natalya couldn't heal her so she'd had to find Aunt Natalya's family. And because she was gone Katja Finnvi had challenged for the pack and taken them away from the rest of the family. They were the reason Olympus was gone. His mother had come back but nothing had been set right and Hephaestus didn't understand why.
And he resented it.
And he resented his younger siblings as much as he loved them.
It was awful.
The call that caught his attention was a welcome distraction from his troubled thoughts. It took him a long moment to pay attention to it at all, but when he did he found himself slowly pushing himself to his heavy paws. A pack hunt? He didn't think Olympus had ever really held pack-wide hunts, and he hadn't gotten called to one even if they had. He wasn't really sure of how useful he'd be, not really being a stealthy hunter type, but if they wanted him to be there then surely he should go.
Coming upon the gathering he paused with sudden uncertainty. His littermates were spread out among the rest of the waiting group rather than sitting close to each other. Why? Surely being in a new pack hadn't changed their relationship to each other. Or at least, it shouldn't. Expression hardening into stubborn lines, the burly male marched stolidly over to his brother... and attempted to nudge him gently but insistently toward Andromeda. They should be sitting together, they were siblings. He didn't understand why they weren't.
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