Tornach avoided the Legion wolves whenever possible. They represented almost everything that he'd learned to despise about packs, and were in fact descended from the pack Imperium that had demolished Hellstrom when he was young, the siege that had changed so much of his young ideals. He couldn't blame Imperium for his estrangement from his family, though a petty little part of him wanted to. No, that was his doing. He'd chosen to walk away when his mother had raised up her pack and he had discovered that the way she planned to rule was not so different than the pack they had encouraged Abaven and Imperium to tear down. He readily acknowledged that it was his choices, not the Imperialis family, that had led to him seeing next to nothing of his family for most of his life. He knew that.

But that didn't mean that he had to like them.

But something had come to his attention that had woken a rage in him, something that needed, that would, be addressed with Legion's bastard alpha. He'd sent Aiden spiraling up to hover over him as he'd marched down to the knolls where he knew Chaos denned. If the alpha wasn't awake Tornach would just have to drag him out of his den, because he intended to have this out with him now, before the rest of the pack was awake and around where Chaos could call on him if things went sour... which Tornach fully expected they would.

He happened to catch Chaos just before he went into his den, and hurried to cross the space between them before he could disappear into the entrance. "Chaos," he called out in a low voice devoid of emotion. "I would have a word with you."

Chaos had just finished a rather long day full of patrolling and checking up on everyone and planning and all sorts of other alpha stuff, so he was looking forward to flopping out in the barrow he called home and sleeping hard for the rest of the night. His owls were out hunting still - they had a nest picked out to lay a clutch later this season and were in the middle of courting, so they were spending less time at his side than usual. But of course, before he could get safely away a voice called out to stop him. Chaos grimaced, then arranged his expression into a suitably alpha sort of expression, all curious and polite and whatnot, and turned to face the wolf approaching him. Tornach Adravendi, the farmer. Whatever he wanted, it was sure not to be interesting enough to be worth losing his sleep over, but he intended to stick to the letter of his agreement with Legion's associates so he would need to make the effort to put up with them. Anything else was bad for business. "Something wrong, Tornach?" he asked casually.

Legion's alpha turned to face him, with that fake smile he always gave everyone, that clearly false 'I'm such a great guy and I know better than you' routine. Tornach's own gaze was hard, his jaw firm as he stared back. "Yes," he returned with a clipped tone. "There is 'something wrong.' You bid my elk in a slave auction. You tried to use my animals to buy a slave! Did it never even occur to you that I might have a moral objection to that? Did you plan to - what? just commandeer my property? I am not part of your pack and I am under no obligation to provide you with anything more than I already have. You had no right." On the last his voice dropped to a rumbling growl.

Chaos listened without comment, though his eyes narrowed perceptibly at each word, his hackles raising silently at the growl that accompanied the last. "Of course it didn't," he said dismissively, though his tail flicked dangerously at the associate's tone. "You agreed to provide my pack with a fee for remaining in Legion's territory, Tornach. You've been enjoying my pack's protection for yourself and your little farm since we arrived here." His voice rang with poorly disguised impatience. "What we do with the payments we receive in return for that doesn't concern you." He should have known from the start that an Adravendi could be counted on to be a morally righteous pain in the ass, but his enthusiasm for his plans and, frankly, his greed for the easy prey Tornach brought with him into the deal, had made him convince himself that an Adravendi who couldn't stand to live with them surely wouldn't be as prudish and whiny as the rest of his clan. Clearly Tornach was going to make him regret his deal.

Tornach barely kept his muzzle from twitching into an outright snarl. "Then maybe it's time we renegotiated the deal," he snapped in return. His hackles rose and fell restlessly. Largely pacifist, there were nonetheless things that Tornach refused to countenance, and being used to support the taking and keeping of slaves was completely unacceptable to him. He'd stayed silent about Legion's own use of slaves, though it made him sick to think of it, but Chaos had gone too far when he chose to involve Tornach in his disgusting trafficking. "I will not have my livestock used to buy people's lives. So believe me when I say, Chaos Saxe, I am making it my business."

Chaos' eyes narrowed to slits, his hackles bristling. "Bold words," he growled, "For someone surrounded by a pack they don't belong to." He took a quick, clearly aggressive step forward, staring the other male down. "Frankly, Adravendi, you don't have a fucking choice. What Legion does with our property is none of your fucking business. You don't like it, find someplace else for your fucking menagerie." He deliberately bared every inch of fang in an expression that was somehow both grin and snarl. "Minus a fee for reneging on our agreement, of course. To be used however I fucking see fit."

It would have been easy to ignore Chaos' outright aggression and insults, and just take the out he was offered. Pay the "fee", leave pack lands, be done with everything. In fact, he hesitated for a brief moment, wondering if it would be better to back down, de-escalate and avoid violence.

No.

No, he couldn't stick his head in the sand and take the easy way out. He knew that if he did what Chaos was suggesting, the alpha would go out of his way to use that fee for the most nefarious purposes he could possibly think of. It was, he knew, in Legion's alpha to be maliciously vindictive like that. He would do this to protest Chaos trying to buy one slave with his goods, only for Chaos to turn around and buy three slaves just to make a point.

So he squared up, gray fur bristling.

"No." And then, because he wanted to make clear he wasn't backing down, "You won't get so much as a single hare. I'm done with Legion, and I'm done with you."