So little had Tyr been able to explore the lands he now called home - bouncing between an orchard and a willow grove much of the time, the calm beauty of the two places awakening an answering calm in his own tormented heart - and there was still so little that he knew of the other wolves who made it their home. He'd finally made his way to the north, slowly meandering his way back down the land to find his way here. A new territory, the pack boundary markers were, perhaps, not so obvious as in a long-established territory, going far to explain Tyr's ignorance of the fact that he was, in fact, trespassing. The little wolf blithely limped his way along, thinking only of returning to that small measure of peace he'd found among the willows. The bones of his spine and hips stood out starkly through his thin pelt, but he didn't stop to hunt here. Long experience with hunger had made it easier to ignore it, and he could try his newly learned fishing skills once he made it back there. If he made it back - having never left the core of his family's territory, he had never really learned to navigate, and his poor sense of direction was making it difficult to find his way around these strange lands. "Speech"

Erani

Snowy paws carried the Alpha Primary along the territory border of Valhalla, deep blue eyes scanning the surroundings with a keen glance that took in everything. They?d been back on the plains for no more than two days, and she had sent Alsander, Surreal, and Cormalin out to scout the surrounding lands of Druids Moor, Whisperer?s Gorge, and Wolfpaw Lake, to stake a claim on them for Valhalla. She would be holding a Mating Ceremony for Ashtoreth and Leon, as a kickoff for Valhalla?s return to the Plains, and to celebrate the extra lands. Valhalla would not go hungry. Erani paused as she caught a whiff of fresh scent. Head swiveling, she locked onto the scent, turning inward toward the heart of the Territory as she followed it. The individual scent was unfamiliar. However it bore a resemblance to a certain set of brothers she?d encountered before the Challenge. Thor, Baldur, Loki, and Hati. Out of the four, she liked the prior to better. Hati had been injured the injuries badly infected. Erani had healed the male with help from a young female healer. Hati, it seemed was one of those wolves that hated such things as honor and kindness. He?d repaid her healing with cold, brash words. Oh well. She found the male, and circled around ahead of him on silent paws, innately finding places to set her paws where no sound or trace would be made. She?d had nine years of practice at Forest Craft, and she knew her Craft very well. She took the time to study the trespasser, finding his patchwork orange and black coloring fascinating. Not only that, but they triggered a memory of another wolf with similar markings. He was even thin like that wolf. Haunted. Haunted had been an oddity to her, refusing to hunt, only eating from what was already dead. Had Haunted survived the Volcano? Or had he been overtaken by the raging disaster? He?d been a healer as well. She dashed the thoughts aside, and stepped in front of the stranger, head lifting high, tail raising. ?You walk on Valhallan Territory, stranger.? Velvet voice was firm, but not unkind, deep blue pools waiting for an explanation of the intrusion on her territory. As she looked him over, noting how thin he was, and the way one paw hardly carried weight, the way the muscles were less defined on that leg than on his other legs told her that this lameness was an old affliction. Some of the sternness left her stance. ?What is your name??

Uphill struggle, blood sweat and tears

The sudden appearance of the white wolf had Tyr flinching back, only to drop immediately to his belly at her grave words. Still sharp in his mind were memories of Hroovitnir's pack, of the way they treated trespassers - females force-claimed by either Hroovitnir or Vili, males torn apart. From what he'd later learned, his own mother had been such a trespasser, half-starved and too weak to fight back, and too weak to survive the birth of the litter Hroovitnir had immediately planted in her. His eyes darted from the wolf to the land around them, expecting at any moment for a border patrol to materialize as silently as she had, to exact revenge for the slight of him crossing their boundary.

"I'm sorry," he gasped. "I didn't know, I didn't realize that this was your territory. I'll go! I swear, I won't come back, just please don't..." Tongue running over his lips nervously, he rolled to his side to flash his belly in abject submission.

But the woman didn't seem like she was inclined to punish him - at least not immediately - for she had gone on to ask his name. Not that it was much of an indicator of goodwill, for his uncle Ve had often asked such questions to lull his victims into relaxing, before killing them, just to see the betrayal and horror in their eyes as their life drained away... Tyr shuddered. "I am Tyr, great lady," he whispered, retaining his posture as he cringed fearfully.



"Speech"

Nothing to gain, everything to fear

Erani

Erani winced internally at the reaction her sudden appearance in front of the young wolf got from him. He flinched backward, dropping to his belly like a pile of rocks, cowering onto his back and apologizing profusely. The remainder of her stern expression melted away, tail lowering to it?s customary place, hanging relaxed between her hocks, head lowering comfortably low as she took him in again. She hadn?t missed his sweep of the bushes and surroundings. Expecting an ambush? In another pack, that could be a possibility. But she herself wasn?t one to ambush someone who looked too thin and weak to fight. Plus, he had given no reason whatsoever to warrant an attack on him. He gave his name, and her head cocked slightly as he called her ?great lady?, a faint smile gracing her lips. ?Rise, young Tyr. I am Erani Adravendi, Alpha Primary of Valhalla.? Her voice was gentle, a warm caress, not unlike the croon of a mother to her child. It was the voice she had used to soothe her children, and Cairo?s children during anything scary, to reassure them that there was light at the end of the dark path of a nightmare, and that the thunder wouldn?t harm them. Looking at his thin frame, at the ribs that jutted out so painfully, she had to ask. ?When was the last meal you had, young one??

Uphill struggle, blood sweat and tears

Away went the old white wolf's stern posture, but Tyr didn't move from his submissive, cringing position. He'd made the mistake of letting down his guard too many times before. She smiled at him, just slightly, as she cocked her head to look at him, then bid him to rise. Tyr obeyed with alacrity despite his misgivings. Better, he'd learned, to be trapped into punishment by doing as he was told than to be punished for hesitating in carrying out a direct order. When you got pride involved, things got much nastier.

His brow furrowed at her words, though, catching one in particular. "Valhalla?" he blurted out before he could restrain the word, then cringing for speaking out of turn. Her voice was strangely soothing, warm like the summer sun after a cold night - but Tyr, who had never known a mother's kind voice, did not associate it with that. Anglea had never spoken to any of her own children in such a way, let alone the crippled interloper she had been forced to foster with her own litter. Loki had used a similar tone when he would shower Tyr with false kindness, all for the sake of inducing a punishment for the younger boy, but there was always a quietly sly note to it, a note that was conspicuously absent from this Erani's voice.

The wolf would speak again, asking when the last time he'd eaten was. Wide-eyed with surprise and suspicion, Tyr's gaze flew to hers searchingly before he dropped it back to the ground at their feet. His brow furrowed in confusion - what possible reason could she have to want to know? To know exactly how weak he was likely to be? To know if he'd been hunting on her territory?

"I don't remember," he admitted in a whisper. "A couple days? Maybe?" Wolves were capable of going quite some time, weeks even, without eating, assuming they were able to gorge themselves on a big kill to make up the lack, but Tyr had never had that privilege even when he was getting regular meals, and the fact that he couldn't quite remember how long it had been concerned him. But once he got back to the willows, he'd be able to fish there, and all would be well. Though if this alpha took exception to something he said, he might not live long enough to worry about where his next meal was coming from.



"Speech"

Nothing to gain, everything to fear

Erani

The speed with which the young male obeyed a request made her wonder just what he had gone through in his short life. By his scent, he was two years, nearly three. Yet his eyes were old, expecting pain to befall him. So much to be read in that mismatched set of green and gold. Pain, fear, suspicion. What he spoke the name Valhalla, he cringed as though expecting to be punished for speaking. This didn?t come from being born timid? This was trained. Beaten into him. How much she wanted to curl around this young male and protect him as her question brought more of that mix of emotions flooding his face and eyes. The eyes flicked up to meet hers, then dropped to the ground as he finally answered, in such a soft voice she had to perk one ear to catch it. That decided her. ?Come with me, Tyr. My brother made a kill a few days ago, and there is still plenty to eat.? She turned and set off at a slow pace, allowing him to keep up with her instead of ranging ahead and leaving him behind. How she wanted to sink her teeth into the wolves that had damaged this boy?s emotions so badly. ?Would you like to join Valhalla, Tyr?? It was a gently voiced question, leaving two paths open for the boy. He could either choose to stay, or go his own way; After she?d seem him eat enough to make his sides bulge. The walk wasn?t far. In fact, Tyr might have eventually stumbled across the deer carcass himself if she?d not encountered him. She sat aside, her own stomach full from an earlier meal. ?Eat as much as you can hold. Slowly though. Too fast and you could become ill.? She settled down on her belly, tail curled around her haunches, allowing him full reign on the carcass.

The wolf watched him for a moment, judging him, and Tyr cringed - mostly mentally - at the knowledge that he would be found wanting. After what seemed like an eternity but he knew was probably only moments, the alpha spoke again. Not, as he'd expected, to condemn him, but to ask him to follow. To... a kill? Confusion warred with suspicion in the patchwork wolf, but he followed immediately at her order, the instinct to do so ingrained far too deeply for anything else. But as they walked the short distance, Erani dropped an even more shocking question on him. Would he like to join Valhalla? For a moment his startled gaze flew to her, eyes wide in shock. Was she serious? Or... just tantalizing him with the opportunity before she pulled it away from him again. "I... but... what..." He forced himself to stop, marshaling his scattered thoughts, but before he could actually form a coherent sentence, they had come upon a deer carcass. Again Erani commanded him, and again he had no choice to obey. But... why was she being so kind to him? Asking him to join her pack? Feeding him? What could he possibly have to offer her that was worth all the trouble she was going through? He bent obediently to the meat, jaws opening in preparation, but then he stopped and straightened. Mismatched eyes met the alpha's, and he asked one simple question with a lifetime of pain in it... "Why?" "Speech"

Erani

He followed without question, fear visible on every line of his frame, confusion and suspicion most evident. His reaction to her offer was to stammer, then stop speaking as they reached the carcass. He began to take a bite, but stopped, and asked her one question. It held so much pain. Her maternal instincts wanted to find whomever it was that had caused that pain and tear into them until they quaked with that same fear. ?Because it?s obvious you were hurt early in life, perhaps for most of it. Valhalla is a pack that is a family. Loving, strong and kind. We help one another rather than harm. And any who harm our family will be dealt what they gave.? She studied the young male with gentle eyes as she spoke, the last sentence a firm statement that dripped with a hint that pain given to her family would be pain received to the attacker. ?There?s a strong wolf in there, under the surface. He isn?t gone yet. He is kind, caring, and sweet, under the fear and pain he?s worn like a dead winter coat. Valhalla can help you shed that dead fur, Tyr. To grow strong and sure of yourself, and to find a purpose. First thing first is to eat.? She smiled as she spoke the last sentence, tilting her head toward the carcass. She lowered her head to her paws, allowing him free reign of the carcass once more, and to think over her words.

His mismatched eyes followed her speech intently, vision making up for the deafness as it had all his life as he processed her words. He wanted to believe what she said, wanted to believe that life in Valhalla was different than the life he had lived with his family, but he could not bring himself to put aside his suspicion and skepticism. Still, Tyr was far from stupid. The chance he was being offered - the chance for consistent meals, to have a family that cared for him, protected him, to have purpose for the first time in his life - he would be a fool to pass it up. No doubt in his mind that it was not going to live up to the lines she was selling him, but it would be better than starving to death, or being torn apart by the first surly rogue to be offended by his existence. His gaze dropped to the kill at his feet when he considered her words about him. A cynical knife twisted in his heart. There was no strong wolf hidden in him. Just a coward, a cripple, weak and with nothing going for him. He was just there to take up space and air. Nothing more. But despite it all he didn't have it in him to just give up and die. He hadn't even when Hroovitnir was alive, and he wouldn't now that he'd had a taste of freedom. He automatically tore at the meat, chewing it mechanically as he thought. It took only the space of that time to come to a decision, and he choked down the meat to speak. Meeting Erani's gaze with trepidation, he told her in a quiet voice, "I'll join Valhalla, if you're sure you want me." "Speech"

Erani

As Erani waited for Tyr to accept or reject her offer of a home, she wondered again how far away the wolves who had caused him such pain and hardship were. They would have hells to pay if they ever laid a paw on him while he was under her care and a member of her pack. He was so young, and the amount of distrust he showed toward kindness said he?d been mistreated from the very beginning. She could see the self doubt in his eyes, and wanted to hold him and drive that self doubt away. But she would instead give him time to speak. It did her heart good to see him eating, and even better when he gave his ascent. She smiled gently. ?Then welcome to my family.? She lowered her head to her paws, relieved that the young male would have a future, and that she would be the one to give him that future. -Exit Thread Via Nap-