::: This was calm, nice, the sort of thing I often missed as playing an alphess both served to bring me closer to the wolves I lead and loved but distanced me all the same as something else. A different rank, the way my decisions and careless words my way could bring about consequences for the pack itself. Now I was just another wolf, a companion, a friend and it was a heartening feeling to know that though better or worse we would never be alone, we where pack after all and our bond would put them all before my own well being, our survival and contentment no matter what. Hording the swift smiles, the secretive flickers in Indus’ withdrawn self as proof beyond all doubt that no matter how he decided to distance himself from the most sociable aspects of life: it was all there, just harder to find. He was most definitely a wolf I would fight to the death to keep contented within my borders, to lose the brown fighter would be a blow to our ranks and any confidence time was building up over my ability to manage our lives. ”Maybe it is, truly I wonder what Deimos would want, to go home? To stay?” I pondered for a lone moment, worry and discontent dulled by the safety of the moment and the warmth of someone I trusted against my hide. I had made sure the little grey child wanted for nothing to try and keep away the longing to want to be here with time as my child rather than a embezzled slave prince.

:::My lightless eyes flashing from their revive to meet his taunting look, the friendly mocking that had lined his words on my adopted son. There was so much more to Indus that I was barely scraping the surface of than his passive expression and meaningful words and I was willing to observe and learn of my male. I was enjoying the sharp cut of his calm humour and this rare spark of friendship; no one would ever say everything they thought, or express the very thing they meant through such simple words for it was only a fraction of the way the world worked. Much of me was built and learnt in a primitive fashion, he would beat me in the way of words any day but it did not make me a witless fool for I knew how they worked more I preferred to build in to frank expressions the meanings of expression and touch that I ranked just as highly as what my mouth could do. Eyes grazing from his darker tinted form to the beauty of the star lit land, allowing my private words of imprinting and love, the returned question take effect purely for himself for they are such difficult things to discuss.

:::He had stayed at my side as the wolfess Bliss had wound her cold way from our heightened land, he had given me moments of trust, even if he would leave for her later in those sliding seconds he had put loyalty, the depth of the instinctive bond between pack and alpha first. It was not just my choices that where limited and painfully constrained, he was one of us and she was not, it might cause problems, it might not for I knew not of how she was faring. The briefest of knowledge is that she was fighting for land, how fate had a bite to give Indus someone who was so hard to chase. I could sympathise; not just any wolf, even for the deepest love could dwell at my side. No, I would have to find a great wolf, someone strong and dependable who would be willing to sacrifice himself, me, before the pack and the world would always leave me in doubt of finding such a creature. The earthen male was no idiot, he could always seem to tell what I meant and further directions beyond the mere point of the words, how strong it scared me through me thickened skin in a way words and fangs could not. The vulnerability of caring, if it would be for someone incompetent, the struggle to leave them for all our sakes that I wouldn’t know I could manage; right now, even if Indus would follow a female from my side I would understand though it would burn deeply. For he had stayed while I did not know fully if I would be as capable of doing the righteous thing as well.

:::Taking my fullest attention back to the lean strength of my Knight, the constricted level of courteousness in his tone touching a warning of sympathy and difficulty. Different, he would always believe that, to an extent the dearest wolf was right, such was his awkwardness when expressed with emotions, the way he pulled away so easily from the wanting ties of others; but it was there, he had let me witness little glimpses of it. ”Fate enjoys the sting in its tail, nothing in life ever seems to be easy, but Indus, why should it matter to someone who would profess love to you that you are as you put it ‘different’? It matters not to us and it should not matter to anyone else.” My ears flickered as I spoke, a sad passion blazing indignantly for anyone to dare push Indus away just because emotions hurt, where so raw and vulnerable, that he wasn’t as sociable as say Moth. His compelling eyes where lost to me, his gaze separate from my own as I watched with a care for my words tread; I was his alpha but for now I lay as a friend and did not wish to overstay my welcome on his privacy. He was an odd dear, for all the respect he had given me, I had only the tiniest glimpse of what he was capable of feeling but it was enough. Emotions where hard, I could appreciate that even if my own disposition to them went nowhere near as far as his, wolves so rarely battled for what they wanted in another when really it was that loyal patience that was the key. Sometimes being an alpha did have a useful side to watch and learn how loyalties waxed and waned, grew in their strength and the birth of trusting respect- Indus it seemed took such things to an entirely new level in his private self.

:::His sigh was almost soothing for I could detect no discomfort in its life just a sigh, the weight of the day stirring sleep that I too felt at my optics. The friendly revive doing nothing to improve the efforts of the day and staying alert. My ears flickering back as he stiffened, I could feel the tension in his body as it pressed against my own, had I taken the sharing of secretes too far to ask of the wayward fae? Confused for a moment as his smile twitched his features as I pleaded for his caution, I did not understand how it made him laugh but as ever it was good to hear. Smiling with a softness often lacking from my scarred features at his words, he was loyal and so strong but it did little to ease worry as hearing him say it himself. Mirroring the seeming surprise of Indus as he brushed my honeyed cheek with his maw, withdrawn so sharply as if in his own version of my shock but it had been done. The light touch reassuring to his remaining presence, my trust in him. “I knew of the challenge, not of the victory and you are still here.” My eyes seemed almost watery with happy relief, I had not known that she had already made her move to usurp the chocolate male and I could almost taste my own joy, the faintest wag of my golden banner, Tainted only by the realisation of its hardships, his loss. Eyes dancing for his own that gazed over our home and met my own once more, unable to summon the calm, the serious respect he needed for such a decision so powerful was the relief.

:::“Thank you dear Indus.” It was little more than a whisper, something I would never forget, stronger than any words was the belief that this was truly a wolf who I could trust with my life, Deimos’ life, of anything of the highest worth. It was true that the threat had extinguished itself, the multi-toned female gone and my enemy replaced, uncaring that his unforgetting eyes were watching every moment that reprieve had robbed from my control. Delight and pain warred as his eye met mine, I felt for his loss but it was hard to concentrate over the release of such a loaded fear. Listening to his ears like comforting music, my smile paling to the softest of my expressions in respect for what he had to say, what he had done for us, for me. The discontent clashing with the comfort in his face, his expressive gaze that what was done was done, my own happiness at the lack of visible lament “I cannot say I am sorry for your loss for it would be a lie, it is the hurt that I regret, that I failed to bring her as one of us, so that you had to go through that. You are right though, one day you will find a female worthy of you Indus for I have never met anyone like you my friend and I doubt I will again.” I smiled pressing my bodice tighter against his own for a moment, I was proud to have such a wolf to call my own and at this moment to feel so close to him. Resting my head against my paws to regard him with a sondalent respect, letting the tiredness in my muscles relax my body, gratified in the loss of such a terrible anxiety ”What do you think you’ll do now?” My question was truly indirect and vague asking for anything he felt like saying or even silence if he so wished, relishing and glad just for the familiar company and the value of the meeting.