If thou openest not the gate to let me enter,
I will break the door, I will wrench the lock,
I will smash the door-posts, I will force the doors.
I will bring up the dead to eat the living.
And the dead will outnumber the living.

Ishtar was resting comfortably watching Iromar as the sun rose, painting the swamps and marshes in a yellow gold color that morning. She watched as the sunlight dissipated much of the mists that covered the moorlands. She even watched as a gator brought himself up onto solid land to sun himself in the morning rays. She watched all of it, and a moment of serenity overcame her. The realization that she would most likely never return to Hell hit her slowly, and she played with it in her mind. She certainly wanted to go back in the beginning but now, now the marsh and moors seemed more like home than Hell was. Here she was the master of her own thoughts and actions. She was the matriarch of a powerful pack and even if they had lost to Diveen it was only by a margin and the sheer fact that Diveen outnumbered them.

It is only the noise of a vicious growl and the snapping of jaws that brings her attention to where puppies had been trying to kill a baby alligator before. She thought perhaps that the young gator had managed to catch a paw, but as she gets up, stretches and looks over she sees something decidedly different. There were two foreign adult males and one seemed to be protecting the children while the other seemed to be attacking. Knowing better than to wait and see how things played out, Ishtar launched herself headlong into the melee. If there was one thing that she did not tolerate it was the harm of pups. They were the innocents that needed to play out the roll life had given them, regardless if Angel or Demon. She lifted her head to summon the others, no one attacked Iromar without penalty.

As she moves, she was reminded of the war. Her legs still bore the pink skin of new scars and the area around her neck was barely covered with the stuff. Still, Ishtar did not fear her own death. She would die guarding the children of Iromar and know that it was a noble death. Of course, any sane wolf would know that she was pregnant with another litter and probably back off merely on that principal, but like hell if she was going to allow Tobias to attack the future of Iromar and get away with it. As she advances, so does the cannibal, they appeared to be the same height but Ishtar guessed that he outweighed her by a little. She launches herself, jaws aiming for his neck while she hoped that her momentum and the fact that they were evenly matched height wise would be enough to knock him off course.

ISHTAR.