It was a call of pride, tones of summoning and exhaustion mingling together as they rang across the mountain. My ears perked as I lifted my head from the rock on which I basked in the sun. Reflection was a curious thing, and memories had pooled in my mind as I lay upon what one could only refer to as my throne. The perch was the first place from which I had ever called my pack together. But there was much more history to my chosen dais than that. Many times Alcide and I had spent an afternoon much like this one together soaking up the sun or speaking of the future to come. Never, in all of our discussions, had the possibility that he would not sit beside me as my most trusted advisor, been a remote possibility. As Natu’s call echoed off the mountainside, even after her voice ceased to create new notes, I glanced to my side, imagining my father there. Extending a forepaw, I touched the place where he might have rested.

Lifting from my lounging posture, I sprung from the rock and cast aside my musings of the past. I set an agile pace, covering the distance with ease. My tail was lifted, banner steadfast despite my speed, for I seldom passed up the opportunity to wave it about since it had healed. Breaking into the clearing, I immediately dropped my gate to a trot, eyes alighting upon first my two pack mates, and immediately thereafter the prize that lay between them. Instinctually my maw parted, giving way to my pink tongue as it wrapped around my snout in eager delight. I enjoyed the hunt as much as the next wolf, but a fresh kill – even not by my own paw – elicited such a response.

Moving forward at a walk, my banner remained lifted, my hackles bristling slightly. Though not from aggression, more from my pleasure at the thought of first pick of the meal. Such was my right. I moved to Pan first, greeting him with a customary rub of my shoulder against his before shifting my attention to Natu. Her posture prevented such greeting, and so I lifted a paw and pressed it against her shoulder instead. The exertion the hunt had required was evident in the two wolves heaving sides. But I did not hesitate as I moved to the kill, inspecting it with a stiff tail and hackles bristling. After a moment of sniffing over the carcass, I stopped at the abdomen of the sheep. Mahogany eyes glared over the kill as my teeth sliced into the belly of the beast. Tearing it wide open, I licked my jaws before beginning to consume the delicate innards that were the most delicious of all.

Though I had not yet eaten on this day, I had consumed a rather large portion of young elk the day prior from my personal cache of meat. The sheep was plenty large enough to feed whomever of the pack might come to share in the feast, and I felt little need to be greedy. I had had my favorite portions, and so was content in the spoils. I stepped back then, eyes alight with the ferociousness that mealtime could bring forth. It was Pan that my gaze came upon, regardless of what other wolves might have joined us. It was to him that I motioned, inviting him to take second choice of the kill. It was my Hand’s right to take second pickings of a meal when my Bloodrider was not present, and perhaps this was as good a way as any to inform him that that right now belonged to him.