There was nothing they could do, not really, against the Alpha if she decided to seek retribution in blood. They stand up because, at least in Tiamat’s case, she has not learned fear. Cannot understand that she is not as ferocious as her heart tells her she is. She cannot even manage to do more than offer fighting words. Not even so entertaining as those spoken by Jakuta. It was perhaps instinctual, the burning in Tiamat’s gut at the sight of someone coming between her mother and herself, but it did not change back after the Monster removed herself from that position after.
Tiamat, though, holds her ground even while the she-wolf unloaded a great deal of logical verbage in regards to her lack of culpability in the state of her mother. Chastisement, it was not unusual to Tiamat. She got her own fair share… but it was something else to know that her mother did not fear things willy nilly, to know that there was something wrong with the Monster’s presumptions that Nakato had no cause for fear… Did Tiamat not see often her mother’s eyes looking to the plains as if expecting death to roll in like a summer thunderstorm or a sudden stampede?
Then the conversation turns to the father of her two sisters and her interest wanes impressively. They had never seen him. She had never known him. Some god-pretender or another that would get his comeuppance once Mother Moon saw fit to cut him off at the legs. She instead seems distracted, looking at all manner of pup-interest-holding items that she has collected at her paws after having listened. A pebble, a leftover feather from a quail hen her new mother had brought them to practice their teeth on, a little leaf that seemed to have been a remnant of the autumn.
At least, that is, until this Monster lady finally figured out that Athena was not someone empty of opinion and otherwise did have questions to ask. "My Papa said once that he ‘killed our supper’ once… I think it means when you become food… or when you don’t move anymore and other things can eat you. Or bury you..." She answers her sister’s question almost without hesitation. But of course Athena is not hesitant to make her intentions known once she has a mind to.
"Then you can’t cry when we stomp your tail! This Monster doesn’t cry when people bite her tail, I bet." She snarks, teasing easily a sister who she would have wrestled and play fought with for some time now. But, while there is snark, there is no evil or harmful intent in her eyes - only competition that would one day be found to be rather half-hearted. She, after all, was a Dragon -- and unlike her grandfather, she would not be compelled to claim and keep. She is compelled to collect, to hoard.
She tries not to scoff when the alpha talks of weakness being unacceptable, doubly so when she says that wolves are different from each other, and manages to do quite well outside of a droop of eyelids in a child’s bored physicality. The first point -- well that was rubbish. Wolves were inherently weak in some way. If you were strong, you were unlikely to be as fast or nimble. If you were fast or nimble, you were unlikely to be strong. If you were blind, you had stronger senses in other ways. You became better at hearing, at scenting. If you were mute, you became better at sneaking or spying. The second point -- well wasn’t the inhabitants of this den alone enough to make that statement moot? It was clear that wolves were all different.
She manages to keep quiet, however, and hear onwards. She listens to many potentials, many chances to perform some duty - and struggles against her genetic predisposition and learned trait of reviling being boxed into any one thing. Ultimately, though, her imagination drives her beyond her snarky mind and into true and heartfelt thought. What did she want to do with her life? Really? She had to choose already? She knows for a fact that many of her peers from the many places she visited had those unbound by obligations. She feels the first seed of resentment growing and tries immediately to stamp it out.
"I want to collect things. All kinds of things. I like collecting things… But none of the things you said sounds like collecting things."