Got him! Tychon felt his fur bristle above his shoulder blades when Arthfael stepped toward him. It seemed… overreactive, but Tychon was game for a brutal show-down. The beginning of his words caused Tychon’s mind to wonder though… Don’t he what? Apparently he’d stepped on a mine without intending to. What was there in Tychon’s insult that was so sensitive to Arthfael? For a moment, Tychon was actually afraid he’d stabbed at something a bit too hurtful - one that would get him more beaten than usual. But an attack never came. Vesta came around the corner.

And there the punch line was! Just when Tychon had used her in his insult, she appeared. His ears shifted backwards and his goading posture deflated into aggravation. Why did stuff like this always happen to him? Tychon hated the rhetorical question, but he couldn’t keep it from his skull. Vesta’s eyes were unsettling. They were white with pins of black for a pupil. The contrast made him unwilling to meet her gaze. “Not really…”Tychon muttered a response to her questions, not really expecting to be heard or answered. The conversation continued. She was a Chatty-Cathy, huh?

He’s face, wrinkled and disfigured as it was, managed to wrinkle and disfigure more with his displeased frown and narrowed eyes. He caught the way Arthfael protectively stiffened in his peripherals. Vesta meant something to him and she was apparently too naive to realize what. Tychon was putting the puzzle together. Delivered meals, tailing, protective posturing…There was only one reason a male showed devotion like that. It made Tychon’s stomach feel nauseated. Disgusting. She was too young to be considered for that.

To Vesta, his voice was a cold whisper, like the hush of water over stones, “No. Don’t bring strangers here without Kalseru’s consent…” He glanced at Arthfael, giving him the sort of look one gave molding meat as his amber eyes looked him up and down, reconsidering his opinion of the Arrow Wing. He said to Arthfael, “You should leave.” The statement wasn’t meant for Vesta, who he intended to lecture there after about the dangers of letting outsiders close to the pack’s center. Then… he’d deal with Arth.