"I'm not done," Alibi said to Moon. "I offer all due respect, Alpha, but has no one taught you not to interrupt a medical professional during her work?" She sighed, lifting her front paws and nudging the bowl of ointment forward. "Aloe, come out, will you? I don't want those wounds reopening."
Aloe was shivering in a dark corner, staring nervously at Moon. Alibi shifted her tired gaze to Moon. “Please, you’re not helping,” she said, slightly exasperated.

"How could I forget that?" Adder said, her voice silky smooth and lilting. Her words poured over Cardinal's like sweet honey, cool and convincing. "But all wolves have flaws. And sometime we need to help other wolves get rid of their flaws. I used to have a terrible habit of chewing at my paws when I was a pup. But my mother would bite me every time I did, and I eventually stopped." She narrowed her eyes at Cardinal, her eyes cold but her voice still sweet.
"We need to teach Aloe not to go running off into the wilderness. It could compromise our whole pack if someone caught him and forced information out of him. Or we'd lose a hunter, when out pack is small enough already. It would hurt the pack for him to continue doing that, and so we have to teach him not to. Pain is always the best motivator."

Feyrin drew back for a moment as the lion licked her face.
“Hyenas scary,” she insisted. She wished she had the words to explain.
Barbaric.
Dangerous.
Absolutely terrifying.
And yet… beautiful.
Loving.
My home, my species, my culture.
Her face twisted as she thought. “Mom gone,” she said again, softly, sadly, mournfully.

Feyrin lay silent for a long moment before poking her head out of the bushes. She sighed.
“I didn’t mean to get angry,” she said quietly, looking down guiltily. “I’m sorry.”
She sat down and watched as a small rat scurried away in the distance.
“I- I keep seeing the blood,” she murmured, her voice hollow and tired. She suddenly sounded a lot older than she was. “It’s so terrifying. I wish it could go away… I wish I didn’t remember.”
Her eyes flitted up to Warrior.
“I wish I was a lion, so I could fit in with you all,” she said quietly. “I wish I spoke your language normally, and… and had big paws and little ears. So I could have been born here, and I wouldn’t have had to seen… that.”
She curled into a ball. “Those were my parents,” she whispered, her voice strained. “They were murdered. I just… I don’t want to remember, but I do.”
She closed her eyes, then looked up at Warrior helplessly, her face twisted in sorrow.

Feyrin growled, but not at Acetone. “When has that ever worked?!” She burst out, frustrated. “I’ve always been nice to him! I tried to share my culture and language with him, and he called it stupid! And he always looks down on me like I’m so much dumber and weaker than him just because I’m not a lion! Like he’s ever been useful.” She huffed in anger, and knew everyone in the pride could hear her, but she didn’t care.
Acetone bit her lip, unable to argue.
“Feyrin, please…” she said quietly. “Just be nice. We don’t want this pride to fall apart again.”
“Yeah, be the nice, docile, second-class citizen hyena and let them walk all over me, great idea,” Feyrin flared. “If this pride falling apart, it’s not because of me!”
Finally letting out a sigh, Feyrin shook off her anger and looked away.
“I hate it,” she whimpered. “I hate being looked down on for something I can’t change.”
“I know, sweetheart,” Acetone said sadly. “I know.”
Feyrin looked up at her.
“Fine,” she mumbled. “I’ll try. I’ll be nice. For you, not for Warrior or any of the others. But I’m not going to let them walk all over me.”

Scorpion jumped back from the stampeding pups, letting out a bark of surprise.
"Holy—" she quickly cut off her swear, glancing at the pups. Looking wildly around, Scorpion spotted Buck nearby, grinning from ear to ear.
"Buck!" Scorpion complained with a wry smile. "Calm your little beasts!"
With a sigh and a roll of her yellow eyes, the brown she-wolf shook the sand out of her fur, loping towards Buck.
"How was the desert?" She asked with another sarcastic look. "Hmm, let me guess. Was there sand?"
She flicked the dust off his shoulders, glancing into the distance, where the sunlight glinted brightly across the horizon.

The old grey wolf looked up with his one eye, watching as the new Matriarch closed her eyes and lifted her head up to the sky.
Looking up at the bright Sun as well, Talon tried his best to hope. That despite everything the pack had been through— despite this new leader no one knew well— everything would turn out all right in the end.
And Talon would find something or someone to invest himself in.
So he wouldn't feel so empty and alone anymore.
Climbing up to Mist's den, Talon gave the smallest of bows to the smaller wolf.
"Good morning, Matriarch. I am glad to see that you are finally awake. It is almost noon," he said flatly, informationally, as a greeting. "I trust you are feeling well?"

Talon jolted awake from his nightmare as he watched Quartz disappear into darkness before his eyes.
"Quartz, no!" He howled in pain, before realizing quickly where he was. He froze, hoping no one had heard. His paws stumbling over the soft feathers in his nest, he buried his head in the bedding and snarled, angry at whatever power was out there for reminding him, forcing him to relive the pain over and over again. Shredding a gyrfalcon feather between his claws, his eyes red and his face pinched in pain, Talon threw the quill against the wall of the cave before stumbling to the ground, curling up in his nest again.
He didn't dare sleep.
He didn't want to remember the pain again…

January sniffed the ground, searching for the scent of prey. Suddenly, and unfamiliar smell met her nose. She looked up and across the watering hole to see-
“Taz?!” A shriek rose through the air. January leapt into the water, not minding the disgruntled fish giving her indignant looks. “Taz! Taz, it’s me, Jan!” She couldn’t believe her eyes. “It’s been so long! What are you doing here?”