Calanthe heard Kino and Ari speak out against their brother, heard Kova try to intervene, but she didn't turn away from Draven. She couldn't. Not now; not while she was as broken as the rest of them. Anger would only shatter their pack even faster, and it was clear enough to the pale woman that she was not a member of this family, not in this moment. Her opinion, whatever side she might take, would only add fuel to the fire.

Instead she curled closer around Draven, thinking to shield his tiny body with her own from the barbs his own siblings sent at him. Her mind raced with rage at the pair - who was being selfish? Who was making this about them? Kino was ordering his brother to be silent so that he wouldn't bother the rest of the already grieving pack; Ari's reaction was so hypocritical it would have been funny in any other situation - or was the little princess exempt from her own standards, that she was allowed to order others around at her pleasure when no one else was allowed to grieve as they needed to?

Raela's snarl made the woman jump, and now she finally looked up in time to see Raela and Gent almost seem to square off against each other. Tawny ears flattened back against her skull as Gent's orders rang through the air, but she couldn't deny the relief she felt hearing him finally speak as their King again. Gent was back. The King was back. Everything would be okay now.

Calanthe watched only until Gent turned to leave before turning back to Draven and settling more comfortably around the boy. She wouldn't pull him away from his mother, not now - not until he wore himself out a while later, his sobs gradually quieting down into whimpers, then sniffles, then silent little shudders. When Draven finally fell still, swamped by the bone-deep exhaustion brought on by his grief, Calanthe shifted carefully, pulling the dark bundle of fur aside. Minka's body was stiff now, cold through and through, and Draven wouldn't be able to cope with waking up to that for a pillow.

But she didn't make the boy leave - didn't carry him home. She couldn't carry him safely, and didn't dare wake him prematurely. Instead she only moved him a small distance from his mother's body, then laid down around him to keep him warm as the night cooled off a little more still. Here she would sleep with him until he woke, until the time came to lay the Queen to rest. In her mind, Draven - who had been the least ashamed of his grief, and the only one to focus solely upon the loss they had all suffered - spearheaded Minka's honor guard until then. Calanthe was content to help him bear that burden.

{EXIT}

The rage that had already filled her flew in the face of whatever the black king had thought to do. He offered her no resistance and acted only as a silent wall; and he was thoroughly ignored in her fury; though she did not step closer. There was a tinge of irritation at the gesture; and yet she could not blame him. She had no intention of attacking the whelps at that moment; but that too would swiftly change. Gent's voice boomed just as the princess's began, and though her posture lessened some with his words her golden eyes never moved from the child, and never relented in their severity. Her open defiance was maddening, and a low growl itched in her lungs; just begging to be unleashed. Everything in her instincts told her to pin the child to the ground and make her apologize to not just her and Draven but to the mother she was openly disrespecting; but she hesitated. 

The girl's words were intensely hypocritical and wrong, but nothing prepared her for the blasphemy and unbelievable vitriol that left Kino's mouth. Her head snapped to focus on him like a whip; her snarl returning as this runt also seemed to think he could challenge her with his stance. Her fur leapt to a near-painful extent; spine tingling as her body towered over their half-grown frames. The  growl sounded now; first low, daring him to push her in this state. But oh, he did. Her mouth was open wide again; teeth in full view as the boy's very, last, warning. His words were twisted, false, and worse, massively hypocritical. Your mother would be ashamed of you, her thoughts screamed. She would be horrified that THIS creature came from HER. The growl was near roaring as he finished, and she was leaning forward, wanting badly to disobey her alpha and take the boy on here and now. His rebuttal was a slap in the face to their relationship; to everything the family had stood for and to everything she had ever done for him. But above all of the pain was white hot rage. 

“And that's that.” Her teeth slammed together in a menacing set of clicks, all reasoning and inhibitions gone from the woman's brain. He would pay for this. Every atom in her body screamed for her to attack; to slam him to the earth and cram his ignorant, hateful speech right back down his filthy throat. A pup would not be allowed to raise himself against an adult. A pup she had loved and cared for would not raise himself against her just because he was unbelievably selfish and couldn't think of another grieving soul. This was beyond selfish though – this was a crime and it was inexcusable. It was lucky for the boy to be met with Gent's massive form and to be sent tumbling to the ground with force and perhaps a nasty bruise or two. She was already prepared to do much worse in her fiery anger and intensely protective state. 

She only watched, her growl silencing and her teeth closing in a more controlled display as thankfully the whelp's father had done something. Kino and Ari had both openly asked for a fight the moment they showed their teeth to a larger, more powerful being and had the gall to fight back when they were utterly and completely wrong. She stared; her eyes blazing and her tail twitching behind her in attack arousal. It was quiet in that moment until Minka's spawn had the audacity to rise and bare his fangs again. With startlingly wide, beastly eyes, and pupils small, constricted and deprived from any feeling at all she growled; a low, primal, dangerous growl. If he didn't put those damn things away she would do it for him. And if he dared lay his teeth on Gent there would be blood.  

Eventually her muscles came to relax; now sore from the tension. Swiftly she took up her place beside the tormented Draven, caressing him with kisses even as he lay crying beside Calanthe. Inside her mind raged on. This would not happen again. Over my dead body. 

-Exit-