Seri had neglected to take time for much of anything, particularly when it came to processing the fact that his mother had merely disappeared from his life without a seeming trace… how she had been so upset about questions about his father and how his father had so many other children as well… and they had all gotten to grow up together. His mud brothers knew them better than he did! It didn’t feel particularly fair, but at this point he had learned that life was not fair. As the weather warmed, it was supposed to get easier but the lack of water had resulted in prey being scarce in the territory he now called home.

The prey went for the water… and so he returned from a trek out there to try and bring home something. From what he knew, Viorel and Vanadis had more puppies, and he wanted to bring a rabbit to leave by the den. It seemed like the respectful thing to do and rabbits were the easiest thing for him to catch… it was what he had been raised on. Being respectful was really all he wanted to be. He wanted to be a good pack member… but first, he really just needed to figure out what a pack member was. What was he supposed to do? He didn’t know if he had any one particular job or if he should try to do anything and he didn’t know who to ask about it either. Did he ask Eros and Archer?

Should he bother Viorel with those questions? He didn’t know… so instead, he silently observed and tried to do what he noticed.

He carried a nervous smile on him when he noticed Sharlee. He had seen her before… and he racked his brain trying to remember what she was to Eros that was more specific than family. Come to think of it… he didn’t remember if he was ever told, but he assumed that she was family because she was part of the pack… and well, Eros was related to everyone here. “Ah… yeah… I guess.” He offered back almost uncharacteristically bashful in the moment.

His head tilted to the side. “I don’t… really know what it means.” He admitted again with a frown before continuing in the hopes that he could shed some light on his predicament. “I’ve never been in a pack before… so I don’t really know what it means, or what I’m supposed to do. When I was younger I guess my mom and I were kind of like a pack? But we travelled a lot and I heard packs don’t really travel… but we hunted for each other.” He’d never patrolled a border or talked to a superior unless he was to count speaking with his mom. He felt out of his depth.

“I was gonna ask Eros… but I dunno… I’m a little embarrassed because it seems like they all know what they’re supposed to be doing. My mom never really answered my questions all that well when I asked about packs. I don't think she knew either.”

There was stress, and stress was nothing he had ever dealt with. He had been incredibly fortunate in his childhood. Food had been a stressor, but this was a different kind of stress. This was a social stress that he was learning how to manage. He hummed, his head tilting to the side as he listened. Follow the rules and do what you can to help… that was perhaps easier said than done… and then she was offering to help answer questions. It caused his ears to perk up and his tail to thump up and down on the ground. “I guess the easiest question to ask right now is what exactly are the rules?” He knew everyone helped with the hunting and the patrolling, but he didn’t know any of the finer details.

At least he wasn’t wrong. At least he had somewhat of an idea of what was happening around him. “We sorta had a home base too… it was where I was born, but we didn’t have to return there like we do here.” He hoped that made sense as well. “Why is there the rule about not bringing friends across the borders? Isn’t that like… a friendly thing to do?”

The woman’s more relaxed position put him more at ease, assuring him that he was not being a bother to her. She was the pack advisor, and he imagined she had far more important things to be doing than teaching a young wolf what the structure of a pack was like. It was moments like this in which he wished his mother’s education had been more comprehensive when it came to pack life, even if she had been determined that it was not a lifestyle for either of them.

Seri didn’t find anything wrong with it, at least not thus far. She started to explain the ranks, and how leaders should be respected and how information should not be given away. “Are trips allowed? My mom always made it seem like packs were so limited to their borders… I didn’t realize people really traveled outside of them.” He offered, a frown finding his maw as he contemplated it. His mother had lied to him, though he supposed he shouldn’t be shocked. She had lied to him about his father as well.

At least she had seemed to give him a good start. Their home base of sorts had been good. “But if they mean no harm, why do we keep them out? I don’t really… understand?” He looked for more clarification. He never wanted to be scolded like Eros had been by his father when he had brought him across the borders. “So, asking for permission is the way to go… got it… but what if they say no?”

Pack life was so confusing, and yet made so much sense at the same time. He truly did not know entirely how to rationalize it in his mind. He supposed it made sense that a pack would need to stay in one place in order to exist to it’s fullest… how could they keep their young safe if they were constantly separate from one another… at that point, they would just be a bunch of loners themselves, just loners with some kind of a fancy title… He listened to her as she explained how trips worked and why they might need clarified.

“I… guess that makes sense, doesn’t it?” He offered almost bashfully as he began to voice it out loud. “If everyone wandered off all the time, it would be pretty hard to maintain the borders, wouldn’t it? And to know who is coming back and who has just left.” He imagined that happened too, based on what he had heard about wolves leaving the backwater, and knowing that his own mother had been born into a pack and chosen a different life for her son. “So… I could go visit my father at the Cove? And it would be okay, right? Or is that too long of a trip?” He asked for his own sake, so he could begin to plan such an adventure.

He frowned at the next statement, only because of the lack of trust that the leaders seemed to put in different matters. “But… shouldn’t we trust each other to make good decisions? And to not bring untrustful wolves to the pack?” He asked for clarification, worry in his eyes. What made Vi’s or Vayko’s opinion of someone better than his or Eros’s?