It couldn't have just been the thorn that pissed Kiche off, it had to be Thanatos in his entirety. How <i>dare</i> this dark-knight <i>nobody</i> tell him to calm down. Where did he get off ordering around Kiche —who had been in Relic Lore and Grizzly Hollow far longer— where did he get off ordering around the <i>Saint of the Hollow</i>. Although nothing seemed dominant about the black savage's stance, Kiche was getting sick and tired of his superior, mediating tone. If his snarl could have deepened any more, the ginger wolf would surely have lost himself in the folds of his wrinkled muzzle. Though the red saint knew little about innate wolf behaviors and the hierarchy of a pack, it seemed there was a part of him that had known it all along: his tail rose like a proud flag of woven brown and amber, while he arced his head over the black wolf like a regal deity. He stretched taller and loomed larger, his presence radiating from the ginger fur that stood on end, as he listened to Thanatos speak to Arlette —<i>his</i> Arlette.
The young girl, so precious and so innocent, pressed herself against him for comfort. This gesture, though small in and of itself, pushed him over the edge. He was here because he was <i>protecting her</i>. Arlette was his pupil, his charge, his own daughter. Thanatos was really pushing it. The dark savage was clearly intent on invading every little crevice of Grizzly Hollow with some pretty courtesy and polished, sniveling assumptions. <i>Not if I have anything to say.</i> "<b>You'd do well to remember your place at the bottom of the pack.</b>" There, that was fair enough to say. Spoken in a dangerously low octave, his words dripped with bitter contempt. "<b>There is nothing you can say to me that Arlette shouldn't hear. She's not some dumb whelp to be coddled, she's the <i>leader's</i> daughter, and I'll be damned if she's shielded from understanding what's going on in this pack. Quite frankly I don't like the way you speak to her, and I don't think you <i>deserve</i> to meet the others.</b>" Pressing gently back against Jayse's daughter, his red fur began to mix and intertwine with her angelic white pelt.
"<b>I'm not going to fight you. Go get your kicks with that dumb slut,</b>" he tossed his muzzle in Silver's direction, aware she had just shut up complied with whatever her dark-knight. Remembering that the silver bitch was still here, he growled quietly, not caring for the way she stared at Arlette. All of this dominance mess was so new to him, although it felt as familiar as an old friend. He didn't like it. "<b>Arlette, would you like to accompany me on a hunt?</b>" Figuring that demanding that she leave with him would injure her pride, he offered this instead.
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