All the Pretty Faces

Suddenly, everything intensified more so and much quicker then the pregnant, swooning woman would understand. The loner was quickly on her way, for whatever she had done to piss off the members of her pack had surely ended her ride to ever come to these pack lands again. Once it was over, her attention once upon the retreat of the other woman, Elettra's attention turned to Angier and her son. All at once, Skoll was on the ground, belly up, as Angier stood above him in an obvious act of dominance upon her child. She had not seen him hold a manner of authority like this over anyone before (though surely he had) and seeing him doing it to her child was enough to send her hairs on end. She was curious, an adrenaline pumping through her for an excitement on behalf of what was happening. She paces a bit closer, the rounding of her belly swaying to and fro as she did so.

Everything became more clear as Angier spoke, his lecture sound. Skoll had come out here alone? Yes, a time or two she had caught him about slinking in curiosity as Elettra or Angier addressed a loner at the border. Even before, if she could recall correctly, he had come about from the shadows to observe. Though never coming out to a loner, by himself, directly. Her teeth bared then, an anger taking her that mimicked Angier's own. If Angier was going to be equally a good Leader to them and father, she would support him in this. "Angier is right. Your not old enough, trained enough, to do this on your own. Not all loners come begging for a home. Some come to steal from us and if they are enemies, like that one, they may come to kill us." For the time being, her placement only kept out to the side of them, Angier doing well enough at physically putting the child in his place enough to listen. He might have been her son, he might have been royalty, but she would raise no fool.

The boy thought he had cleared himself from the line of fire as soon as Angier's bulky, tan-furred figure had left the corner of his eye. Oh, how he had thought wrong... The words that flew from the Leader's mouth caught the youth by surprise; what was more surprising was the way his superior had stepped forward, practically forcing the boy to shuffle back, stumble, then roll over to reveal his vulnerable underside. Angier made it very clear what was to be done the next time Sköll found a lone soul on the borders of their territory.

The shock that had come from Angier actually proving that he had a backbone had left the prince without even a lick of a word to utter. Not even a syllable or sound of retaliation. His mother stepped in then after his superior's mention of possibly being found dead... by a former Pitch Pine Trail wolf.

Elettra's words stung worse than his step-father's had. It felt as if the blades of grass beneath him had turned into pins and needles, little daggers piercing into his hide. He began to tremble. They were right. All Sköll had known about Pitch Pine Trail was that their Leader had attacked his mother and that his mother had survived by ending his life first. He knew nothing about the wolves that Leader had led; he knew nothing about the wolves outside of Willow Ridge. On top of that, he was reminded, very firmly, that he was not yet old enough or skilled enough to fend for himself or do something like patrolling the borders on his own. And, while he had entertained the idea that not all wolves came to the Ridge in search of a home, since he had thought of actually raiding the caches of the Whisper Caverns' pack more than a couple of times, he had never thought that anyone might want to kill him. Him, a prince and heir of Willow Ridge, Elettra Archer's son.

Just beyond the tip of his nose, he saw Angier's paw lift and Sköll hastily rolled away and gathered his feet beneath him, running off with his tail between his legs and his head held low in utter humiliation. When he thought he had wandered far enough to be out of sight from the both of them, he ran a bit faster, navigating through the willow trees until he found his favorite spot between two boulders in a secluded clearing not far from the Infirmary. His paws frantically dug at the scarred roots, a sign that he had visited this spot several times since its discovery during the first months of his boyhood, to unearth a tiny corpse whose fur was still a decent shade of white. He normally would have extracted his maowse from its shallow grave by its tail, but it had long since fallen off from the many adventures he had taken with it and the number of times he had had to wrestle it back from both his brother and sister. He curled up at the base of the tree, draping his tail over his left ankle and foot before nuzzling his nose in the poor albino mouse's fur. Something terrible could have happened to the prince of Willow Ridge today and it had shaken him to the very core. He closed his eyes and whined once, half-expecting Skana to come out from behind the other side of his tree and join him, but when he remembered where she was, he got up and began to head towards her gravesite, opting to curl up there to hide, collect himself, and pretend that he was being soothed by his Nonna. Perhaps next time he would show Angier that he truly was not afraid of anything, that he had just as much nerve as he and Asriel and Morganna and his mother had. He was his mother's son, and no one was going to convince him otherwise.

(Fade.)

i'm a dreamer, i'm a man

i'm doing whatever i can to make the bad things go away

The pleasure that had come from knowing he had Elettra's word to back his own pulsed through him in newfound satisfaction. For him to at last assert himself over the slick-pelted pup was a victory in itself, and seeing Sköll sink at last to his appropriate rank - a cub, a pup, a pupil - beneath him made his ego swell. He lifted his right forepaw as he noticed just how hard the realization had hit the boy. When his nieces were his age, they, too, were independent, but the difference between Trisden, Taima, Calla and Sköll left a large gap that made the Archer prince still seem much too cub-like and helpless. A nod of his head wordlessly dismissed the boy and Angier watched as the second-born scampered away.

He turned to gaze at his mate, shaking his head in silent disappointment. "He really needs to be disciplined," he remarked, "but no matter how 'ard I try, I can't get to 'im." He scoffed, giving his head one more shake as he looked to Elettra for answers, "He has always been this way. What should we do?" A grimace tugged at the washed out mask on his face, "I practically raised 'im, what did I do wrong?"

Something at the back of his mind reminded him to take a glimpse back at his own upbringing, but no specific memory came to mind. He, himself, had been a second-born, but he had had two more brothers than Sköll had and only his mother and uncle were the ones to mold him into the man he was today. His father had been the absent parent, scarring Angier in a sense that made him clueless as to how to react to such a thing as witnessing his adopted son's mortification.

At a loss for what to say or do any further now that the boy had left them alone, he sighed then uttered under his breath, "I'm jus' glad nothin' happened to 'im."

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Poor Skoll! That was so damn sad. D:

He said nothing, frightened by the manner of dominance Angier held over him and likely pained that his mother had not stood up for him. Skoll had been wrong and Elettra, as Angier himself, had every intention of showing her son this. She would not coddle him and coo sweet nothings into his ear. She wanted just as much as her partner to make sure that Skoll learned his lesson from this. She watched as her son sought a moment for escape, scampering onto all fours once more and dashing off back into the protective of territory lines once more. A sharp barking was scent into her son's direction, if only to get him moving a bit more quickly.

As her attention then turned to her mate, so did he turn to her, a look of disappointment turning over his features. Elettra huffs at his words, shaking her head. "He's a smart boy, he understands. He's just stubborn. If he wont listen by lessons, he will listen by experience." It was true enough that Angier had raised him, known the child since birth, unlike own true father who had never even laid eyes on them before. Still, he was not their father and somehow the children were very aware of that despite never asking of where they came from. "He certainly has a bit of chaos to him like his father." A hard line forms over her lips, her eyes drifting away from Angier and out to the side, towards where her younger son had dashed off to. "Maybe the next batch will be less of a hassle." Her words are spoken as though this was their second litter to come. She knew that sometimes Skoll could be a handful, exploring beyond his bounds, facing off rogues, smart mouthing... But it was not like the other children had done a thing or two that needed correcting. Hell, Morganna had been the one to face off a snake as a pup, something that had killed the a child of Jaysyek. It still pained Elettra to this day that despite her efforts with herbs to mend the pain, he could not be saved.

I know. 8C He needed it though, ha. Shall we wrap it up here? Feel free to archive or add a post and archive. <3

""He's a smart boy, he understands," Elettra lent, somewhat assuring Angier, "He's just stubborn. If he won't listen by lessons, he will listen by experience." To that Angier merely exhaled, fairly certain that Sköll had truly made his leave as he slightly frowned. Surely he had raised the prince to be better than that... and he had hoped by now that the middle-born would have started acting his age. Elettra looked to where her son had scurried off to, adding that the lad had a tendency to be a bit more chaotic like his father. It reminded the Lyall then of who he was: a caretaker, a cub-sitter, a disciplinarian and teacher, but not the boy's dad. He gazed back at her, her next words catching his ears, "Maybe the next batch will be less of a hassle."

"I hope yer right 'bout that," he smiled, moving in such a way to suggest that they leave now that the unwelcome rogue had been successfully warded off. "Come on, let's walk." He gave her a more charming smile as he turned away from the borders, a lifted forepaw suggesting that she be the one who led him. Whether they went to towards the den, a more secluded place, or continued along the borders, it would be up to her.

His bottlebrush-like tail wagged in a genial manner, still raised in a display of both pride and dominance. "We can continue talking for a bit," he proposed, "Or I can accompany ya before I make one more check around the borders... then maybe see what Sköll is up to. Make sure he isn't making a mess of th' place."

(Fade.)

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She would move then, shifting after Angier's small demand to come on and get out of here, now that the situation had been handled and, of course, with Elettra being heavy with pups and not all about standing out here at the borders near defensive in her worn manner. She takes a few quick steps, pulling herself out in front of Angier before slowing so that they were side-by-side. Her body kept close to his, brushing along the side of his body as she guided him straight towards the pack den. "Leave Sköll and the borders for now..." She spoke, crushing his decision to give them one more look over after leading Elettra to the pack den and then to see how the boy was holding up. After all, Sköll seemed to have done quite a bit of border patrol himself these days, with or without permission. Asriel was very convinced he was the next best guardian of the pack and Guiness, Senka, and the rest of the group were fully capable at handling the task themselves. "For now, your mine." She darkly coos, jaws nipping playfully towards the side of his face as she continued with him still towards the pack den.