Shallows Edge Baby steps

Takes places after A man is just a man. Tagging @Reyes and @Askan

Lenka waited until everyone had started slipping away after the meeting to approach her leaders. She longed to follow after some of the others and introduce here, but she needed to talk to Askan and his colead.

She dipped her head respectfully as she reached them. "I have a question," She started awkwardly, glancing between her alphas. "about roles." She quickly clarified, thinking back to the original topic of the meeting. She knew as much as she cared to. "Um, i was thinking I'd like to be a scout, but I need to, um... not get lost." She said this last bit in an embarrassed mumble, her nose dropping towards her paws and ears drooping.

It seemed Reyes’ assumption that some of the wolves just didn’t want to embarrass themselves about the others wasn’t totally unwarranted. As his mate went off to have a spar with Remington and assess her skill (though he had the suspicion the woman would be granted the position of guardian shortly hereafter), he allowed the pale female to pull him aside. He didn’t know much about Lenka, except that Askan had accepted her into the pack once – and then again, after she’d gotten lost somewhere in the forest (or something like that).

Which made her purpose a little strange, he had to say.

The dark wolf exhaled heavily through his nose, leveling her with an unreadable look. “If y’got know sense of direction….why do you want t’ be a scout?”

Lena watched ruefully as Askan left with another wolf, meaning Lenka was alone with the leader she was unfamiliar with. Still she wanted to address her desire to help the pack.

"All I'm really good at is running, and I want to be able to help the pack. I want to get better." She looked up at this Reyes with earnest eyes. "I can learn the land. I never got lost when i was younger; it's just the new territory. Once I'm here a little longer i can orient myself."

The Artemieva had confidence in herself. She just needed to be realistic and understand her limits while she adjusted to her new surroundings.

Reyes was pretty sure that every wolf who had four legs could run (and was pretty sure that any wolf without four legs probably didn’t last very long) – it didn’t make her argument exceptionally appealing. Being a scout had a lot more skill involved than just…running. (And not getting lost.)

“You know, a scout has to be able to represent the pack to other packs. Deliver messages…or herbs, sometimes, I guess.” His mind flittered back to when Askan had been injured at Wild Rye Fields. If Lachesis couldn’t have left his pack then, he’d have surely sent supplied. Dios mio, he thought that marathon was going to kill him, but… Well. Love spurred you to do some strange things when you thought you were about to lose it.

“Means you gotta have some tact. Know when to talk. And when to not.” Yeah, he could use some of that himself, but hell, he was the alpa. He had some wiggle room. “You ever think about being a hunter or something? You do a lot of runnin’ in that.”

It was hard to say what direction to go with the girl – ‘running’ was so…vague…

Lenka knew she had a lot to learn, but she didn't expect to be turned down right away. She nodded as Reyes spoke, accepting that there were other things a scout had to do.

Tact... that was another thing. She'd never been particularly good as keeping her mouth shut. Usually she just got herself into trouble. As a scout, that would get the pack into trouble. Askan had seemed impressed by her running when he tested her before, but evidently not enough.

Her ears dropped in disappointment. She shook her head slightly. "I've never been a particularly good hunter," she admitted. "I always skipped those lessons. I can hunt well enough to be helpful, but not..." she peeked back up.

"Our pack healer taught me a bit about herbs," she offered. "I could study up on healing,"

“Oi, wasn’t sayin’ you shouldn’t. Just makin’ sure y’know what you’re gettin’ yourself into.”

The last thing Reyes wanted was to start training up the members of his pack, only to find they couldn’t do it. Or want to do it. Or wanted something else more. Right now, Lenka hadn’t really started anything – the world was ahead. They had time.

“I mean, we got a healer. Kinda. I’m not…actually sure what he does…”

Fuck, what he wouldn’t do to recruit Lachesis. But he knew the ghost would never be a subordinate – he’d been an alpha himself longer than Askan. (And perhaps Reyes, but, well, that was his secret to keep. “Look, chica. ‘m not askin’ you what you are good at – I’m askin’ you what you want to do. A happy wolf practices, and a practiced wolf is damn good at what she does. Comprende?”

Despite her fears, Lenka found that she was relaxing around her second alpha. She may even like him.

They already had a healer? Disappointment crushed down on her further, until Reyes kept speaking.

<i>What</i> I <i>want to do?</i>

She hadn't really given it much thought. She hadn't given <i>anything</i> much thought. Everything was always just spur of the moment, run out the territory and do it. Want to start a pack? Sure sounds fun, let's leave now.

Her eyes grew wide with fear and Lenka realized she didn't even know herself all that well. Everything she'd defined herself as was her place in her birth pack. The princess. Who even <i>was</i> she?

"I... I don't know." She stuttered.

Well. At least she was honest. He had to give her kudos for that. He still couldn’t say he knew Lenka terribly well – or was impressed how quickly she managed to get herself lost – but she was fuckin’ honest, even when it would have been easy to lie. And he liked that. Maybe there was hope for her as a kind of scout yet.

His tail gave a tiny, itty bitty, almost indistinguishable wag. It was more like a wiggle, really. “No hay problema, chica. It’s not life or death, don’t forget to breath. Fuck.” She did look a bit like she was about to swallow her tongue and choke. He couldn’t tell if she was embarrassed, or shocked, or… Well, whatever. He wasn’t going to cuss her out or something. “This is what we’ll do: you can spend a day with Pete in the medical den, spend a day hunting with Cancer, and come scouting with me sometime. Once you try those things, we’ll have this conversation again. How does that sound?”

(This post was last modified: Apr 16, 2018, 02:00 PM by Reyes.)

Lenka took several deep breaths to calm herself down as Reyes spoke. It wasn't the end of the world; she still had time to learn. Now was the perfect time to figure her life out anyway.

Her alpha made a suggestion to try out a few different things with some of the others. She perked up a little at the prospect. It was doubly attractive: it gave her experience in new fields and helped her get to know her packmates.

She nodded, thinking. "I can do that," she smiled. "Which one was Cancer and Pete? She asked, glancing back at the empty space that had moments ago held the pack.

It made him laugh, just a little. “Cancer is the big black wolf with a bad attitude and blue eyes. He gets his work done, though. And if y’tell him I sent you, he can’t say no. Pete is…” Well, he barely knew the guy at all, really. Since Askan had accepted him, he was a like a ghost. “He’s dark brown. Got a white chest patch. Doesn’t say much, usually at that medical den he’s trying to make.”

Which was better than nothing, Reyes supposed. If he was being antisocial, at least he was being productive and antisocial. “Any of ‘em give you a problem, you let me know. And let me know when you wanna scout. Got it?” Easy enough. He rolled his shoulders with a shrug. “I gotta go catch up with Askan now, so catch you later, chica.”

And with that, he turned to go find the other alpha – they had a lot of up and coming wolves and a lot of prospective roles to discuss now.

Exit.