Life is a Storm (Perjury)

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   SITKA

 It was early in the morn, and the sun was just rising above the horizon, its ray filtering through the canopy and dappling the forest floor. The air was clean and crisp, smelling half of winter and half of spring. A silver-white figure crossed from the hunting plains into the forest territory, his muzzle raising every now and then to snuff the air. He had no doubt within his mind that the region was occupied by a pack - that much was clear enough from the strong marking odors that he'd smelled as soon as he'd arrived. Furthermore, it was a pack led by an alphess, a fact gathered from some of the lone wolves that he'd encountered along the way. The burly male padded deeper into the territory, his emerald eyes flashing here and there, evaluating the fecund land. Finally, having reached a suitable point, he halted and stood silently, waiting.

    He hadn't come to feign that he'd stumbled on Evil lands. Rather than that, he'd arrived with every intention of striking an alliance within the pack; in recent days, it seemed that tensions had increased between the goods and the evils, and the neutrals he considered the veritable scum of the goods. There was something detestable about the 'goods' and their cretinous ideals of rectitude, and lately, he'd found himself involved in more than one battle with a good or neutral who considered him or herself the superior wolf. He could handle one, two, or even four wolves alone, but any more than that was a chancy risk. Sitka was an intelligent wolf, but it didn't require much to comprehend the benefits of a pack.

Cascade

[Cascade]

Snow had fallen in the forest some time ago and, shaded by the canopy, lingered well into the warmer days. The surface of the snow was wet and glossy in the spots where the sun shone through, not long for this world as they stood on the cusp of spring. In her youngest days, Perjury hated the winter, as the ground was hard and difficult for her to move. She remembered her first winter being one of many frustrated attempts to move bits of stubborn, frozen earth. It hadn't been cause for a second thought in years.

Her hatred of winter had cooled considerably in her adulthood. 'No pun intended,' she thought in the back of her head. Indeed, spring wasn't the only thing that brought new life to the Frigid Plague. There was always a chance for a new wolf to join them, and today was no exception. Had they been standing in a snowed-over plain, Perjury imagined that the wolf that stood at her border could have easily been missed among the snowdrifts, his own coat being quite light and unbroken by color. She could not say the same for herself—the orange and red spots on her white rump made her stand out from the trees from quite a distance. She liked to think of it as a warning beacon for anyone who might find it prudent to clear the area, although for someone whose attacks usually came from below, it wasn't much of a gift in practice.

"You've reached the land of the Frigid Plague," she greeted her visitor, "I am the alphess, Perjury."

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SITKA

    As he expected, it didn't take long for the alpha female to appear from among the trees. Sitka assessed the alphess, noting the gold of her eyes and the expression that they carried. Her compact stature, nearly a head shorter than he, was a surprise, given her reputation as a fairly adept controller of her pack. That, and the glaring, crimson spots along her otherwise white rump that made her an easy target in any setting. However, her physical attributes clearly hadn't impeded her success, so the male was careful to keep his countenance devoid of his thoughts. "Greetings," he began, taking a step closer but maintaining his distance, "I am known as Sitka."
    He shifted his stance slightly into a less imposing posture, then spoke, "Frigid Plague's territory does well to match local hearsay." It was no secret in surrounding lands that the wolves of this pack had prospered while several others had floundered. However, Sitka himself wondered at the fitness of these wolves; he himself had been kept brawny and steel-eyed from a life of traveling, and he didn't intend to become a pack member only to live off the fat of the land.
   

[Cascade]

"Good day, Sitka," Perjury could not tell a thought from his face, a quality that actually sat well with her. Too many wolves gave themselves away with a glance, or a nervous tic. Perjury herself was fairly skilled at keeping a neutral expression when needed, in all but the most intimate company. "I take it to mean that you have heard of us?" She was sure that nearly every wolf in the valley connected to the packs knew her name by now—and what she was capable of. Perjury was not a glory-seeker for the sake of glory, but she was a wolf who did not like to put her packmates' lives on the line for needless conflicts, and having a certain reputation was wonderfully effective in deterring much of the riff-raff that would otherwise ooze past her border with irritating regularity. But, most wolves in the valley were loners. An unconnected wolf, a newcomer especially, might not know a thing. She was curious to know what information about her pack was swirling about in the aether—what truths, and what falsehoods.