So, this is Phoenix Valley
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Here we go. This would be set during September 27th or so, if that's alright? I've had like three threads, but so far everything Jantus has done has just been to get here. Let me know if that doesn't work and I can come up with some reason for why he's late!


It had taken him quite a while, wandering through the Souls' territory, before finding what he sought. Cwmfen's directions had certainly been useful in finally acquiring his destination, and he was glad of having met her. He would not have known this place by its scent alone, having only its name and never a hint of it on his nose. It didn't look like anything fantastic...if anything, the border of the territory he'd found seemed rather arbitrary, marked by no particular landmark that he could particularly make out. Nonetheless, he liked forested territory as much as any other, and assumed that it had its own charms, otherwise it wouldn't be situated where it was.


Jantus took a deep breath and exhaled in a rush. He was anxious, and that was unusual. He was so physically imposing that he had little to fear from most individuals. He commanded a pack so fierce that they feared no invasion, and so large that they feared no coalition against them. But here he stood today, getting ready to meet someone who alone had the authority to grant him what he wanted. Jantus was no cutthroat, he wasn't accustomed to getting his way by force alone; it was just that, so far, all he had wanted had been within reach in the valley that was his home. Now he was a long way from there, and what he wanted was in someone else's lands, where he had no authority whatever, and all of the strength of his pack meant nothing because he would not use them for this.


The big man was in shifted form, but he was concerned to know if he shouldn't shift back before calling out. Ordinarily, he counted it as a blessing to look the way he did: strong and intimidating was a good way for the alpha of a pack like Snow-Capped Pine to look. After all, they'd won their valley home through force of fang and claw, and they had fought for years to attain it; the conflict in that region had begun long before Jantus and his younger sisters had come onto the scene. No, it was a group born of war, and it maintained that tradition, though in practice that tradition of war manifested more as training and sparring than actual battle. Their most bitter enemies had been driven from the valley, and hadn't seriously contested any portion of their territory since before Bold had been killed. Nonetheless, it seemed that now his appearance would be a bother. Between his battle scars, missing eye, alarming bulk and the steel club on his belt, he hardly looked like someone the alpha should allow to cross his territory. Still, Jantus hated the idea of shifting down, especially without knowing anything about his location or the people who lived here.


The massive were howled up into the sky, calling attention to his preference. It was a deep, throaty yowl, but its emphasis was clear enough. No hostility, just grabbing attention. Afterward, he removed his bear-skin cape and his belt, before shifting down, feeling uneasy the entire time. His eyepatch loosened around his head as he did, but was made well enough that it stayed put, and would remain in place unless he actively tried to hunt or fight in that shape. Hopefully, this shape would be less offensive to any wolf who happened to come by. He didn't want to abandon any of his affects, so hopefully it would be the alpha that answered him, and not some scout who would lead him deeper into the territory.
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The date is fine. ^^


Phoenix Valley had been quieter as of late. Perhaps it was the unfortunate leave of several packmates that pulled the enthusiasm away from the pack, but regardless the Valley people were surviving. The approaching winter did not intimidate him as it had last year; the previous winter in Phoenix Valley had been a disaster, it being his first in pack life after he became an amnesiac. The cold and bitter snow had been tough on the emaciated, one-eyed creature as he accustomed himself to pack life and sharpened his social skills. It was in the winter that he was pulled into the subleader ranks and, in January or February, lost Iskata. That anniversary was nearing; the cyclops dreaded every coming day that brought the date closer.


With DaVinci gone, the cyclops had shut himself in more than usual, reverting back to earlier days before responsibilities were pinned to his shoulders as a leader. The brute spent days inside, reading or sleeping. His pack had grown far more fond of Geneva -- in a way he was jealous, but such feelings were pushed aside. Jefferson should have seen it coming. She was, after all, the "nice" one. Nice enough to get him to admit feelings for her, which even he thought impossible.


His frustrations had kept him indoors for most of the morning, but the need for exercise eased the cyclops from the quiet, peaceful sanctity of the Three Moons Ranch. Three-legged, Jefferson browsed the lakeside and the neighboring area, hardly straying far from the ranch. The sound of a call from the borders perked his ears, but foul-mooded Jefferson swore something awful beneath his breath before hobbling in the call's general direction. If everyone loved Geneva so much, why didn't she take care of these things? Where the hell was she today, anyway?


He was not met with the most formal nor inviting of faces. A quick scan over the stranger sent the analytical cyclops a few different messages, none of which made particular sense. Even before speech was shared, Jefferson sensed this stranger's presence was not permanent; the gray-furred creature carried an air of charisma about him, but the scars and brutish club kept the Patriarch on edge. Jefferson stiffened, halting at a considerable distance. "There's only room for one cyclops here," the hybrid muttered bitterly. "Sorry."

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Sorry; I know I was sitting here for a while; got sucked into Wall-E << Also, wow. I need to reread my posts...I had Jantus announcing his preference instead of his presence, lol.

Shortly, a brown, grizzled, miserable-looking wolf arrived to greet him, and Jantus had to admit he was a bit surprised. His impression of this place was that it was relatively serene compared to where he'd come from, but that clearly wasn't true if it was where this wolf had been so brutally scarred. He was missing a leg, though, and still their border patrol. Jantus had to assume that meant invaders weren't common...that, or this guy could take on the likely intruders, which was either quite impressive on his part, or suggested that the intruders couldn't handle themselves against a cripple...he supposed it could go either way. There was something about this one, though, that made it hard to pity him.


"No fear of that," he said, sporting a devilish smile. "I'm not here to ask if I can stay, though I guess it might be worth it just to hear the story of how you lost your eye; there are three of us in my pack, and the stories are usually worth a listen." Having forgotten himself for a moment, Jantus lowered his head and his tail. He wasn't used to the motions...he didn't require most of them from his own subordinates, and he hadn't had to worry about paying respect to a superior in quite a while. What was more, it was probably doubly important for him, personally: his size alone would be challenge enough to raise the ire of some leaders.


"I was hoping I could speak with the alpha concerning right of passage through his land. These marks on the border smell like they're yours. You the one I'm hoping to talk with?" He wouldn't be presumptuous. He hadn't made the correlation immediately, but this did smell like the alpha, and he wasn't sure what he thought about that. An alpha with a leg missing? That struck him as odd. Not impossible; he doubted his own pack would take away his rank if he became an amputee; actually, the more he thought about it, the less infeasible it seemed. After all, alphas were most likely to be called upon to defend their territory. He had already heard that most packs up this way organized themselves loosely around a sense of civilized behavior, which would suggest that physical strength would have less to do with leadership. He wanted to smile and be friendly, but he knew this was official business. He would save the niceties for after the alpha knew what he wanted: it would be insulting to try and get friendly prior to getting his answer.
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He had a special type of sympathy set aside for fellows gimps and handicaps; the way Jefferson saw it, the event of losing a limb or one of the five senses was a humbling, irreversible stroke in life that could, and usually did, forever change the owner's outlook on life. For many, that outlook made them earthy and wise; for Jefferson, after having lost both full use of a limp and complete use of an eye, he had only turned out cynical and cranky, strenuously independent and unyielding to the stupidity of the inexperienced. His understanding for fellow handicaps, however, remained the same. It was like an unspoken language, a wordless respect for one another.


The stranger very subtly asked for the reason that the pack leader was one-eyed. The brute's tattered ears twitched with watered-down interest when it was mentioned that three others of the stranger's pack were also one-eyes; for a brief moment, Jefferson kicked himself for collapsing emaciated on Phoenix Valley's borders instead of wherever this one had come from. "Fights," the Patriarch sighed, rolling his shoulders. "The second I lost count, the second I lost my eye. Let's just say it doesn't make much of a bedtime story."


The stranger was professional, however, and cut straight to the point thereafter. There was no fooling this one: he could put two and two together, and Jefferson was mildly impressed although it was devoid from his expression. "Good guess," he replied, straightening slightly as if to assume a more professional stance, but he collapsed down onto his haunches afterward. "My name is Jefferson, and this is Phoenix Valley. What are you looking for here?"

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I should know about the follow up to this thread soon.

Jantus nodded somberly. Not everyone got a kick out of sounding 'tough' or embellishing their scar stories. It was a popular pastime at the Pine, but it wasn't a strong element of every culture; he'd met those in the past who found hubris in any form to be off-putting, and that included taking pride in the marks of battle. If pressed, he wouldn't have been able to explain why so many of them liked talking about their battle-wounds, other than that they were just being 'guys,' but they liked to one way or the other. The girls sometimes joined in, but even the tough ones were usually a little less enthused. Maybe it wasn't in their make-up? Maybe they were worried about how they looked. He wasn't sure.


"Your graveyard, actually. We were friends with a wolf from this area, and we heard he fell in combat last August. I know it's a little late, but it took us a long time to round up everyone who wanted to pay respects, and with him already in the ground, speed didn't seem to matter much." He flicked an ear as if to shrug...it couldn't be helped. Aivyr had to go, he was closer to Skoll than the rest of them, but had gone on expedition to find and inform Skoll's family over a thousand miles northwest. He himself had been contending with political issues over in the Pine, and Tanya and Nikolov had been off with Aivyr. Furthermore, Skoll's mate had been pregnant and was raising her children. "I'm a little worried on account of our numbers. There are eleven of us: myself, my sisters, several family members of the deceased, and three other friends." He frowned. For all he knew, Phoenix Valley might not be that big on its own, lots of packs weren't. He doubted a smaller group would be agreeable to letting all of them deep into the heart of their territory, but all he could do was hope their leader read the honesty from his words.


"The deceased was named Skoll...I don't know if you mark your graves, but just giving us an afternoon in the place you buried him, we'd be very grateful. Of course we'd be willing to leave our arms in your care until we leave." He had resolved already that he wouldn't force the issue. He was a warrior--a massive one--and he was rowdy enough that he would consider using force rather than let the expedition be in vain...after all, Skoll's brother Skirnir had traveled over a thousand miles to see the place of burial and hear of his brother's life. Still, Skoll had always made clear how he felt about bringing the elements of warrior-cultures into Souls' territory. They had their own issues--political, largely, but also with the group called Inferni--but that they would handle the issues themselves. There was no call for anyone like the Pine to get involved. That creed also meant preserving the peace in this instance too. Besides, even with a missing leg Jefferson didn't look like he'd go down without a fight, and the last thing they needed for Skoll's family was to make them feel like intruders just for mourning a loved one.


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Jantus spoke honorably of his long-fallen comrade. It was obvious that the dead creature meant a lot to someone, though the name Skoll did not ring any particular bells in the Patriarch's head other than a slight familiarity as it was possibly muttered in passing by Iskata or Laruku. The cyclops didn't dwell on it, however; he was more intrigued by the odd request to visit the gravesite of someone who had been dead so long. In actuality, Jefferson didn't understand it much at all: cemeteries were such sad and lonely things and the dead beneath the earth were either rotted and maggot-filled in their earlier stages and indistinguishable bones in their later. The dead couldn't hear anything, couldn't tell when idiots trampled on their grave nor if they prayed to it instead. In the end, all the dead were identical skeletons who, even if there was an afterlife, were too busy doing dead-person things to heed the meddling of the still-living.


The cyclops understood a hero from a has-been, however, and he simply nodded as the stranger continued on. Did they mark their graves? The cemetery had a few marked headstones, if that was what he wanted. However, if this Skoll was buried in a place they could recognize him for, Jefferson wasn't sure. He hadn't made archives of the bones under the earth that he didn't put there. They could have been considered his underlings now, but Jefferson decided the ghouls wouldn't much appreciate that, so he left them to rest as they were meant to be. "Eleven, huh," he pondered aloud, features dipped in a slight disapproval. The cyclops wasn't one for letting strangers waltz around his packland, but it was for a good cause -- and, most unfortunately, the poor sap had a conscience. This guy had better have been someone important. "Well, I can't say I know him, nor do I know if he's one of the ghouls in the cemetery. I would venture to guess he was one of the marked headstones, if he's that important." His eye strayed a moment as he paused. "I'll let your group onto my land as long as all of them stay within my sight, which means--" he stood and stretched, "--you'll have to mind me tagging along."

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Jantus's face wrinkled at the use of the word 'ghoul.' Jefferson's tone didn't seem to be mean-spirited, but he felt the term was still ill-chosen. Nonetheless, he had granted permission for a very large group of wolves to come onto his land, and that was what he'd really wanted. He could let it slip...no reason to ruin everything by being over-sensitive...he wasn't particularly reverent to the dead himself, most of the time.


The giant wolf tilted his head slightly, considering what was said. Important? By the Pine's standards, yes. He'd done a lot of great things, and as far as his enemies, many terrible ones, too. He'd probably killed more people individually than anyone else Jantus had ever known, which was a dubious claim, to say the least. At the same time, he'd risked his own often, and probably saved more than anyone else Jantus had known, either. As for importance, well...Skoll had told him that the fame he had in the Pine was not reflected back home. At home, he'd been a loyal guardian of the Storm pack for many years, before being betrayed by his leader and exiled. He had been friend to some, enemy of a few, but not being a political wolf, he'd had little defense against the slander of those who wanted him abandoned and alone, undefended by his packmates. Right. Good luck with that, you miserable scavengers. Skoll had been Storm's defender, and wasn't easy prey whether he remained there or abroad...at any rate, Inferni had no more luck killing him before than they had after. When it came to fighting, he hid behind no one...that was one reason it hadn't helped him to be part of Shadowed Sun when the wolf Asmodai came for him.


"I don't have a problem with that. Once I explain it to the others, I doubt they will, either. To me, he was a respected friend, but to some others he was family, so even though it's your land, I'd ask that you remain respectful if you attend. If that isn't wrong to ask, then I welcome you as our escort." He tilted his head down, holding his body in proper posture. He was bigger than Jefferson, but he wasn't alpha of this place. "Hopefully you won't mind spending an afternoon listening. He wasn't such a big thing here, but over at the Snow-Capped Pine, he was practically a legend. We fought beside him and we saw what he could do, and more importantly, what he would do for us, and his cause. It's a shame he wasn't better appreciated here, but I guess some people just need to know their element, eh? Skoll was a warrior...he liked Souls territory, but I never figured he belonged in a place he described as so settled." He smirked slightly, flicking his ear in a lupine shrug. "It may take me a while to bring in my group. I left them waiting a little beyond the first pack smells we ran into, so it could be several days before we all arrive together."


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There was a polite request that the Patriarch be on his "best behavior" during the little far-too-late funeral procession. He smirked a little at first, unsurprised by the humble request, but at the same time somewhat thrown off guard by it. It wasn't often that his underlings, let alone complete strangers, made direct requests for the unruly, bitter leader to behave himself. In fact, Iskata had probably been the only one to do so, way back when. The concept was amusing in the least. Jefferson simply shrugged his shoulders and replied, "I know how to be quiet."


Jantus continued on to comment on the dead one's life and the legacy he'd apparently left behind. Jefferson knew for a few brief seconds that he probably should have been more aware on the activities of this individual, let alone the stories behind the rest of the many faces that played parts in Phoenix Valley's history. To be blunt, he knew very little about the founding of Phoenix Valley and its early days, the struggles it first faced, the joys its first shared. He had collapsed on their borders and became an unwilling member four or five months after the pack's founding, and doubled with his amnesiac memory of what the now burnt and destroyed Bleeding Souls had for history, Jefferson was really very clueless of the past other than what people had told him of his family. "Don't get me wrong," Jefferson began, the joviality of his earlier words now spent as his voice turned sincere. "I may be the leader here, but I wasn't the founder. The leaders died or left before they could leave me any of the pack's secrets. I lived in Bleeding Souls before its ruin, but I'm am amnesiac -- even if I did ever know of him, I can't remember him anymore." Funny, how he'd been using that excuse more often lately. It was legitimate, but it was pitiful.


Jefferson was not surprised to hear that the group would not be arriving immediately, although the fact that there was no exact date and time was off-setting. He would have to plan around that in order to be present for the little troupe. How inconvenient. "Fine, but I request that you alert me before your group arrives."

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"Of course," Jantus said perplexedly, surprised it had ever been in question. "Hah, where we live, you get killed if you waltz in unannounced. I'll give you a howl a few miles out, we'll be coming in slow." He looked over at his accouterments. "I've been traveling on two legs, so none of this has been fast at all." Another shrug. "Skoll talked about Inferni sometimes, so I thought I'd be better shifted during this expedition."


He smelled the air, and then the ground, before giving a satisfied huff. Now he'd cemented the place's scent for sure, and it would be simpler for him to find his way back. Not that it should be terribly difficult, since he knew where it was in relation to the city, but that didn't change his instinct to make sure he knew it by smell as well as sight and landmark. In some ways, this place was proving very easy to navigate; there were lots of different types of territory to discern from, sea on either side, cities littering the area (though these were not terribly uncommon over the rest of the wide country), and everything from beaches to woods to plains.


"That happens sometimes to our wolves during battle," he frowned, his one eye looking slightly sympathetic to the alpha before him. "It usually passes, though; you get hit in the head so hard your brain can't decide if it's dead or not and takes a while to come back to itself. Yours has been like this a while, though, eh?" His frown deepened. He didn't see amnesia often, though concussion was pretty common. He'd see a coma once, but ultimately that wolf had to be put down. A week in and he wasn't eating or drinking or waking...if that was life at all, it wasn't life worthy of a devoted guardian of the pack. For the victim, as well as his family, they had ended that mockery of life. It was fortunate, at least, to have wakefulness, even if one had to start over thereafter.


"As far as Skoll, though, don't concern yourself. He didn't ever live here, by what I pick up, but died nearby and had a friend...Iska, maybe? Iskara? who wanted to pay respects and bury him. He was actually part of the pack Shadowed Sun, which I hope to visit while I'm here." He had been prepared for not everyone to know Skoll: this wasn't a land of large-scale war, so someone like him wouldn't stand out as much. Still, even though no one had heard of him yet, he was certain that someone in Shadowed Sun would remember him. He wasn't sure he'd get any more answers from them, as he had most of the situation figured out already, but it would still be nice to someone who knew Skoll when he was 'off-duty,' so to speak.

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Jantus had a good understanding of his demands in return for their traipsing for the dead. Had Jantus introduced himself as a pack leader? The cyclops couldn't remember, but the one-eyed stranger had a definite grasp on the expectations and methods packs used to guard themselves. It seemed the stranger had arrived at Phoenix Valley with these expectations already in mind, ready to abide by them because of his prior knowledge. He mentioned Inferni and clearly knew to keep an eye out for them -- something Jefferson found impressive. The stranger had done his research before meandering his way to Skoll's grave.


"Closing in on two years," the cyclops responded. There were no memories in his head where his vision was complete; when he'd woken up lost and confused, bleeding and aching at all ends, he hadn't known a thing. He'd only become the creature named "Jefferson" then: the sign that hung broken on the chain-link fence just feet away had been the first step in his rebirth. From the beginning, "Jefferson" had been the disfigured cyclops he was now. "My memory doesn't do well for it. I woke up with my eye bleeding to all hell, so I always assumed I'd lost the sight then at the same accident. I have no two-eyed memories." His voice was monotone, lacking sorrow or darkness someone less mature might have added in. Jefferson looked for no pity, however.


Jefferson knew he was struggling with Iskata's name. It was at this that his scowl lengthened more than the talk about the loss of his eye. "Iskata, yes. That doesn't surprise me." Iskata had been a social butterfly of sorts. She'd known a lot of people, had a lot of connections... and gotten into a lot of trouble along the way. He sighed. "She's been dead a few months now, so it's too late for that. As for Shadowed Sun, well, that's gone too." He hesitated: Jefferson hated to be the bringer of bad news. "After the fire, a lot of the old packs in the old territory disbanded. I don't know if that was one of them or if it was founded here, but I've only heard stories of it. It's defunct now." Blunt.


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Jantus tilted his head slightly and furrowed his brow. He'd never heard of amnesia lasting indefinitely. He'd heard of people who were never the same...getting hit in the head often enough would allegedly do that, or getting in the head extremely hard might cause the person to become stupid. He'd never known it was possible, though, to just start over. To just be restarted and not know anything about who you had been. He looked up and scratched his chin.


"I dunno. It sounds to me like after so much time, it'd be a hindrance to go back. Two years is enough time to have rebuilt a life, as it seems you've done. Can't say it'd do much good now that ye've put somethin' together." He hadn't thought about it all that thoroughly, but being only four years old himself, two years sounded like plenty of time to get set up again. It was half of his life, and he'd made a 'new start' himself, though he'd had his younger sisters with him the entire way, a family. Being trapped in a new identity with no connections--assuming Jefferson had been traveling or for some other reason isolated when he'd been mangled so--would, he had to admit, be considerably harder.


"By the looks of it, might be you forgot something worth forgetting, eh? It's a shame about Iskata, was it the clan or some accident? Skoll said they basically had run of this place: people didn't do anything about their killin'. Honestly, though, that opinion could be outdated...Skoll ent been alive for a long while." He tried to keep things civil. In all honesty, some of the things the bronze-gold wolf had told him about this place had disgusted him. When the Pine had external enemies, it fought them, even if victory wasn't assured. When someone abused power from within, he and his family had risen to fight those people, even though it had claimed some of them. He supposed those who didn't had not needed to live through the upheaval he and his siblings had. Nonetheless, even if he wasn't as idealistic a wolf as his deceased friend, it sat in his craw to see people getting killed or pushed around who couldn't or wouldn't defend themselves.


"Heard about the fire, dunno if Shadowed Sun was around before or after, but it was where Skoll was livin' when he got killed. Shame, that...I don't know any other names to connect with him. It'll be especially bad for the kids. I was hoping they'd get to hear about their dad from some of the people 'round here. Much different stories than the type we had up in the Pine, where he was sorta a war hero." 'Sorta' was an understatement, but he didn't suppose the concept would be immediately familiar to anyone who hadn't participated in a mass conflict at some point during their lives. By his look, Jefferson certainly could have been, but even if he had, that probably occurred in his life before he lost his eye.



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"I have no real desire to go backwards," the cyclops admitted adamantly, his eye wandering off into the distance. Maluki had been a rapist and a killer; amnesia had wiped out Jefferson's memories of Maluki and his time spent as such, thus the number of dead or scarred could have been endless as far as he was concerned. "I don't know when that life started, but I know when it ended. There's only forwards from here." A bit sentimental for something Jefferson might say, but it was the truth: Maluki was dead. There was no going back to what was safer staying dead and gone.


"Iskata's death was an accident," he insisted, but he could not say for sure. There was no other reason Iskata, blind and handicapped, would have suddenly upped and left the packland she founded and devoted her life to. "...I still don't know exactly what happened, but I have reasons to believe she is gone." He cleared his throat. It wasn't a touchy subject exactly, but her death was something he still struggled with after almost a year had passed. In a few more months, Jefferson would be Phoenix Valley's leader a full year. He hardly wanted to think about it.


Jefferson frowned at the stranger's words. He seemed to be regretting something that was completely out of his control -- something Jefferson did every day, considering his background. "I can't say that former members of that pack aren't in surrounding areas," he started. "There's several other packs around here. I'm sure you could get more information, I just don't have any for you. I don't know of any other amnesiacs, either, so you don't have to worry about that."


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Alright, I'll let you know when I get the next one up!


Jantus took a long look at the three-legged male, and chose to be silent in the wake of his poetic declaration. He couldn't weave words together all that well: he would tell a thing like it was, but there wasn't any beauty in the way he spoke or even usually in the way he thought. He just figured some speakers were born with the flourish and some weren't. Either way, Jefferson's statement had some power to it, and he waited for the moment to pass before answering. It was the Phoenix Valley alpha who resumed speaking first, and Jantus nodded solemnly as he finished. Iskata hadn't been murdered, and though Skoll's old pack had disbanded, some of the members had probably drifted into the surrounding country-side, probably taking up with other packs that remained intact.


"Maybe we'll cross them on our way back," he smiled, before turning his head, an informal announcement of his intention to leave. "As for this pack, I'm glad it's leader saw fit to let us through. It'll be a hike all the way back to the last group--I didn't know how far away we still were when I left to seek you out. We'll be a few days yet, but I'll let you know before we're at your border. Thank you for your considerations on our account." Taking several tentative steps away from Jefferson's territory--more symbolic than anything, just a way of assuaging any 'forwardness' his next action might take, he began his shift back to two legs; after all, he'd need to take his things before he left.


Jantus was an enormous person, 220 pounds of well-fed, broad-framed alpha wolf when on four legs. As his body began to change, though, it quickly became evident that he'd cut down to his own version of light weight to meet the alpha on peaceful terms. Over the next half-minute, fifty pounds of muscle had slid into existence beneath his skin; a half minute later and seventy more had piled on, and the shift continued from there. Fat kept up, of course, he ate too well for it not to, but it wasn't enough to conceal the bulging of his arms. By the time he was done, he stood at nearly eight feet tall and 600 pounds. Without ceremony he picked up his bearskin cloak and buckled on his mace-belt...which only fit because he'd punched an extra hole in it. Looking down to the alpha, he nodded his head in gratitude, flashed a smile and began walking away, a slight spring in his step. Despite all the ill news, he'd gotten permission. The trip wouldn't be in vain.



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