//------------------------------// // Part of the Pack // Story: Purple Guardian // by DragonPony //------------------------------// Chapter 14 Part of the Pack Scarlet walked a good distance ahead of us. I bet it was to stay away from me. Silver stayed right by my side. I do not think it was to be friendly though, it felt more like she wanted to keep me close just in case I tried something funny. Well since I am stuck with them for who knows how long I might as well try to be friendly. “Sooo Silver how long have you known Claw? He seems to be very friendly; his hosting skills are top notch.” I roll my eyes at my clear attempt at sarcasm. “I have known him for all his life since we are a part of the same pack. He has just recently gotten the okay to start to go out on assignment so he was place under my care till he can handle himself.” Silver kept looking straight the whole time she answered me. I can kind of tell she is one of those with a stick up her ass. “Oh so a pack is a very close group huh?” I am genuinely curious of the customs of the Everfree wolves. “Yes one watches out for the other and we will do anything to protect our kind and get the respect our kind deserves.” Her eyes seem to harden when she was talking about protecting her fellow wolves and being respected by the other races. “Wow that sounds… intense,” There was kind of an awkward silence between us for a few minutes till I thought of a something to talk about; it is an old one but I figured it still works. “Tell be about yourself Silver, I have to admit you are the first wolf I have ever met. Well not counting cherry up there wanting to get a little too personal.” It seems Claw picked up what I said because I heard a faint growl come from him. “There is nothing to tell.” Still she refuses to turn from her eyes away from dead ahead. “Oh come one that can’t be true. You must have things you like to do for fun, something that can make that poker face of yours crack and show some real fun.” I give her a smile like I am trying to demonstrate it to her. She seem like she really didn’t want to answer. I gave up on trying to be friendly with her. Well there goes trying to get in good with them early before the talks commence. Man I hope the rest of them are at least a little warmer towards me or I fear these talk will fall apart before they even start. “Os Pass” I hear Silver say, this time though she quickly shifts her eyes to look at me. “Os Pass? What is that?” I wonder what kind it is if miss serious here can enjoy it. “It is a game where we take a stick and we have to pass it to your partner till you get to a set point to score. Whoever has the most points by the end wins.” During her description was the first time I heard her talk with any real emotion well anything but anger since meeting me. “That sounds like fun. I would love to get a chance to try playing a game. It sounds kind of like a game back where I come from called Hoofball. I think I would do much better at Os Pass then I would at that however,” I then lift up one of my paws and wiggle my digits. “I have a slight absence of hoofs.” I start walking again as I give her a grin saying I know my joke was bad but I went there. “Depending on how this meeting goes you might get your chance later on. That is a very small chance mind you.” She turns and looks me straight in the eyes showing me that she means every word she is saying. Silver then turns her head back to facing forward. That made me just realizes that I am walking into a wolf den to try to get them to give up the territory they have taken over without the slightest plan. Well I have done it again; I let myself get caught up in the idea of being a hero without thinking it through. Well I guess the first thing I will have to do is figure out why they did the deed in the first place. These wolves don’t seem like the kind to do anything without a reason. I decided to stop thinking about it and just wing it. There is no going back after coming this far and I wouldn’t leave the Jackalope’s to starve to death. Man let’s hope I picked something up with all that time I spend with Twilight had some of her negotiation skills rub off on me. “So I told you something about myself it is your turn to reveal something about yourself.” It is clear she is trying to get more information on me. For what reason I can’t be sure just yet, I would think it is so understand her possible enemy. Information is the name of the game the more you have and the less you lose is how it is played. But I will give her the upper hand since I am not looking for a fight… I hope. “Well as you know I am Spike. I am what you call a dragondog,” Figure that is my ‘breed’ now, might as well own it. “I live out of the forest in a place called Ponyville . I….” Before I could tell anymore about myself Silver cut me off. “Dragondog? What kind of canine is that? I have never heard of a breed like that?” This seemed to catch her interesting. She let that serious demeanor crumble slightly under her curiosity. She caught herself quickly enough and straightens back up to her pride filled stance. “Yup I am the only one from what I know of. Being a dragon dog has some very interesting perks that come with it.” I do have some pride in what I am, even if I am a dog I am also part dragon and I won’t shy away from who I am. “And what would these ‘perks’ be exactly?” She is really digging for information on me and now that she knows I am some rare breed I am willing to bet she will try to get even more information on me. “I think I will keep that a secret for now. We all have secrets that we hide, just count this as being mine for now.” I give her a big toothy smile to show that I am not saying this out of disrespect but just being cautious. “Fair enough Spike. I figured it wouldn’t be that easy.” Sliver even cracked a small grin at my foresight to keep my tricks to myself. We walked for about twenty minutes without stopping. Silver and I would make small talk… really small talk I was lucky to get a full sentence out of her. Claw just kept going not looking back at me. It was a few minutes later that I started to notice that the terrain had started to change slightly. Now that I look around there were a lot more cliffs, large rocks, and some saves I see off in the distance. Overall the land become a lot more rugged around here, I know wolves live in caves or caverns much like us dragons so it only makes sense their den would be somewhere where they would have plenty of places to take shelter. As we walked I started to hear sounds of something running just out of sight us. There was defiantly more than one of them surrounding us. I could pick up at least twenty different scents in the air. As I take a deep inhale I find out what is following us. They are wolves, considering where we are headed I can only take it as they are these two pack mates. “Your pack seems to be pretty shy. Why don’t they come out and say hello?” I ask wondering why they are keeping their distance just outside the tree line. “They are watching you making sure you are not an enemy. If Silver and I weren’t here they would have torn you to pieces for getting this close to our den.” Claw finally speaking up but his tone clearly shows that the idea of me being torn to ribbons humors him. “Well it is nice to know I will be greeted warmly. I would have liked a cheese platter though.” I am trying to make light of surrounded by nearly twenty-five potential enemies These did not get a reaction out of the two. They show how serious the situation really is. I straighten up and try to act like I know what I am doing. After a few minutes we come to a large ravine. The sides were stone cliffs that towered into the sky. It was the perfect location to defend from attacks and I am sure they have some escape routes hidden all around. We walked down the ravine going farther into it. I watched as their pack came out the tree line and followed behind us keeping their eyes glued on me. Their pack seemed to me a mix of males and females slightly leaning more towards male in number. This was way different then the mare run society of Equestria. Scarlet Claw and Silver moon stopped once we reach an area of the ravine where it became slightly wider. I looked around and saw a number of cave entrances that were in the stone walls. The scent of the wolves filled the air; this was clearly where their dens were. “Wait here we are going to go get our pack leader. Don’t move.” Silver told me as she then walked into one of the caverns. I sat there waiting for them to come out. Over and over I tried to figure out what I was going to say. I could still feel the eyes off their whole pack watching me waiting to see what I might do and ready to pounce at a moment’s notice. I was broken from my thoughts when I heard giggling coming from the caves. I turn my head to look where the noise came from. From there I saw four wolf pups come flying out of the den laughing and jumping around on each other playing. They didn’t see me as they kept running and ran right into me. Due to my frame I just shaked a little while the pups fell over on their backs looking right up at me. I could hear the whole pack growl and get ready to attack if I did anything. I turn back and look at the pups as their large eyes stared at me waiting to see what is about to happen. “ Hello guys. My name is Spike it is nice to meet you four.” I give them a big smile. “H-hello Spike. My name is Blue Rose.” Said the smallest one of the four. She had a darkish blue color colt with white highlights on her chest and tail and pink eyes. “Hi I am Burning Wind! Nice to meet you Spike!” This one was really hyperactive. He was slightly bigger then Rose, he had an orange coat with green eyes. “Greetings Spike. My name is Royal Fang” This formal female cub has a black colt with red fur around his eyes which were amethyst. She was the tallest of the four pups. “Who are you and what are you doing here?” Wow this little guy is rude. He was white with gray fur on his back. Wind was the same height as this rude kid. “Night Howler! There is no need to be rude to our guest!” Fang scolded Howler as she knocked him upside the back of the said. “But Royal we don’t know who he is or what he wants. He could be an enemy!” Howler tried to defend himself as he stroked his head where Royal hit him. “That doesn’t give you the right to act like that before we know anything about him. What if he is an ally?” Royal say back. I get the feeling these two must do these a lot considering no one else seems to respond to the two bickering. While Royal and Howler argued with each other Blue Rose slowly walked up to me. She was clearly the shy type as she wouldn’t look me in the eyes for very long. I get the feeling that puppy dog eyes from her would have me die from an overdose of cuteness. “U-um Spike. I was just what kind of wolf are you? You look so different then us.” She started to paw at the ground as she waited for me to answer. I swear if I could mass produce stuff animal versions of her I would make a killing from mares. “Well you see Rose I am what you call a Dragondog. I am very special since I am the only one of my kind.” I lean down so I can look her in the eyes as I give her a reassuring smile. This seems to be just the trick as she then gives me a big toothy smile while her French rose colored eyes shined in the afternoon sun. “Oh oh! What is that thing on your head?” The little orange ball of energy was jumping up and down. I couldn’t help but smile at what seemed to be their very own mini Pinkie. “What this,” I say as I touch my fin on the top of my head. “It is my dragon fin. Want to touch it?” I look at the group with half lidded eyes as I then tilted my head give them access to my fin. Wind did not hesitate to run over and start to stroke his paws on my fin. Soon after Rose slowly crept over and play one paw on my fin and petted it. Royal walked over and wanted a feel for herself. Howler acted like he didn’t want to feel but he kept shifting his eyes back to look at the other pups feeling the strange fin. “Come on over Howler. Don’t you want to study your potential enemy?” I say with a knowing grin. “Y-your right I will come over and feel just so I can know more about you and be ready if you try anything.” As he walks over I see Royal roll her eyes as she goes back to touching it. I had four little pups petting my fin laughing and talking about how funny it feels. Watching my interaction with the pups put the vigilant adults at ease. They didn’t look like they were ready to pounce on me if I sneezed anymore but they still kept a very sharp eye on me. While I was playing with the pups I was far too notice that Silver Moon and Scarlet Claw returned with two more. There was no way for me to know how long they were watching us play around on the ground. “ A-hem” was all I heard and I just knew they were back with the pack master. Here I am rolling around on the ground playing with pups. I don’t think this is the best start to a negotiation I stand up and have the pup tumble off of me with their collective ‘awws’ as I then turned around to face them. Scarlet Claw still had that pissed off face plastered on but he didn’t look like he wanted to skin me to make a nice fur throw rug anymore. I look at Silver she to my surprise had a very small smile on her face. Guess you can’t see a guy that is willing to play with some random pups as a very dangerous enemy. That was when I looked at the two new wolves I didn’t know yet. One was clearly female. He had a long slim body with some of the whitest fur I have ever seen. If it was snowing the only thing I would have been able to see would have been her sky blue eyes looking at me. She too had a smile on her face much bigger then Slivers though. The final figure was the most intimidating by far. It was a large wolf that stood close if not the same to my height. He had a smokey gray pelt that made him look like he just walked through the fires of Tartarus and came out fine. His eyes where a piercing shade of yellow, when I looked at them it was like he could look into my very soul and judge me if I was even worthy to be around him. He was the definition of an alpha male, there was no way he wasn’t the pack leader. “Go play pups” The large male wolf said with authority pouring out of his voice. I almost felt like I was supposed to go off and play as well. This might be harder than I thought. “Aww but dad can’t we stay, we were having fun with Spike.” Howler ran up to the gray wolf and gave him his best puppy dog eyes. They had no effect on his father. Man I am really hoping I didn’t mess up by playing with his kid like that. “ No go inside Howler and take the rest of the pups with you” He looked down on him with what could only be called ‘the father stare’. That got the message through to Howler very quickly as he ran back to the other kids and they started on their way into one of the cave entrances. Before they went all the way inside they all turned back to me. “Bye Spike it was nice meeting you.” Rose shouted the best she could. “See ya Spike! You have to come back and play with us again!” Wind screamed at the top of his lung. “It was a pleasure Spike. Next time tell us more about yourself.” Royal gave me a slight bow and kept walking. “Hope we can play again Spike.” Howlers said very quickly clearly embarrass to admit he had fun. Now me being me and not really grasping the situation I was in did the first thing that came naturally to me. I turned around and yelled at the pup. “It was nice to meet you all too. Don’t worry we will have fun and play again before you know it.” I said this as I waved at the kids as they walked into the den. It didn’t hit me that I just did that in front of their leader and what I can only assume to be his mate till I heard slight chuckling behind me. I turned back around and saw the beautiful white wolf laughing into her paw. Claw had his paw to his head shacking it and Silver had a slightly larger smile on her face then before. The leader on the other hand expression did not change in the slightest. He just kept looking at me with those paralyzing yellow eyes. Even though we were the same height somehow it felt like he towered over me. He then stepped forward till he was only about a leg’s length away. “So you wanted to talk to the pack leader,”… He looked me dead into the eye. “Well here I am.” I gulped.