Yellow Red is upset, but not with me. I can understand this, of course, since Ambercrown invaded and violated the hidden den, chased me, and defiled the gift I had been saving for Yellow Red. Anyone in the pack would have been mad, but Yellow Red... she almost seems worried.
Dirty Sap and Whiteflower have visited many times, but even they seem worried after Ambercrown's invasion. They've all been back less frequently, presumably on their own patrols seeing as how I was unable to repel Ambercrown on my own.
I still feel ashamed to have run... no pack member should be afraid to protect the territory, let alone the den... but they seem to have forgiven me. Perhaps they believe I am too small to realistically protect the den on my own. It feels... strange. I know I am the smallest in the pack but.... I feel like I am bigger at the same time. It is confusing. Maybe it's because I have been hunting the Unmoving tribe while my pack is patrolling.
If they've been hunting for all this time, I must still be small because I have only started to hunt.
I know I can be helpful. I know I can get bigger.
I just have to hunt.
It has been three days since I've seen any of my pack. The Unmoving are up to something... they're whispering when I'm not watching them, sometimes even barking in the cool air of the night. It is... unnerving that they are being so open. I wish I could understand what they're saying... I hope they're only consoling one another since I have begun to hunt in earnest. I don't want to think what they might be planning if my pack doesn't return soon.
Yellow Red may be brilliant enough to keep them in line, but there are a terrifying number of them... all standing in perfect lines... watching me and whispering in the night.
When I awoke this morning, I knew something was wrong. The air smelled different and there was damp all over the den and my bark. Something had happened in the night, I just didn't know what until I went to check on the herd. That's when I knew I needed help.
It has been four days since Yellow Red has been here and the Unmoving must somehow know that it is only me guarding them. Sometime in the night, while I slept after my patrol, they all decided to put up a blatant threat. They're trying to scare me.
I bristled and growled and threatened them as best I could, but they remained stubbornly resolute. Even after I brutally slaughtered a half dozen buds, they stood, glaring with their horrible coats prepared as if for war.
I retreated to the den, overfull from my rampage but too overwhelmed to present a confident front. I know my alpha will forgive me for hiding... she'll understand when she gets back and sees them all painted the stark colors of the cursed phoenix.
I just hope she comes back before they decide a show of force is the next step in their rebellion.
Ambercrown invaded again last night, but I did what Yellow Red has always shown me to do instead of facing her. I laid down, relaxed, and waited.
She was much more brazen than last time. Instead of just wandering around and scouting the territory, she actually came up to the hidden den directly. She came in, inspected everything, and even picked me up (in pieces no less) and threw me outside. Yellow Red is a genius... Ambercrown is too foolish to know I can reassemble myself! She must have been tricked into thinking me dead.
If it wouldn't have given me away, I would have barked out my laughter... but instead, I waited... watching... the perfect spy for my alpha.
She roamed around a while, doing things I couldn't quite see clearly without being all in one place, but I could hear her scraping and moving things in the den. When she finally left, I waited until I couldn't hear her anymore before pulling myself back together. I quickly returned to the den to investigate, expecting her to have dusted over the whole place in an act of conquest but, oddly, she had just moved things around a bit. Nothing was broken and nothing that I could see was even far from where it had been.
I couldn't understand it. One moment Ambercrown is a seething maw of anger and violence and the next a quiet scout. Does she, perhaps, live under the control of an alpha herself? Perhaps the Predator? He certainly is large enough.
I ignored my patrol for the night, instead intent on watching the den in case Ambercrown's trickery bore some unforeseen harm.
It was a long night.
Yellow Red returned this afternoon. At first, I was overjoyed to see her approaching the den, finally returned from her long hunt or whatever it was, but then I saw her muzzle.
She walked up the corpses of the Unmoving, her stunted roots making less noise than usual, but paused behind the den wall. I watched until she paced out of sight before appearing at the den entrance. Her muzzle was leaking sap... thin, red, sap.
Sap should not be red. It should be amber or even clear if it is early spring, but her sap was a dingy red. She must be suffering greatly to have her sap affected so, but still she puts up a brave front. Her eyes though, in those she cannot conceal her pain. Not only was she hurt and angry, but she seemed almost resigned.
I knew what I had to do. I'll recover from whatever punishment she sees fit to give me but she needed my help. She is my alpha.
I pounced on her and started to clean the sap off. If she couldn't feel it dripping then she clearly wasn't aware how dangerous it is to lose sap. Without sap, we grow tired and weary, weak, and eventually stiffen. With the Unmoving already sensing my weakness I couldn't let her appear injured.
She barked and yipped a few times as we rolled on the floor, but eventually I got the sap off, my mossy tongue leaving only a few sticky smears that she wiped clear on her own. She continued yipping and churring at me for some time, but eventually grabbed me and held me uncomfortably close, burrying her muzzle into my chest in a sign of dominance. She even reminded me that I should not have treated her as such, whimpering and whining into my trunk in a frightfully discomforting way.
If I didn't know better, I would suspect she was trying to find comfort in me... but I DO know better. My alpha is strong. My alpha is a genius. MY alpha is a brutal, ferocious, alpha who has faced both Ambercrown and the Predator multiple times, protected the pack, and amassed a huge herd of the Unmoving tribe. She couldn't be weak enough to need me to comfort her.
I have only succeeded in running away from them... she hunts them daily.
And yet... when she finally released me, her muzzle was damp and a little of the sap had started to leak again.
I helped her clean it up... she yipped.
Her sap tastes strange... and bad. I hope she survives the night.
When Dirty Sap and Whiteflower arrived, Yellow Red greeted them in their normal yipping barks, though she seemed tired or worried. I couldn't tell. While Yellow Red was quieter than normal, Dirty Sap started her buzzing and barking aggressively almost immediately. Though I know she wasn't challenging Yellow Red, she certainly displayed all the right signs. While Yellow Red wandered around aimlessly, Dirty Sap followed, barking and leaping as if looking to fight. Whiteflower seemed distraught but, unlike Dirty Sap, only showed signs of frustration and concern. After a few minutes, the pack settled down and Dirty Sap gestured towards me.
I watched as they studied me for a few moments before Yellow Red motioned for me to come over. I knew instantly that she was going to discipline me now that the entire pack was here. Let it never be said that she isn't fair; she wanted them all to know that I had been punished so they wouldn't need to do so themselves.
My alpha is thoughtful like that.
I slunk over, brush between my legs, until she picked me up and held me. For a few moments, I waited to be bitten or thrown, but instead she just held me.
Eventually, I realized that she was holding me tight and making soft whimpering sounds into my bark.
I don't know what happened on her hunt, but something has hurt my alpha... something that Dirty Sap and Whiteflower combined could not stop.
She needs me. Even though she is brilliant and can intimidate an entire herd of the Unmoving, she is too sick to come apart. I don't think she could pull herself back together. But I can.
I won't let my alpha go out hunting alone again. She needs me. While the pack discusses their hunt, I quietly relax a bit and shake off a few small twigs. It is uncomfortable and disorienting, but I need to help my alpha. I hide the little parts of me in her travel den... the one she carried me to the hidden den in... the one she always has with her when she goes hunting.
I will help her.
We all stay in the den for some time, somehow knowing that Yellow Red needs to just be with us. Dirty Sap buzzes quite a few times, it is obvious that she wants to fight whatever hurt our alpha. Whiteflower seems just as distressed yet, despite her hunting prowess, seems just as helpless before the unknown thing. It is frightening that my entire pack seems struck by Yellow Red's injury.
It makes perfect sense: to cripple a pack, one must strike at the alpha. The alpha is the strength of a pack. More than hunting or caring, more than protection or territory, a pack is a pack because the alpha is stability and family and everything all in one.
If an alpha is weak, a new alpha must come forward to guide and care for the pack. If an alpha is foolish, a new alpha must be recognized while the fool falls to its foolishness. If an alpha is not worthy of being alpha, the pack must make a new alpha.
But when a good alpha leads a pack none of that matters. The pack is stronger for their skill, smarter for their wisdom, more powerful for their abilities, and heartier for their care. A good alpha makes the pack. A good alpha is part of the pack. A good alpha becomes the pack and the pack becomes part of the alpha.
Yellow Red is a good alpha.
Striking at a good alpha harms not only the alpha, but the pack.
We are hurting because our alpha is hurt. Dirty Sap is trying to use her skills to fight what isn't there. Whiteflower is using her skills to try to plan for when it comes again. Yellow Red, despite her injuries and sickness, is trying to comfort us all. Why else would she be holding me now?
She already knows she's the alpha.
And then, I hear it. In the distance, far off but not far enough to be of no concern, Ambercrown has started to howl.
The pack's response is immediate.
Yellow Red puts me down, only taking a moment to check my back for beetles before heading out to face the interloper. Dirty Sap and Whiteflower follow quickly.
I turn to follow as well, but Whiteflower stops me, gently pushing me back into the den and making soft churring sounds at me.
She wants me to stay while they go to face Ambercrown.
I should be there with them. The alpha is taking the pack. I am part of the pack.
I wait and watch them skulking off into the herd of Unmoving, completely unconcerned about the herd's display of color as it prepares for rebellion.
They are braver than I.
But I am not so helpless as they think.
I can hear them long after I have lost sight of them in the herd.... deep inside the traveling den, a few of my twigs listen as they start their hunt.