Lily knew that she wasn't going to be able to postpone dealing with the massive, unpopular mess that was currently waiting in the cavern she had claimed as her territory. Or in the one she had just left, for that matter. On one side, a bunch of light wings led by someone who wanted to take her power from her and claim her pack as his own, and on the other, her pack, many of whom would resent not being allowed to interact with the other pack in any way.
She knew she needed to handle it somehow, and in a way that her enemies couldn't take advantage of. Holly would jump on any resentment this fostered, which was almost predictable enough to use…
Lily was aware, in an abstract way, that she was still tired, but she didn't feel tired in that moment, as a clever thought came to her. If she knew for a fact Holly would jump on resentment, then she could plan for and use that. She could even rely on it, to an extent. Holly would nudge the resentment forward, and by extension would connect herself to it, make it a part of her position, a way to gain sympathy. Not directly, not at first, but if she didn't see it as a risk, she might make the mistake of doing so.
This could be useful. Lily stepped out into the open, her eyes wandering over the valley, and blinked a few times so she could actually see it. Her vision had gone blurry for no apparent reason.
Those she had brought with her began filing out behind her, and she let out a low bark to get their attention. "Gather everyone, I will be talking to the whole pack as soon as you finish," she requested.
"Do you want to hear what we learned first?" Aven asked.
"Is it anything important?" Lily asked rhetorically. If Aven had learned anything vital, she would lie, say she hadn't, and take it to Holly. "No, don't bother," she huffed, not giving time to answer. "Don't tell anyone about what happened, either." She wouldn't normally have bothered with demanding secrecy, but just in case she could somehow prove Aven had disobeyed her… Holly and her sisters only needed to slip up once. Lily was just about done tolerating subtle little pokes at her authority. Her pack had too many exterior enemies to worry about the ones in their midst.
"That goes for all of you," she added a moment later, turning to look at them in turn. Root wasn't facing her way but he nodded, Beryl cast her a glance she couldn't immediately interpret, and Pearl had an outright scowl, though it disappeared when she saw Lily looking at her.
"Just for the moment," she added. "Until I know everything is under control and that stories of what's out there won't cause problems."
"I don't think this is the right way to go about things, but I can keep quiet for the time being," Pearl said. "It's your pack, you get to choose how your people approach this. But if someone from my family was to go over and explore, what would your reaction be?"
Lily stifled a growl and managed to turn it into a considering hum, which was much less threatening. "That would definitely cause problems if my people found out about it," she said. "If you can ensure nobody knows it is happening, then I will not stop you." If only because she flat-out didn't have the authority to-
Though she didn't need the authority over them directly to stymy Pearl's plans. "And you will have to find some other way to reach them, since I cannot be seen letting anyone blatantly disregard my wishes," she said apologetically. "This tunnel will be blocked and nobody will pass through. Circumvent that, and I have no issues with your family doing as they please."
"But…" Pearl turned to stare at the tunnel. She looked back to Lily, visibly stumped. "I guess that is fair?" she warbled. "I mean, I see where you are coming from."
But Pearl also saw that her family was being blocked from visiting the other pack anyway, at least until they found another route that Lily wasn't going to physically barricade. Exactly as Lily had planned. Her pack would see her treating everyone the same, Pearl's family would know she wasn't trying to control them, and underneath it all she was treating everyone the same because she was stopping Pearl's family from visiting in a way that they couldn't complain about.
It was immature to feel smug about maneuvering around people who didn't make manipulation their way of life, but Lily felt it anyway, especially as she wasn't at her best at the moment, and had come up with the deception on the spot.
"Where do you want to address the pack?" Beryl asked, reminding her that he was still present… though he was the only one aside from Pearl; Root and Aven had left at some point. Lily didn't remember seeing them go.
"Anywhere, just get everyone into one group and ready to listen," she said. "Quickly." The faster they were, the less time she had to think of exactly what she was going to say, but that didn't really matter. She already had her response mostly thought out.
O-O-O-O-O
Light wings crowded each other for no reason, standing in tight clusters facing her. They were gathered in the center of the cavern, and many jostled for position, unable to see her directly. She had put her paw down and ensured that they were not crowding her or getting behind her, which made things worse. For them, anyway; she was entirely willing to watch them struggle to see if it meant nobody behind her and no need to be constantly walking around like on the plateau back in the valley.
Everyone, aside from those out exploring, was present. Just as she had asked for. She saw the dark wings near the back of the crowd; Thaw was standing on Ember's back, a feat that Lily suspected would soon become impossible, given Thaw wasn't that far off from his adult size. Ember could handle it, apparently, but it was probably a strain. Spark poked Pearl and said something, and Pearl shook her head vehemently, causing the entire family to start laughing-
Lily looked away from them, forcing herself to focus on what mattered. The announcement.
"Okay, listen up!" she roared. Those closest to her, only a half-dozen body-lengths away, cringed and pawed at their ears. She ignored them; it wasn't like she was that loud, even when she was trying. They had all reacted at the same time, though, which made her suspicious. If Holly had set them up to try something, to make her look bad or careless or something… Nobody notable was in the front rows, aside from Cedar and Liona.
"Yes?" someone asked. A few light wings laughed.
"We have made contact with two new packs," Lily announced, jumping right to the chase. "One, dragons who live in the underground lake. They are friendly, and will be around to manage the fish so that we do not run out. If you see something, do not assume it is friendly, but do not fly away shrieking either. Use your judgment." She was loath to rely on her pack's judgment for the most part, but she had posted sentries and they could pick up the slack. Especially since telling her people to be self-sufficient would make them happy, which would lead into the other half of her announcement.
"The other pack, however, is not so easily addressed," she said solemnly. "They are light wings, like us, but they are not friendly."
There was a chorus of barks of surprise. Lily had expected that, and she continued on without stopping, trusting that her people would quiet down and listen. "They act friendly, maybe some of them are harmless, but their leader wants to take this pack over. He admitted that he wants our cave for his people, and since we are not going to leave without somewhere better to go, that means he will need to take it from us."
"Are they going to attack?" someone called out worriedly. She considered that a good sign; thinking that someone was possibly hostile and violent usually precluded wondering whether meeting them was a good idea.
"I don't know," Lily said honestly. She suspected that violence wasn't going to be the chosen method of usurpation, if only because her people were so vulnerable to the more subtle ways, but it wasn't out of the question. It helped that fostering fear of the other pack strengthened her position. "We will be fortifying the path to their domain just in case. Nobody is to go out to their cavern without my permission, which will not be granted for a while in any case. There is much they could do to try and take over this pack with any opening we give."
"But they must have unmated males there!" a female cried out. "We could find mates!"
Lily hesitated, though she didn't mean to. She had hoped that nobody would think of that, though of course they would.
"We could make new friends!" a fledgling added pleadingly, taking advantage of the relative silence to add his opinion.
"Are they the ones our parents left to go up to the surface?" an older male asked. "We could reconnect with our family if any are still around."
A half-dozen others began speaking, as they started thinking of the potential of another pack to interact with. "Nobody is going anywhere!" Lily roared, feeling the beginning of a nasty headache coming over her. "If anyone tries to sneak out and go to them for any reason, there will be a punishment."
An uneasy silence fell, one she hadn't entirely been expecting. She wasn't entirely sure why that had surprised them, of course if they broke a rule set by the alpha there would be consequences. Very stark ones, in this case, and not just because she was really serious about stopping all contact with the other light wing pack. The punishment was going to serve another purpose, one she couldn't tell anyone about…
Someone in the crowd coughed, and she realized she hadn't said anything for an awkwardly long time. "All I will say about what the punishment will be," she added in a cold voice, "is that while I have one determined, I am not going to explain it unless it is needed." Not in the least because she'd thought it up on the walk back, and probably needed to refine it before it was used.
"This is very important?" Holly asked from the middle of the crowd, her eyes wide and her voice innocent. "Because you do not usually promise retribution if we disobey."
Lily knew Holly was chipping away at her authority, but in this case it wouldn't work, because she wasn't going to backtrack, she was going to double down. "Yes, it is that important," she said firmly. "They are just as big a threat as the dragons who attacked us from the other side, and I am not going to lose anyone else. If I have to be harsh to make that happen, so be it." She wouldn't have to be harsh if her people just listened when she spoke and didn't think they could second-guess her, but that wasn't going to happen. Not with Holly around.
"Step beyond the blockade I'll be having set up, and you will discover why disobedience is not worth it," Lily added with a growl. "Is that clear?"
"Very," Holly shot back, looking perturbed. Or just disgruntled; Lily was having a hard time telling, for some reason. She didn't quite know what that expression and the way her ears were flagging meant.
"Now," Lily said loudly, "I know this is not what anyone was hoping would happen if we found others of our kind." It certainly wasn't what she would have hoped for, though she hadn't thought they would run into others. The guardian had told them going this way would lead them to less crowded cave systems…
At that, they hadn't come here randomly, the guardian had told them to go this way. She wondered if the guardian had intentionally directed them toward a light wing pack. It wouldn't fit the guardian's stated policy of not interfering with things down below, but the guardian was also a self-professed hypocrite, so she couldn't rule it out.
"It's not ideal," she said, dropping the line of thought for now. It wasn't like she could or would do anything about it if the guardian had set this up. "I know. If any of you want to ask me specific questions about why I'm handling it this way, now is the time."
"Can you make the other alpha not want to take over?" someone in the front row asked immediately.
"I'll be negotiating with him after we make it clear I'm serious about cutting off all contact," she said confidently. "I can't say how long it will take to send that message, but the plan isn't to block the tunnel and pretend they don't exist forever." If only because the pack on the other side of her cavern wasn't going to disappear. But she could and would stretch out the no-contact period as far as she needed to ensure that when she did finally reopen negotiations, she had the upper paw.
"What about visiting their cave?" Aven asked from the middle of the crowd. "Even if the alpha wants to take over, he cannot do that when we go there."
"He could, on the other paw, take you, trap you, and force concessions out of me with you as leverage," Lily said neutrally. She almost hoped Aven got it into her head to let that sort of thing happen on purpose; she'd be happy to let Aven sulk in some sort of trap for as long as it took to make Rose think she was worthless. "Or seduce you to his side." Literally or figuratively, though Aven's squeak implied she took it literally.
"Why not attack them?" a male asked. "If they are going to try and take our new home anyway, we might as well." He sounded far too eager for that for Lily's peace of mind; she hoped she wasn't going to have to balance a pro-war faction on top of everything else.
"I don't think anyone wants to kill our fellow light wings just because they're greedy," Lily huffed. "So long as they don't make a hostile move on us, we won't be provoking them by doing the same. Also, we have a common enemy." She turned to face the crystal-blocked passage, reminding everyone of what lay behind it. "Fighting between us could lead to us all dying to them. It is safest for everyone to not let their schemes happen, and to not start a fight either. Staying away for a long while is the only smart option."
She didn't get any obvious approval for that declaration from the crowd; most of them looked vaguely confused, like they couldn't follow her logic, or could and weren't happy about it. She doubted her well-reasoned rebuttals would stand against Holly frustration-mongering the moment her back was turned, but appearing reasonable and pretending to hear out their concerns would put her solidly in the right when the time came to make sides and deal with Holly more permanently.
"Any more questions?" she asked the crowd. Nobody responded. Not even Holly, though now would have been the perfect time to throw in a difficult-to-answer challenge if she could think of one. Lily took her lack of interference as a sign that she didn't know what to do, or wasn't smart enough to take advantage of every opportunity given to her. Either was good.
"Thank you for your understanding," she said, though she knew they didn't really understand and weren't going to remain as accepting as they were now. That was fine; she was doing the thinking for all of them.
O-O-O-O-O
Lily hadn't wanted the passage to the other light wings totally blocked like they had with the other enemy pack. A total blockage was good for total enemies, those with whom peace wasn't an option. After being told in no uncertain terms that they had murdered a fledgling of hers-
If that was true. She had seen no body, gotten no proof. Rose could be playing her. But he had no reason to, the enemy pack had already killed her people, she already wanted them dead. He gained nothing by lying and potentially jeopardizing any alliance between them if she ever found out.
In any case, she didn't want the way to their pack to be totally impassible. That wouldn't work as bait, for one thing. Instead, she'd had Cara and a few of her guards do the grunt work of breaking and dragging a smaller piece of crystal, one large enough to block the bottom three fourths of the tunnel.
Soon, the only way through the previously wide and clear tunnel entrance was to pass by the two light wing guards standing on either side of the small opening, which was located at the top of the tunnel entrance, forcing whoever wanted to pass to climb up and down, just to make it harder for intruders to get through quickly… or for sneaky, rebellious light wings to pass through without getting caught.
Not that such was likely, not right after the passage had been blocked. She was standing guard herself to make a statement, not because she thought she'd catch someone. If Holly made her play right away she was an idiot; letting the resentment fester and grow would be a much smarter play. Especially if she was being careful about the unspecified punishment.
Nobody would try to sneak by now, but plenty of light wings were at least thinking about it. Lily caught several different light wings staring at her dubiously as she sat in front of the tunnel, clearly ready to apprehend anyone who wanted to try and cross. They didn't think she was actually going to do anything.
Well, the joke was on them if they acted on that mistaken assumption. A quick word to one of the light wings in charge of a certain something prepared the necessary circumstances to make the punishment as bad as possible, and the light wing in question didn't suspect a thing. He was just grateful to be taken off the job he had been assigned, and assumed someone else would be taking his place.
Lily put that out of her mind, and nodded to the trustworthy male light wing who had come to take her place, walking away from the tunnel after a long time spent guarding it. She was free to roam the cavern, now.
Or sleep. She considered it, and then scowled, growling to herself. No, she didn't need sleep yet. Maybe once she was absolutely certain nobody was going to challenge her resolve. Her body argued against her, but she was more than accustomed to ignoring it in order to do what needed to be done. It was easy this time, knowing she wouldn't be able to sleep anyway, not unless she took the time to seek Honey out or something. Not worth it.
Especially not when the alternative was so much more useful. She walked near groups of light wings, keeping just far enough away that they wouldn't notice her, and eavesdropped.
"What do you think the alpha's punishment for sneaking off to go court some pretty females is?" a young male fledgling on the cusp of adulthood asked two similarly young males. All three had their backs to her, and the object of their attention was a little shard of crystal that they were taking turns pawing at, either as some sort of game or just because they couldn't sit still.
"Running around the entire cavern with her riding your back," one suggested, leaping to his feet and running in a circle to illustrate his point, and maybe burn off some energy. "She is not all that big, but this is a big cavern, so that could be hard."
"Nah, too easy. Lily is smart, and she seemed really ticked off." The one who had spoken looked uneasy. "Was she always this angry at everything?"
"Something is different. Probably the stress of leading you two!" the third male joked. "But seriously, it cannot be all that bad. I think."
"Are you sure enough to risk it?" the first male asked, kicking the shard of crystal into the air. It landed a short distance away. "I want to go see the females, but it might not be worth it."
"You know there are plenty of unattached females here, right?" the second one asked, before running to retrieve their plaything.
"Yes, but these are new females, not ones that have been hanging around waiting for us to grow up our entire lives," the first insisted. "I want someone who sees me as the best, not just good enough."
"That sounds nice, but it is not worth the risk," the third advised, crouching to paw the shard onto his nose. He rose onto his hind legs, swaying dramatically, though the crystal was in no danger of falling off. "Something tells me embarrassing yourselves is not worth what the alpha might come up with. Besides, there is no way past those guards. We are basically trapped here."
Lily moved on, satisfied. Those three were not going to cause trouble. That was good. She wanted the punishment to fall on an adult, not a stupid fledgling making bad decisions. Maybe she should come up with an alternative if an underaged light wing was the first one to challenge her authority.
Or maybe that would be Holly's play, getting some bright-eyed fledgling to do the deed, and assuming that Lily wouldn't come down that hard on him or her because of their age. She would, though; it would do no good to punish someone less harshly because they were not an adult. She would have deserved the adult punishment if she defied the alpha at their age. The consequence was not going to change to accomodate immaturity.
The next conversation she overheard was far less casual, and didn't start as a conversation at all. She walked silently behind two females at the stream. One was leaning down to drink, but it was the other that had caught her attention. Staring at a blank stone wall and growling irritably was not normal behaviour.
Eventually, the other finished her drink, shook herself, and huffed at the growling female. "Stop it already, this is getting ridiculous. We have waited season-cycles before, and we can wait for Lily to loosen up now."
"She has only been getting tighter ever since we got here," the other growled back. "I want a mate, or at least the chance to look for one. What right does she have to deny us that?"
Lily casually stepped away from them, retreating until she was only just close enough to hear. She was confident in her stealth, and she was camouflaged - though she didn't remember when she had done that, hopefully it was after sitting on guard by the tunnel, otherwise nobody would have seen her doing that. Whenever it had happened, she was pretty sure they weren't going to glance back and see her before they vented about her, but it was best to be careful.
"If she is stopping us, then she must have a good reason," the more reasonable female warbled uncertainly. "She must… but usually she explains it. This time she is not explaining very much. There is a punishment, too. That makes me think it is even more serious than usual."
Lily almost laughed at how similarly the minds of male fledglings and adult females worked. This was pretty much the same conversation, just from a flipped perspective. If it wasn't against her desires, she would definitely find it funny, but as it was, it was a mostly harmless annoyance… until Holly exploited it, but that wasn't going to work.
"What do you think it is?" the angry female asked stubbornly, adding to the similarity.
"Something very bad," was the pragmatic response. "Lily never bluffs. You should do something other than pout about it. Have you tried getting Spark's interest lately?"
"No," the angry female huffed. "He is too immature, and his brothers are either too young or totally uninterested."
"What do you think Beryl's deal is, then?" the other asked lightly. "Maybe he does not prefer light wings? Dark scales get him hot and interested, not bright ones? I could see that."
"Maybe he does not, or maybe he is pining after one in particular," the angry one offered, sounding mollified. Apparently, gossip could take her mind off her troubles. Lily wished that worked for her. "I would almost guess Lily, though I would not understand why, but they have not spent any time together since we got down here."
Lily nodded in agreement with that. Her stepping away from Beryl had been mostly thanks to circumstance, mainly that she had neither time nor a private place to be with him, but it was doing the job in taking attention off of the possibility of them being together. She missed him a little, but he could and would wait until things were settled down. Especially if random light wings were wondering about whether he was interested in her.
He could wait. She had things to do, dissent to spy on, and people to watch. Beryl and sleep could both wait.
O-O-O-O-O
Lily stalked the mostly empty corridors of the caves in the main cavern's ceiling. She still hadn't gotten around to assigning places, or even telling the pack about the availability. That was probably a good thing, really. It would be a headache on its own, and she had enough of those, not even counting the actual headache pounding behind her eyes.
Of those that knew about the caves, most were currently accounted for. She had seen all of the dark wings around the cavern, talking or sleeping, and Root had gone fishing with Storm. The person she wanted to talk to, however, had flown up here, which was perfect for her purposes. Assuming he was still around, she wasn't exactly fast in walking all the way up.
The sound of claws on stone ahead of her let her know that someone was nearby, and she turned a few corners to see Thaw peering into a side chamber, his tail swaying casually.
"Thaw," she called out. He backed up and looked over his shoulder at her. "Have a moment?"
"Do you need me for something?" he asked, joining her in the corridor.
"I do," She confirmed, resisting the urge to pace or otherwise walk around. Sometimes she felt like she needed to keep moving in order to not falter, in her movement or in her thoughts. "Thaw, you are a smart fledgling. When I was your age, I was smart too. I wanted to be treated like an adult."
"Actually, I kind of am treated like that by my Sire and Dam, and my brothers. But I'm not an adult until the end of my sixth season-cycle," Thaw asserted calmly.
"Fifth," Lily corrected absently.
"No, sixth." Thaw shook his head. "Not until I reach full size. We don't do ceremonies like your pack does. We just celebrate among ourselves."
"Well, that is not important," Lily declared, dismissing the tangent they had wandered down into. She had more important things to do. "You remember the bad dragons that attacked you and the other fledglings?"
Thaw shivered. "Yes. Are they back?"
"No. We do not know what they are planning. That is why I am coming to you." She crouched a little to be on his eye level. He was not quite as tall as an adult yet, and nowhere near as long, but he was responsible and smart enough to do this. "I need you to do something for me."
"What?" he asked.
"I saw what you can do. You can fake being one of them. I want you to go out into the caverns and find their pack. Trick them into accepting you, and find out what they are up to. Then come back."
Thaw blinked at her. "Lily, are you tired?"
She didn't understand why people kept asking her that; she hadn't slept in a while, but it wasn't like it showed. "No, I'm not, and I want you to focus," she growled. "Do this for me. For the entire pack."
"Lily, I…" Thaw hung his head. "I can't do that. Sire says I need to trust my conscience, and I do not want to spy on them. I think I would not be able to anyway."
"You're smart, you have the ability to look like them, and you can," Lily listed encouragingly. "Come on, most fledglings are raring to go on any sort of mission." To have a sense of importance and show off, that was, though she wouldn't say that to a fledgling she was trying to convince.
"I am not most fledglings." Thaw sat on his hind legs, defiantly parking himself right there. "Sire says I can say no if I don't want to do something. Dam does too."
"You are your own person, it should be your choice." He was far more than old enough to be independent. He should be as rebellious as Root was right now! "I need you to do it."
"I am my own person," Thaw repeated, a hint of doubt showing on his face. "But I don't want to do it, even if my Sire and Dam told me to. This is something Sire should do if it needs to happen. Ask him."
"I don't want him to do it, I want you to." She didn't think Ember would, but Thaw was cracking. Time to turn up the pressure. "Please?" she said, tilting her head and crouching a little to make herself look vulnerable, though nothing could be further from the truth. "I need your help, and only yours."
"Well…" Thaw said slowly, clearly considering it. "I do not know where to go. I don't have any experience with the other body. And I am scared they will catch me." He returned to all four paws and took a step back. "Lily, I cannot."
"Yes, you can," she growled softly. "Do it. I need you to. I have to know what they are doing over there, and I cannot spy on them. You can." Pity had failed, but she might be able to intimidate him into-
Thaw took another step back, fear on his face. "Lily, you are scaring me."
Lily was about to respond when a familiar bark echoed around her. "Thaw?" Beryl called out from somewhere nearby. "You up here?"
"This way!" Thaw all but yelped, turning and hurrying toward the sound of Beryl's voice. Lily followed him, inwardly growling at her horrible luck. Beryl could not have come at a worse time, she could have calmed Thaw down and reassured him if they weren't interrupted!
Beryl was near the hole in the ground that those who could fly used to come into the cave system. His eyes narrowed as he saw Lily, and how Thaw was behaving. "What's going on?"
"Lily wants me to use my power and spy on the other pack and I do not want to," Thaw said bluntly, his voice low and shaky.
"Does she?" Beryl shot her a questioning look. She nodded vehemently. With his help, Thaw could still be convinced.
For some reason, Beryl didn't pick up on her obvious cue. "Thaw," he hummed, "you can go find someone less… pushy… to talk to. Please, say nothing of this for the moment. I am going to deal with it, and Lily does not need your help all that badly."
"I do!" Lily called out as Thaw made for the hole. Hopefully, he would decide to do it on his own once guilt set in. There would be guilt, of that she was sure; she needed his help and he had run away. Even if it wasn't that big a deal, his fledgling mind would make it seem bigger.
"Lily, what are you doing?" Beryl's teeth were out, and he loomed angrily, blocking her way and glaring at her with hurt, worried eyes. "This is not acceptable."
"I need his aid, I know he is smart enough to give it, and I think he will decide to," Lily said insistently. "You should not have stopped me."
"What has gotten into you?" Beryl eyed her for a long moment, looking her over. "You still look tired. When did you last sleep?"
"Why does everyone keep asking me that?!" Lily roared angrily. "I'm well rested!" She felt well rested, so it didn't matter when she had last slept.
"Then you need to explain why you thought pressuring my brother like that was a good idea." Beryl took a step forward, looming threateningly, though that might just have been Lily's mind playing tricks on her. "I think I understand most of your recent decisions, but this one makes no sense at all. I need an explanation, at the very least."
"It's a great idea," Lily growled back, walking right up to him and batting him on the nose, making him flinch and back up a bit. She had done it to force him to stop looming, but it worked well in the metaphorical sense too. "I need to know who my enemies are and what they are up to, and Thaw can help me with that."
He stared at her, expression unreadable. His voice was stern when he replied. "Lily, he is a fledgling with an ability none of us fully understand, and a totally acceptable desire to not mess with that ability for the time being. He is not ready to go on some sort of spy mission. Why would you think he was?" A controlled frustration laced his voice, his posture, the way he was filling up the tunnel with slightly extended wings, a subconscious reaction.
"He is like me. I would have been able to do it at his age. At his age, I was more than capable, and he is too." She knew Thaw could do it, and hopefully he would once her words began to gnaw at him. She had planted the seed, and it would grow...
"Even if he was like you in the way you mean, going to him first, without asking his parents?" Beryl asked. "Or me? Even just to check whether I thought it was a good idea?"
"They would say no," Lily huffed, avoiding addressing why she hadn't asked him about it first, as she didn't have an answer for that. "He is an independent person, it's his choice. Permission could have been obtained after he agreed to it."
"That's going at it backwards," Beryl growled. "I'm not okay with this, at all, and that's putting it mildly."
"Then it's a good thing it doesn't matter whether you approve, isn't it?" she asked angrily. "I need information on those fledgling-killing monsters, and-"
"And you decided to send a fledgling to get it?" Beryl interrupted.
"Who else would I send?" she retorted. "Ember would need to kill to infiltrate them, and I don't think he would. None of my people has a chance of sneaking in and hanging around long enough to hear anything useful."
"That's another thing," Beryl said. "How did you intend on getting anyone into their territory? We can't just move the crystal. This plan is as full of holes as it is questionable morals."
"Finding someone willing to do it was the first step, figuring out how to get them in was the second," she growled. "Do you have a better idea?"
"Yes, actually," Beryl growled back. "Don't send anyone out for this. Get some rest, do something you do not have to do as alpha, relax, and think about what you're doing, because this is a terrible plan and you should know better. I don't know what's gotten into you, but you need to step back and figure it out. When you have, you can apologize to Thaw, his parents, and then my entire family."
"Maybe I will!" Lily barked. "Or maybe I am fine and you are full of hot air!" She was angry, so angry, though she didn't quite know why. Maybe it was how he was telling her to rest, when she was fine, maybe it was him defying her, maybe it was how he didn't want to work with her, he was just picking apart her ideas… On second thought, she had plenty of reasons to be angry.
"I'm going to go make sure you didn't put bad ideas in Thaw's head," Beryl said angrily, looking away from her. "Just… I will see you after I fix this. I'm too mad to deal with you now, and I know not to let my frustration drive me to make poor choices." He turned and dropped out into the main cavern, leaving her alone with no way to follow. After all but saying that he was going to try his best to undo the ideas she had given to Thaw, the guilt that would get him doing what she wanted-
She snarled, reared around, and blasted the nearest wall point-blank with a hasty shot. He would see her later, all right, later when she was willing to forgive him for getting on her bad side over something so unimportant.
O-O-O-O-O
Some time later, Lily stalked out of the tunnel down to the valley, still angry but more focused on doing something useful. Thaw as a potential tool hadn't panned out, so she needed to either find someone else, or work on something else. A quick glance at the various blocked tunnels told her there was no change at any of them, so her master plan had yet to advance-
"Lily!" Diora barked, flying down from somewhere. "There you are! I have been looking for you."
Lily almost growled at her, but then she remembered she had set Diora to watching Pearl and by extension Holly. She reigned in her temper and nodded to the other female. "What for?" she asked.
"Holly and Pearl were meeting in secret," Diora said smugly. "They are definitely working together on something, and it cannot be good. I was going to take you to watch, but…"
"But it's already over by now," Lily finished with a growl. Of course, arguing with Beryl had probably made the difference. Just another thing to be mad about, as if she needed more reasons. "Tell me exactly what you overheard."
"I remember most of it," Diora assured her. "Pearl flew over and asked if Holly wanted to go fishing, and Holly said yes, but when I followed them they flew out to that ledge that goes on forever and landed there."
"Which is not fishing," Lily said thoughtfully, her anger abating. Not really, though; she was still mad, it was just easier to ignore. She didn't give it much thought.
"It is not," Diora said smugly, though at the moment everything she did, every movement she made, roared smug in some way. She was in her element, giving out real dirt on Pearl to a willing ear. "They started by talking about fledglings, Thaw and some others, the play groups."
"Anything specific about Thaw?" Lily asked. It would be good to know whether Pearl had come to Holly before or after learning about her attempt at getting Thaw to be useful. Whether Thaw had run crying to her, or Beryl had told.
"No," Diora huffed, "it was just small talk. Then they got around to Pearl telling Holly that she wanted to help with the play groups more, which was obviously another way of saying she wanted into whatever Holly is planning."
"Obviously," Lily said doubtfully. She didn't entirely trust Diora's interpretation - who would, when Diora was so transparent and ineffective, it was clear she wasn't that smart - but her own analysis said much the same in this instance. The play groups Holly organized were the public link between her and Pearl, so discussing that would make for a good cover story.
"Holly said yes, she could help more," Diora continued. "Pearl said she wanted to keep Thaw out of it, since he was a little too old for what they were doing."
Which Lily assumed actually meant Pearl didn't want to involve Thaw in anything because he was too young; it was a bit confusing, but the deception wouldn't make sense if she said Thaw was too old. That was useful information.
"Then Holly asked whether Pearl had found what she needed for the new games," Diora added. "Pearl said no, but she was asking around to see if anyone knew where to find it."
"There were no specifics on what 'it' is?" Lily asked. That was too vague, especially as they already weren't saying what they really meant. Support, some sort of plant-based scheme, or even just a real innocent request thrown in to confuse would-be spies, though she didn't think Holly and Pearl would take that sort of precaution when they thought they were already alone.
"No," Diora huffed. "Once they were done talking about that, they actually went fishing. Then Holly asked Pearl about what the trip to the other pack was like. Pearl said she was not supposed to talk about it, but Holly said Aven was terrible at keeping secrets and had spilled all the details already, and she wanted a viewpoint that was not spewing love for all light wings out of every orifice-"
"Wait, stop," Lily said. "Did she actually say it like that, or are you exaggerating?" Holly was many things, but crude and dismissive of her sister's opinion wasn't normal. Unless she was putting on a front to coerce Pearl into sharing details.
"She did actually say that, but it might have been a joke," Diora admitted. "Pearl asked Holly what Aven had said about it, and Holly laughed, and they changed the subject."
"So Aven might not have actually said anything about it," Lily guessed. "Or she did, and Holly saw Pearl wasn't okay with sharing, so she played it off as a trick so as to not incriminate Aven." Complex, but entirely manageable. It implied Pearl and Holly weren't entirely on the same side, but they were clearly involved enough that Lily couldn't risk prying Pearl away. It seemed Pearl had chosen her side of this particular conflict.
By this point, Lily was already angry, so another reason to rage made no difference. She would consider Pearl an enemy like Holly, and be done with it. Maybe once all of this was over she could figure out why Pearl had turned on her, or maybe not. It didn't matter now.
"I do not know about that, but they are clearly collaborating," Diora said. "See why I never liked her?"
"I see," Lily assured her. "You're doing good work, keep it up." At the very least, she could rely on Diora.
