Kipcha's Responses:

Maiden of the Collar: I'm glad you are enjoying yourself. I'm sorry for keeping you waiting, there has just been so much going on that we both haven't had much time to do much of anything!

Fallen Hikari: Thank you for all your praise! I'll try not to let you down as will Heiri, I'm sure! Enjoy this next chapter.

Karena Gomez: Patience, it's getting there!

Heiri's Note: Sorry for takin' so long! Enjoy!

"Come, Hige. We need to reach the female's den before the wind changes and they sense us coming!" Kiba said with a slightly annoyed tone as he looked in Hige's direction. Hige was currently chasing a small, blue butterfly around. For a moment, Kiba felt a twang of embarrassment to be associated with the sugar brown wolf. Hige paused and looked over Kiba's shoulder, careful not to make the slightest bit of eye contact. He was upset and wanted to continue his chase, but he soon sensed the urgency radiating from his leader, Kiba. Hige immediately stopped what he was doing and pranced over to Kiba. One of those voices came back and told him that he was an idiot for wanting to chase a butterfly over seeing the females.

"Where are you going?" Tsume grunted. He was sore from earlier, and he had been resting quite a bit. The gray wolf was currently basking atop a large rock. Kiba wasn't in exactly the best mood, so this question caused his anger level to rise.

"Since when do you have to know everything about everything?" Kiba shot at him. Tsume decided to ignore this, for he wasn't nearly healed from their last little dispute.

"Butt out," the sugar brown wolf said as he started walking in the other direction. Tsume's ability to resist arguing lowered even more as Hige said this, for he thought Hige was on his side.

"I'm not choosing sides, I'm just giving you a life-lesson," Hige stated as if he had read Tsume's thoughts. Tsume rolled completely onto his stomach, wincing a tiny bit. The gray wolf glared daggers at Hige. The guy was making him look worse than he already did!

"I don't need a screwed up life-lesson from someone like you!" Tsume snarled at the back of stocky wolf's form. Hige ignored this as he kept walking alongside his leader. Kiba was thinking very opposing thoughts as Tsume said this, but the pack leader was definitely not in the mood to be arguing with a pack member. He sped from a steady walk, to a fast-paced trot, to a gliding lope. Knowing Hige would catch up; he changed his gait to a run. With each leap-like step he took, he put more distance in between himself and Tsume.

Another large, pale blue butterfly flittered across Hige's path. For a moment, the brown wolf looked in the direction his leader had gone, to the butterfly with its challenge. His gaze did this about two or three times when it finally stopped in Kiba's direction. The leader's companion bolted in the direction of Kiba, knowing that there was already a lot of distance between Kiba and himself.

Kiba was beginning to wonder if Hige had turned back on him, when the subject of his thoughts glided into place near him. Their footsteps were the exact opposite of each other, and there was a constant beating of paws on the ground. The sound of abnormally fast-moving water met their ears. They were crossing the water a bit further downstream than they normally did. A bush lay in their path ahead and they split apart to evade it; Hige to the right, and Kiba to the left. Both wolves lunged right into the icy, cold water. They had to push themselves a bit harder to cross, but not by much. Hige took longer than Kiba to shake the freezing water off, so he ran and shook at the same time. The sugar brown wolf accidentally shook the water on to his leader who was already irritated.

"Watch it!" Kiba shouted at Hige as he shook. There was less water this time because a lot of it flew off in other directions, but some still landed on Hige.

"Sorry," the beta wolf replied as he let his leader get out of 'shaking range'. Hige shook the water off for good, as he thought about what a bother it had become in such a short amount of time. The pair passed through a clump of trees, Hige barely evading a full on collision with a tree trunk. The wolves were beginning to get very annoyed with this little trip. They both just wanted to get to the den, and get things taken care of! The two were also too deep in their own thoughts to notice the change in the wind. It would only be a few minutes now, before they reached the female's lair, so they slowed down. They needed to surprise the females and being loud wouldn't improve their chances of being unnoticed at all!

"Heiri!" the black and white wolf called with a bit of urgency in her tone. Heiri, who was lying on her side near the entrance of the den, shot up.

"What is it Kipcha?" she replied, slightly annoyed. Just then, Blue exited the fox den and sat down, lifting her nose into the wind.

"Male wolves and they're close!" Blue said softly, lowering her head. Heiri looked at Kipcha and the silent question; 'Is this what you meant?' was transferred from Heiri to Kipcha by the look in the leader's eyes. Kipcha nodded and turned to Blue.

"I recognized a scent as that of the male wolf who called himself Hige," Kipcha said in a low growl. "How many?" Kipcha questioned the black wolf. She was in a slightly lazy mood and didn't feel like searching for the males' scents again.

"Two so far, but there might be others coming. There might be other wolves upwind of us! Who leads an attack with just two wolves?" Blue stated uneasily. Kipcha snorted at this and Heiri growled at the thought. They had been driven around enough! This time, they weren't going anywhere.

"Who said they're going to attack? What if they just want to get an understanding with us? That's also a possibility," a curious Kipcha said to the uneasy Blue.

"Nobody said they were. Come on! We can still ensure that these guys don't surprise us," Heiri said matter-of-factly as she leapt up and headed away from the direction the males were in. She crouched behind a couple of bushes about ten meters right of the den. Blue understood Heiri's plan and mirrored it, crouching behind a large rock pile some fifteen meters left of the den. When Kipcha saw Blue mirroring Heiri, she finally understood what they were planning to do. Kipcha probably had the most complicated position.

In order to corner the intruders, one of the females would have to work her way around them until she was behind them. This would be a tricky task. After some quick thinking, Kipcha headed left, in Blue's direction. She passed Blue and kept on going for about another twenty meters. After doing this, she turned the direction the male wolves were coming from and stopped after running a short distance. The males were very close, and would be coming out of the visible small clump of trees at any moment.

Kipcha headed for the nearest hiding spot, which happened to be behind a small mound. She moved to it as fast as she could travel soundlessly, and hid behind it. Sure enough, about five seconds later the two wolves came prancing out of the trees. As promised by her keen nose, one of the wolves was the sugar brown Hige. Slightly ahead of him was a white wolf, which she didn't know the name of. He had almost the exact same golden eyes that she possessed. She could tell just by looking at the way he carried himself that he was an alpha male. They soon passed and continued on towards the female den. A small bubble of anger welled up inside of the black and white wolf as she thought about these two males. How dare they intrude?

Kipcha followed, walking as silently as her padded feet would allow. Hopefully, the males wouldn't hear her. Hopefully, they wouldn't notice that their plan was backfiring until it was too late. Kipcha didn't i really /i want to hurt the males. She was much, much more curious than she was angry. Soon, the males stopped right in front of a bush. Kipcha almost laughed at their stupidity. They hadn't even noticed that they were now vulnerable due to the biting, autumn wind. Kipcha hid herself again. She was now within earshot of the two males.

"Do you think they're sleeping?" The one claiming to be named Hige asked. Kipcha sat there, trying to memorize Hige's voice as well as scent. She almost laughed at this question. The only thing keeping her from fits of laughter was that it would give away her position.

"They might be hunting," replied the white, alpha male. It was so hard to resist the urge to laugh. Kipcha wasn't sure how much longer she could take it. Suddenly she heard her packmates jump from their hiding spots. This was the time to jump out. Kipcha let a bit of snickering out. Heiri had a very, very cold look in her eyes and the black wolf was growling. The two males were taken by surprise, and they stood in shock for a moment. Being taken by surprise was something Kiba absolutely hated!

"What are you doing here?!" Heiri spat at the alpha male. Her green eyes bore into his golden ones, silently demanding he leave while Blue was glaring daggers at Hige, trying her best to intimidate the males. Kipcha came up behind them, snickering. The male wolves were surrounded without any way to escape. Not that Kiba wanted to escape, but knowing that he i could /i made him more comfortable. Hige was in heaven as he stared around at the females.

"Hello, ladies!" the beta wolf said happily. Heiri ignored him while Blue growled.

"We came to ask you a question," Kiba replied, matching Heiri's icy stare. It seemed that neither of them was willing to back down.

"What are your names?" Kipcha asked the males in a low voice.

"One question at a time, please," Hige said in answer to Kipcha. He seemed to really be enjoying himself. Heiri lost her patience. The alpha female bent into a low crouch, ready to fly forward at Kiba. Her lips pulled as far back as they would go and she was snarling. Kiba took this as a very offensive move, so he too got into a fighting stance. They were snarling at each other, waiting for the other to make the first move.

Hige was trying to decide whether or not to stop Kiba. Here were three perfectly flawless females and his leader was about to just drive them off! This absolutely had to be stopped!

"Stop it, Kiba! They need to at least hear us out!" Hige said with a tone that was dangerous to use when talking to your pack leader. Kiba looked backwards at his companion. Hige was right. The females needed to hear them out, otherwise everything might be ruined. Little did Kiba know that the only reason Hige wanted to stay was that he was surrounded by three females.

Kipcha was thinking somewhere along those lines. She wanted to hear what the males had to say, because you never know what opportunities they might be passing up if the one called Kiba fought Heiri. What if their intentions did not lean towards hostility?

"Heiri, stop it. What if they have something to say that we really need to hear?" this was Kipcha's effort to stop Heiri. She wasn't too stern with the gray wolf, but stern enough it seemed. Heiri and Kiba both relaxed, as did Hige, Kipcha, and Blue.

"Thank you...?" the white wolf paused after he spoke. He looked at Kipcha as if he hadn't done anything wrong, and Heiri was the 'criminal'.

"Kipcha," the white and black wolf answered.

"I'm Blue," the black wolf stated with an edge of anger to her voice.

"You are....?" Hige asked Heiri who was glaring.

"I'm Heiri. Now what did you two want?" The alpha asked the sugar brown. He looked at the white wolf, wondering if he should explain it or wait.

"We have something to ask of your pack. This might be a bit early and jumping ahead but," Hige stopped as Kiba caught his eye, silently telling him to stop talking.

"We wanted to know if you'd like to join packs," Kiba said out front and plainly. Hige was pawing the ground, not wanting to meet the gaze of any females, Blue and Heiri suddenly got stiff, while Kipcha looked thoughtful.

"Join packs? As in our pack with yours?" Blue questioned, though she knew exactly what they wanted.

"That's what we mean," Hige stated, as he looked away from the ground. Blue didn't seem too angry, judging by her tone of voice, but he was yet to hear what Kipcha and Heiri had to say.

"We'd need to know a bit more about each other's packs," Kipcha was stating the obvious. It was true; they hardly knew anything about each other.

"Why? What good will it do us?" Heiri said in a soft voice.

"Our pack has four males. Kiba, me, a gray wolf named Tsume, and a runt named Toboe. It's an all male pack," Hige replied to Kipcha's question, letting Kiba answer Heiri's.

"What you see is what you get," Kipcha said in a whisper. She cocked her head to the left, to the right, and then she centered it, this indicated Heiri, Kipcha, and herself.

"Think about it," Kiba said as he turned and began to trot away. Nobody really understood what he meant, but then they realized he was giving a late answer to Heiri's unanswered question.

"See you!" Hige shouted happily, as he walked after Kiba. He was being much more positive about the situation than anyone else was.

"We'll be back, tomorrow," Kiba called back to the female wolves, who were left alone with their thoughts.