If there's something that wreckless wolf taught me, albeit unintentionally, was the fact that men are going to trash women like me at some point or another. That's a figure of speech, just in case anyone didn't notice, but it's my way of evoking the lesson I assimilated once I was old enough and managed to turn the page on him. His teasing used to get me mad, and when he decided to mostly stop it, I was even angrier, sometimes at other women, mostly at myself. However, I eventually realized I couldn't be thinking of a man who is never going to get me in the bed, and that reaffirmed my wish to be a shaman. That way, the value people would see in me wouldn't be totally determined by the roles everyone is expected to fulfill since I have another pivot to lean on. Obsessive? Most likely, but we are inherently taught to have that sort of behavior, and it's hard to fully let it go.

Being an Alpha is not quite as easy when you're a female. I do take sexist comments lightly, usually scoffing at the offender in the same way I did to the human the Chief's heir keeps under his protection, but that's only a mask that helps me not remember males and females are in fact not the same. It's not like it's forbidden for a woman to do what a man would usually do and vice versa, even though I definitely feel boys and girls aren't often judged with the same tools. While some differences are to be expected, because our bodies don't exactly work the same, I wish people didn't find it surprising to see strong females on the battlefield or smart-ass males like Tano. It gets even simpler than that: what's the problem with men getting to cry sometimes? It happens to us females more often than not, and while that's fine for me, Vulgor couldn't shed a tear without getting scoffed at.

I'm not sure why... Well, whether I'm willing to admit why I care so much about it. It's not as simple as I wouldn't like being unable to let my emotions out if I ever needed it, rather I think I still feel something for Ranok. Yeah, I did turn the page, but I'll feel impulsed to help him whenever I hear about one of his screw-ups and feel they're overreacting at times. That doesn't mean I'm happy to be a part of whatever plan that careless idiot has regarding Caelan, though. That kid's presence is driving everyone nuts, not to mention the elders. Tano seems to pay attention to stuff even harder than normal when I'm around, too, and I can't say I'm glad of being looked at by his blue eyes, regardless of his attractiveness. Even as I try my best to survive being in the elders' sights because of the Chief's heir, I don't feel he's always in the wrong, at least in lesser incidents.

Perhaps I'm allowing my mind to be driven by memories too much, but when I think of him, I also evoke those key moments involving him regarding my own maturity. There are two that changed me the most; one because of the context that surrounded everything, and the other because it added up to what I discovered in the first moment and was just impacting to see. It's thanks to those two memories that I know I have no chance of getting as much attention from Ranok as my instinctive side would desire. And that my mind got a little bit open to the idea of a different way of life, at least in the case it was similar to the descriptions that naughty wolf started giving upon coming back from the carriage. It also makes me wonder whether he's been questioning our own customs and for how long. If that was the case, I hope he won't try to force changes in our society to match his idealist vision.

Anyway, the first event happened during the rutting season just as both of us three were probably starting to develop sexually. During those days, I'd usually step back from the battlefield and try my best to focus on the teachings to become a shaman. I used to do that from an early age every few months, and I thank our ancestors I didn't have to be in the middle of horny teens while training, as I've heard disgusting stories about rapes involving wolves of ages like those, especially the older I got. The strange, horrible feeling I had right between my legs was enough to want to get myself surrounded by lots of incense since its smell usually helps me forget about it and calm down considerably. As such, my nostrils were especially sensitive to outer and male-ish smells, and any distraction from those, like the elders' teachings, was the cure I was so in need of. I was rarely as interested in their words at other times.

The day that happened, I was also taking care of injured and sick wolves. Around their rooms, there wasn't much incense, so trying my hardest to take care of anyone in there was my only chance of not losing my mind. That is, until Ranok arrived at the building, limping with the help of his moon brother. I was obviously still obsessed with him, so as soon as I heard of what had happened to him, even if it was very minor, I got the bandages and materials I needed to treat his injures and showed up in the room they were in as soon as possible. That was when I noticed something was off: both his and Vulgor's fur looked quite messy, even more than I was used to seeing in pups who were back from playing. In fact, I could hardly imagine the black wolf being as untidy as he was, so I was unable to hold back from asking:
"What in the world happened to both of you?".

"He simply fell and twisted his ankle, then I had to help him while he tried to prank me. You know this stupid pup".
Vulgor's answer was pretty solid, but he butchered it completely at the very end. I know very well the grey wolf carrying the full moon stone tends to tease and make people uncomfortable upon feeling enough confidence with them. The only exception was his own moon brother, and if he did tease him, it was usually to try to make him smile, sort of like telling a bad joke. He's had so many chances to use that skill of his on the bad omen as a way of defense, yet he never did it, taking his scolding even more obediently than he'd do with his father or anyone else. Anyone who spent any amount of time with both of them, such as a future Alpha like me, knew there was something... off about their relationship, probably because of Vulgor's case.

Once I went ahead and began examining him, a lot of pieces began falling into place, although my severely altered state caused me not to realize anything until later. For some reason, I could sense the scent of both himself and another male very faintly, almost like a trace that had been rubbed off. It made sense to think that since I didn't take long to find strange traces of dirt on that wolf's torso that looked very different to what I could expect to find on a sweaty man at the time.
"What's the matter, baby?" Ranok had definitely noticed my nervousness right away. "Too much for your eyes to handle? It's your lucky day, ya know".
My heart began beating wildly as that stupid mutt continued to mess with me, but I didn't care about the meaning of what I had found out. The sentence stuck in my head was too nerve-wracking. "It's cum, it's definitely cum".

I attempted to focus on cleaning his scratches and checking whether there was anything else that required my attention. However, my snout twitched almost painfully, as if it was driven by a force I'm not familiar with. That's when I couldn't take it anymore, deciding I needed that incense immediately. Before walking away as a result of my mind breaking completely, I wanted to take a look at Vulgor. His face was weird, and it was obvious he knew something was wrong with me:
"What the...?" he asked, arching a brow. "Are you alright?".
It was a different mix, a lot fainter, but they certainly were the same smells my nostrils had caught on Ranok's body. By that point, any part of my mind that didn't urge me to leave that room was blank. Covering my nose, I was giving large steps in my way to one of the rooms with lots of incense seconds after my sniffing on the black wolf came to a stop.

Minutes later, I was breathing in as much of the unnatural scent trapped between those four walls as possible, focusing on getting my body to stop reacting to the thoughts of what I had seen. Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out. It took a while, but the heat in my body eventually began decreasing very slowly while my mind got back to properly thinking. The best thought I could resort to when my need became too great was hearing the teachings I was continuously told while doing my chores or helping during the sermons. A male could also use those to kill his own boner, too, provided how boring and unengaging they usually were. Nevertheless, I wasn't all that long into my calmer state when I finally put two and two together concerning what I had seen. The traces of semen, the similar scents... That could only mean one thing.
"Have those two... mated?" I mumbled to myself, shocked.

Truth be told, the "you worry so much your fur turned white" pun Ranok used to throw at me would fit me best at those moments. I was walking around the room in agitation while processing what I had just learned. It wasn't only my fear that the grey wolf, whom I still had some feelings for, would be caught and punished, but the meaning of that. Seeing the puzzle of their relationship from a wider angle, I managed to remember how differently the Chief's heir treated his moon brother when comparing it to the rest of the wolves he had any sort of confidence with. Always kind, allowing him to win the game of jabs whenever I heard both of them in that incredibly rare mood, trying to get him to talk about anything otherwise, his attempts to find his brother if they hadn't been together all day.
"Hey, do you know where my moon brother is?".
"Do I look like I keep track of everyone's moves for you?".

That one was the biggest. I had NEVER heard each other's pup name come out of their mouth no matter the situation or how young they were. Ranok did say his own temporary name quite frequently when he found the occasion, but it was clear both had learned ever since they could reason they were not using those names for all their lives, at least if they lived long enough. As such, they wouldn't call each other anything other than "brother". If anything, it was the biggest piece of evidence of their special bond as two souls who came together to the world, who looked first and foremost at each other in the first instants of their lives. That story has always sent me shivers through my spine, and to find out their brotherhood had gone a step further the tribe could reasonably accept or even tolerate... It wasn't easy to handle, much less when that meant I could never compete... with a man for Ranok's heart.

It took me months to recover from the shock, and in order to overcome it, I really had to leave behind most of my feelings for that grey wolf. His defectiveness was just a mere help to accepting I had no chances with him because he flat out had his eyes set on someone else. I never told anyone about the chances of both of those canines being homosexual, but the discovery helped me put a stop to my obsession and become more mature. Or so I thought. Even if I had the evidence, I didn't see them acting defectively, so I still had a faint hope that could have been pups being pups, eventually realizing he was better off mating with females. A surprising amount of reality punched my snout even harder than I could have thought years later, but still in our teenage years. By that point, I had learned how to keep my impulses under control, but not what love was. If there was any chance I could understand its meaning.

Around that time, Vulgor was behaving kinda strangely if you compare it to anywhere out of his puberty, both before and after those times. For some reason beyond my understanding, he seemed to act a lot bolder and braver than he actually needed. Having been in some teams with that black wolf as we trained for combat, I witnessed some of his deeds: facing enormous feral beasts by himself, having 4 other pups fight him at the same time, exchanging punches, and giving folks reasons to attack him... Despite how dangerous it looked, he usually made it out by himself and without getting excessively severe injures. He managed to get the more bloodlusty wolves to cheer for him during and after his silly acts, but the only thing that came to my mind, both when I saw and heard about his stupidly ballsy behavior, was:
"Why is he doing that? What's the point of asking to be roughed up like that?".

But the worst of them all was when he taunted two of the Alphas into fighting him. Not just two random ones, but the best and strongest we had at the time. There was no way that could end up well, and it obviously didn't. None of those two were left uninjured by Vulgor, but he was brutally beaten by both of them, to the point he was eventually knocked out unconscious. Their own scratches had angered them so much, though, they threateningly announced they were finishing the job.
"Now you're gonna see what happens when you forget what your place in the tribe is".
"DON'T YOU DARE!".
Before everyone else could react, Ranok had come to the rescue of his moon brother, facing both of the furious wolves as he made a just as unfriendly face. Things were clearly getting worse as the clock continued to tick.
"IF YOU WANNA FINISH HIM, FIRST YOU'LL HAVE TO SHRED ME TO PIECES!" he challenged them, clearly seeking to protect his moon brother.

Fortunately for both of them, the fight was called off by none other than the Chief himself. It wasn't pretty to watch, I definitely thought both his son and the wolf he wanted to defend were getting banished at that very moment, though the only sentence Ranok got dedicated was:
"We're having a talk right now. Guards, take him to medical care!".
I was close enough to see most of the ending, thus being the first healer to check for vital signs. As the grey wolf abandoned the scene, I smiled at him, wanting to reassure him his brother would be fine. Thankfully, when we could examine him closely, it was evident he wasn't as wounded as I initially thought, but it would take him a while to recover from those events unlike Caelan would have, especially keeping in mind the incredibly tough punishment he would be subjected to as a way to add insult to the injury.

That afternoon, all I could hear inside that building were adult men reprimanding a roughed up Vulgor. Hard. I had seen those imprisoned guys in the plaza, and I could never imagine the future Alpha getting tossed up in public that way. Not even that day as I treated him just enough for the roaring contest to get started. Since he was conscious after a while on the bed, I could definitely see the sorrow in his eyes, as if he was thinking: "I've fucked it up badly, right?". My only logical guess was that he wasn't expecting such an outcome, but maybe being simply stopped dead on his tracks as he showed that somewhat forced hostility. Not to mention he might have been fearing causing an earthquake that would do lasting damage to our society. As far as I know, I ended up having those two helping in ecclesiastic chores along with me as a result of a temporary suspension of their position, and witnessing one of the longest detentions at the time where the punished ones would make it alive from the distance.

While I felt uneasy hearing all those scoldings from a distance as different men came in and out, things took a sudden turn when I heard a voice I was so familiar with. Unlike the disciplinary tone the other voices had, Ranok sounded livid, almost completely out of his mind. Much worse than that, the black wolf was actually firing back at his brother, and just by the tone, the argument they pulled themselves into was incredibly heated up, so much I started chanting to myself so that I'd stop listening to their furious yelling. The noise eventually stopped sort of abruptly, followed by the resounding noises that could only be somebody hitting the wall hard, then more barking. Fearing the worst was going on, I began walking back uneasily back to Vulgor's room, preparing to have to interfere in the case I had hit the bull's eye. What I actually saw, though, wasn't something I could be ready to see, no matter how hard I tried or what I tried to fall back to.

Ranok... was crying his heart out on his moon brother's shoulder, while he looked at the other wolf as he hugged him back and made an expression I could never imagine on his face: sadness, regret, concern... He was trying his best to calm the full moon wolf down while clearly fighting his emotions in order not to fall apart as a result of having noticed how badly he had scared him.
"Look at me, please!" he begged while shaking his brother.
Even if I couldn't see his face anymore once they looked at each other's eyes, it's hard for me to believe he didn't shed a tear while they were embraced. That's when I decided it was better for me not to stare anymore at the scene, despite the fact neither I nor they had been caught yet. If I kept watching, my face would be completely wet at some point. Not for the reason why women would regularly cry upon seeing that, though. In fact, I was glad to know for sure I wasn't the one for Ranok.

The incredibly sad face Vulgor made and the sobs the grey wolf was making, while only loud enough for my ears to catch right on the door, were the expression of the most powerful emotions I had ever witnessed. Someone's feelings get hurt at some point, but I could hardly imagine anyone would feel so sorry about it, much less such a great fear of somebody dying if anything. No matter how hard I try to relate those sorts of feelings otherwise, there's one word I inevitably fall back on: love. They both loved each other, in a much greater way I thought it's actually possible. Something that isn't limited to either the carnal or the personal plane, unlike how most relationships in our tribe work. Add to that their defectiveness, and I have a terrible secret in my hands I didn't even ask for. That is, in case no one else has noticed anything weird related to both of them.

It wasn't all that bad, though. One part of myself was glad to be sure Ranok wouldn't want anything with me at all, allowing me to shelve the traces of my obsession away forever. Plus, I preferred witnessing two boys being more intimate than they should to watching a male basically shoving a female into a corner in an attempt to breed her; at least I wouldn't feel infuriated and get my head heated up for the rest of the night. Truth be told, I don't condemn homosexuality, either. Despite how big of a deal some of the texts I had access to made it look, it isn't hard for me to imagine flirting between boys in the same way as boys flirt with girls and vice versa. I might even suggest sex between men may even make their bond stronger, or flat out be the result of a bond similar to the adventurers' I got to read about whenever I got ahold of a sacrilegious text, one book rookies weren't allowed to take a look at.

I eventually had to go back to check how Vulgor was doing. Even I considered what I found adorable: his moon brother was taking care of the injures all over his body and trying his best to treat them with some of the materials I had left in there by accident. Fortunately, bruises were more frequent in the black wolf's body than cuts, and even those could be treated even by the youngest pups looking to become future shamans, so there wasn't much Ranok could screw up. As I drew a little smile on my face, I asked in a kinda funny tone:
"Do you guys need something? Maybe I should take care of him for a while?".
"Not really... Well, maybe some bandages to replace the ones he already has...".
"I'm fine, don't worry about me" his moon brother interrupted him.
I let out a sigh, feeling relieved that I was the first one to go check on them for a good while.

Even if there wasn't a lot to treat, the grey wolf was actually delighted to attempt being a nurse for his brother, and I didn't know how to warn him he might be going a little bit too far in that aspect. After all, that wouldn't be a regular screw-up for Ranok, rather a reason for the whole tribe to be ashamed of him. They had been clearly chit-chatting some before I stepped in, but I still decided to throw something onto the table, no matter what the outcome of my card would be.
"You know, there's a question that must be roaming around our minds right now. My own, your brother's, the Chief's, the Alphas' you taunted into attacking you...".
Vulgor's defeated look, as well as his eyes looking down from time to time, were the signal I needed to shoot my arrow.
"It's very simple, really: why? Why have you been behaving like this lately?".

I was expecting that black wolf to fire back just like he did to his moon brother, but he only kept his sad face as a response, giving up visual contact with me completely. Ranok was putting a hand on his wet shoulder, the same one he cried on before, making a concerned, sympathetic face at him. Was his brother the reason?
"If you're not gonna answer, think about it, please. Try to come with a reasonable answer before you get yourself kicked out of the tribe or worse, even if you're not willing to tell anyone. Just ask yourself why and find the best reply for yourself at the very least".
"I did" he finally replied.
"But how can you judge an answer if you don't hear it?" his innocent brother asked, probably out of frustration.
"You don't need to be like that blue-eyed smart-ass to know how things change people. Observing that person to some degree of attention is generally just enough".

Maybe Vulgor wanted to confess his feelings for that living headache and was trying to find the chance; maybe he didn't want to be the example instructors used to show what discipline looked like; maybe he tried to make his moon brother realize what we all thought whenever he was acting as he pleased. It's hard to know which one of those was the right answer, or whether there was more than a reason that impulsed the black wolf to act senselessly, but I'm aware of that big mishap being one of the last he was ever involved in before stopping altogether. Even for a butcher who won't hesitate in ripping a beast apart in the grossest way, the fright he had caused on that person who cared so much for him was too much to handle. If anything, that showed me no one's made of stone, regardless of how well they can act like it. We're not just animals seeking to survive and reproduce.

That's why I don't feel anyone should be holding their emotions back too hard. Sooner or later, you'll wind up expressing how you feel in one way or another, and the alternatives to talking normally lead to conflicts or rough moments for everyone involved. That's what happened with Vulgor in his teen years. Fortunately, if what Ranok tells me about the human is to be believed, he won't have an issue with that, although he should be aware of the fact opening himself up to strangers isn't the best of ideas, either. Still, it seems he won't be living at my place for the moment, seeing how... well those two are getting along. It's funny to think what the grey wolf might have been wanting to do with Vulgor and the idea of him doing those things with Caelan instead. I just hope that little boy isn't learning any bad habits and the bond between the two men won't be affected any.

Setting that aside, the human's circumstances are incredibly strange, and I don't think even the most experienced of shamans could ever give a proper explanation to all those pieces falling right where they did regarding him. It's ironic to think Ranok himself believes even more in fate and the ancestors than the one who is supposed to communicate with them. The more I think about it, the more the teachings on ritual stuff trouble me, because I still find it hard to believe my findings aren't simply a coincidence. How am I supposed to say such things, though? Even if my own faith is on shaky ground, my work won't precisely cause the Chief's heir's beliefs to tremble at all. He's the one whose devotion is the greatest amongst the young, I suspect mainly because of Vulgor being alive in the first place, but it's clear Caelan's appearance only made it stronger.

Still, no prayer will put that headache on his right path at once and for all; I can only mumble to the full moon:
"Please don't screw up if you know what's good for all four of us, Ranok".
As I may say, though, the pieces are already put in place, now it's time for us to play our roles. Despite what I'm bound to do, I'm no less proud of what I decided to become. I never wanted just a regular job, or flat out be the mother of who knows how many pups after just a night of bedding with a male; some of them alive, most of them dead. The fact that the path for a woman to become a respected warrior, just like men are expected to, is slightly harder still annoys me, and that makes me want to have as many pillars to hold on to as possible. Not to mention being an Alpha is just one of those rather than the biggest, mostly because of how unpleasing is to discipline wolves that question my commands. Even if the elders won't ever like me in any way, I'll still be proud of being the shaman, the person I am.