"So tell me, child," Terra began, trying to cross his arms in a non-threatening manner. He was the only wolf on the council that had shifted form, and he stood now as a tall, spiky brown-haired man, lean but well-muscled. The other wolves around him stood still, teeth bared and hackles raised, several of them growling faintly. "Why did you come here?"

Axel glanced down to the blond at his side, frowning despite himself when he saw the human still trembling. He heard him swallow heavily, felt him step closer, as if the proximity to Axel alone would protect him.

'He is right to be afraid,' the wolf thought, but at the same time, he couldn't help but snort. It just wasn't an emotion that the redhead was very well acquainted with, and it was slowing things down unnecessarily. Axel couldn't be sure what the council would decide, but even if it was the harshest sentence imaginable, delaying it would be useless in the end.

Axel took his elbow and gently but firmly nudged the boy forward. The sooner that the blonde spoke, the sooner he could judge the proceedings and conceive of some way to spare the human, if needed.

"It's alright," Terra said, his blue eyes softening. "No one else will hurt you. I give you my word as the leader of this pack."

Axel saw Xigbar roll his only remaining eye just before Flint, a near-black wolf, stepped forward and barked slightly.

"Speak for yourself, Alpha. Do not go about making promises we can't keep."

"What Flint means to say," Xemnas said, stepping forward and pushing the darker wolf away, "in his usual elegant fashion, is that you should not be fooled by appearances. Weapon or no weapon, this boy is a threat."

"If that's so," Axel snapped, drawing everyone's attention to him, "why did you not just kill him then?"

The blonde flinched slightly, looking up at him with distinct betrayal and hurt, but he continued, annoyed more by Xemnas's selective reverence than Flint's outburst. Even brutal honesty was better than slimy deceit.

"Any one of you could have ripped out his throat the second he stepped foot in our home. If he truly was a threat, why wait? Why bother with this farce of a trial at all? Is it because you know now that he's truly unarmed?"

Xemnas looked livid, and the other council wolves were snarling, readying themselves to lunge forward, when Terra silenced them all with a snap of his human jaw, meeting each set of eyes and somehow outmatching their intensity.

"If I see anyone make a threatening move towards this boy, they will be banished from the pack. Is that clear?"

Axel grinned smugly as they each nodded in turn, looking bitterly cowed. Terra already seemed to be judging the little human innocent, but even if he could sway his trusted advisors to his side, what would that mean?

Would the council stand for whatever Terra wanted?

"Now then," Terra said meaningfully, looking back at their guest with a small, but patient smile, "let us start with something simpler. What is your name, child?"

The blonde, who had been inching back towards Axel even before the argument had been settled, stopped and wrapped his arms more tightly around himself.

"Roxas, sir."

The brunet's smile widened. "That's a fine name. The moon shrines bright upon our meeting, Roxas."

Axel snorted a laugh at the confused look the boy shot back at him. The pleasantry was very out of place, given all that had just happened, and it seemed that Roxas didn't even recognize it for what it was.

If Terra was put off, however, he made no indication of it. "Where do you come from, Roxas?"

The blonde's shoulders relaxed slightly then, even as he stood up straighter. "Hollow Bastion, sir."

The Alpha's brow wrinkled slightly. "I'm not familiar with it. I suppose it's a human settlement very far from here?"

Roxas nodded. "Yes, sir."

"What does this 'sir' mean? You are referring to me, I assume?"

"I-It's just what we…humans, I mean, call men that we don't know. It's meant to be respectful."

Frey, another council wolf, snorted slightly, but Terra ignored him.

"Well, I would prefer that you call me Terra from now on. It is the good, strong name that my father gave to me many moons ago."

"I-I'm sorry," Roxas said hastily, sinking down to his knees. "I didn't know, so I thought-"

Terra held up a hand to silence him. "It's alright. I took no offense."

Shaking his head, Axel walked over to the boy and took his good arm, lifting him to his feet again. Roxas gave him a startled look, but he ignored it, letting go once the blonde found his footing. While he could see the merit in putting the human more at ease, Axel knew that this was testing the patience of the council, as well as his own. It was growing very late now, and every member of the pack, even the smallest pups, was still awake, waiting eagerly to hear the verdict.

"So, how is it that you came here?" Terra continued, still trying to sound friendly. It was a little forced, but the blonde seemed to appreciate it nonetheless.

"I got lost. I didn't realize that there was a storm coming."

"Did you not see the signs?" Flint demanded, his voice harsh and incredulous. The boy jumped, and then looked at him, eyes wide and fearful. "The wind and the clouds were massing from the north!"

"I-I…" Axel saw the boy trembling even harder than before. For some reason, this inspired a slight anger in him, rather than annoyance, and without really thinking about it, he stepped in front of Roxas, guarding but not quite shielding him from view. The light in Xemnas's eyes flashed briefly, and the redhead was almost compelled to take one step further. But he simply grinned, only faltering slightly when he sensed the human pressing closer behind him.

"Humans do not have our senses, Flint," Terra replied sternly.

"Yet they do have their ways," muttered Sven, a chestnut-colored wolf with numerous scars across his legs and chest. "They prepare for storms, just as we do. How could he not have known?"

"An excellent question," Xemnas agreed. "Are you stupid, boy?"

Terra looked almost offended at that question, but Roxas replied before he could interject on his behalf.

"I-I haven't seen a town in over a week! It's true that…that some humans can predict the weather, but I don't have that skill. Plenty don't, so they just listen to the people who do have it. When it started to snow, I'd been in the forest for a few days. I thought it was just a passing flurry or something."

"So you were caught in the storm and thought to seek shelter here?" Terra pressed firmly, before the priest or council members could jump in again. No one dared interrupt the Alpha while he was still speaking.

The blonde looked back at him, and Axel could sense that he was grateful for the help.

"Yes. I told this one here," he said, indicating Axel, "that I could barely see, so I didn't even know there were torches or any people in here. I nearly walked into the rock, and then I thought there might be a cave somewhere, so I just followed it along until I got here."

"It is true that humans have weaker eyes than our kind," said Klaue, another grey wolf who looked like a slightly younger, stronger, and friendlier Xemnas.

"But he may not be alone," Sven said, looking around at each of the other wolves in turn. "What if this is a trap? What if there are hunters outside, waiting to ambush us even as we speak?"

Axel privately thought that any animal out in that storm would have an interesting time finding anything, assuming they were strong enough to face blistering winds and freezing ice. If there were humans right outside the cave, they would be disoriented, cold, and tired, easily overpowered even by a wolf like Demyx.

Roxas shook his head frantically. "No! I would never-!"

"Spare us the lies, boy," Flint snapped. "Your kind hunts, just as ours does. Do not try to pretend that you would never even think of hurting us."

A few other voices rose in agreement.

"Settle down," Terra snarled at them.

"I would fight to protect myself!" the blonde conceded, still desperate to be believed. "I-If I have to, I will. But that's all! I don't want to kill! I just don't want to die!"

"But we who eat meat must kill for food," Sven replied calmly. "And we have seen your kind kill for other reasons as well. You wrap yourselves in their furs even in the summer, and sometimes strike them down just for the pleasure of it. Even if you don't stain your own paws, you profit from others who do it for you."

Out of the corner of his eye, Axel could see that the little human was at a loss. He didn't know how to convince them that he was harmless, and as they argued his every word, he looked a bit ashamed. It was as if Roxas were on trial for all of the sins of his kind, rather than just his own, and being so young, he could not even begin to explain them. He might not know the whole truth himself.

"I'll do anything you want," he said softly. Suddenly clutching slightly at Axel's arm, he looked down at the ground. "Whatever I have to do to prove it to you. I don't know enough to deny what you think about all humans, but I know who I am.

If you let me live," he continued, his voice almost beseeching now as he looked up at them, "I owe you a debt, and I'll do everything I can to repay it."

Axel was floored, staring back at the youth with wide eyes. The change was more abrupt than it seemed, at first glance; now, instead of blind fear and desperate, selfish pleading for mercy, the boy was attempting to barter with them. Despite the undoubtedly unfair standards thrust upon Roxas, Axel could sense a genuine desire to be worthy of their trust and forgiveness.

'How strange...'

The council wolves looked among themselves dubiously, but Terra smiled slightly.

"Is anyone out in the storm looking for you?" When Roxas shook his head, the brunette's expression became very concerned. "You were traveling alone?"

That stuck Axel as very odd as well. He did not know humans to travel alone very often, and certainly not at young ages. He could not accurately guess how old the boy was, however; he was very short for a man grown, but nowhere near small enough to be an ankle biter.

Roxas nodded again. "I know it was a stupid idea, even if there hadn't been any storms."

"So why did you do it then?"

The blonde looked slightly sheepish, that faint blush creeping back across his cheeks.

"I was running away. I didn't think much about what I was going to do…just that I had to do it."

Klaue gave a good-natured snort. "A foolish little stray is only so dangerous to us, I think."

"I disagree," Xemnas said firmly. "A human is a human. Conri demands that we separate ourselves from humans, and if we cannot force them away, we must eradicate them."

"But didn't He give us human forms?" Axel chimed in, with a deliberate, uncaring air to his voice. "Why would He do that if we were never meant to mingle?"

"The agency and power of man protects our survival," the priest snapped back. "The guise of man will serve us best when the humans eventually destroy the forest. We shall only mingle then, and never as true brothers."

"Why not just skip a step or two and just kill them all then? Preferably before they destroy the forest?" Despite himself, Axel honestly wanting an answer to that question.

Why stand by and passively allow humans to ruin the world, if they knew that it definitely would happen?

"We are not here to debate Conri's will, Omega," Sven said firmly.

"I'm not questioning Conri's will," the redhead replied, bristling slightly at the reminder. He didn't know why it bothered him this time. "Just his interpretation of it."

The council as a whole looked scandalized, and the old silver wolf gawked openly at him. At any other time, Axel would have burst into laughter at the sight.

"You dare to insult my-!"

"ENOUGH!" Terra snapped his jaw again, a distinctly bizarre gesture on a human face, and everyone fell silent, instantly turning their attention to him.

"Humans are to be avoided; that is true enough. This one knows our location, so I am sure that you will not want me to release him, for fear that he will lead his people back to us." Many of the council members nodded. "To leave now would surely kill him before he reached them, and it is my will that he not be further harmed by us, directly or indirectly."

"Then what can we do?" Xemnas asked. "Surely you don't suggest that we keep him?"

At once, several voices began protesting, but the Alpha held up a hand.

"It is the only solution I see. At the shortest, he shall remain with us until we are ready to move again."

"If he stays with us, he will know our ways! When he leaves, he will know how to find us again!" Flint barked, stirring up the crowd again.

"Would you rather that he stayed with us forever?"

"We do not want him here at all!" another brown wolf cried.

"What of our pups? Our nursing mothers?" Sven added. "He must stay away from them."

"He must be monitored day and night," said Xigbar, grinning viciously. "I will gladly volunteer for that."

Roxas shrank back slightly, the fear in his blood rising instantly. He grasped his injured arm instinctively, and Axel felt another spark of anger. He had no doubt that the old bastard would try to isolate the human, and then take a few good bites out of him. He might even kill him, and claim there had been a fatal accident.

'Now that I think of it…' The redhead reflected that plenty of other council members might try to arrange an "accident" of some sort. It didn't take much boldness, really.

"Someone else will do it," Terra told the one-eyed wolf. "The boy shall do as we command, and work for his keep. I do not imagine one extra mouth will cause us strife, even in the winter moons."

Several voices still disagreed, and normally Terra would have changed his mind, or at least heard them out in greater detail. He truly valued his council, and everyone in the pack regarded them as Betas, just slightly below Terra's authority. And they rarely opposed him so strongly, daringly, as they seemed to be doing now.

But the Alpha was not going to budge. Perhaps he sensed something unique in the human, like Axel himself did, or perhaps it was just his mate Aqua's sentimentality rubbing off on him.

"I will hear no more of this tonight," he said firmly, looking then to Roxas, who flinched slightly. For once, Terra's eyes remained hard and serious. "You are not to speak to anyone unless spoken to. You will be last to eat and drink, and Axel will accompany you everywhere that you go."

That made the redhead blink. "Me?"

Terra nodded at him. "As you have deeply insulted Xemnas, you alone will be responsible for this human."

"But I-!"

"You will not dissuade me, Axel." Behind him, several of the council members looked a bit placated. The priest still looked ill-at-ease, but even he must have enjoyed seeing the redhead reprimanded. "Night and day, you will stay by his side. Should he be called upon for any task, you will go with him and monitor his actions. If you wish to leave the den, he must go with you, and any punishment he incurs will be yours as well, though it may be lesser."

Growling to himself, the redhead glared over his shoulder at Roxas, who stumbled back a step and looked a little frightened.

"This is your own doing, Axel," the Alpha said, as he began reverting back into wolf form. "We will speak again in the morning, and any time that the human transgresses. For now, the matter is closed. We must gather our strength for the morning."

Several wolves sprinted off to relay the news to the pack, and the others, including Terra, walked more slowly, whispering among themselves. Xemnas in particular was whispering hurriedly, his eyes flashing again as they fell upon Axel and Roxas.

When they were gone, the redhead turned to fully face his charge. Despite his irritation, he looked the blonde up and down, finally resting his eyes on the blood-stained punctures on the left sleeve of his coat.

"We're cleaning that up, and then going to bed. Got it?"

Those fathomless blue eyes met his again, and with renewed timidness, he said, "T-Thank you. I'm sorry for causing you trouble."