((Just want you all to know, I'm seriously considering making a fea just so she can fanwolf all over Attican. Heh. That would just be too much fun. Anyway, it's sweet that Resin likes Ahote too, if he knew, he would probably be embarrassed. He still has the blood of an alpha in him, he just needs to feel it again, see that he is still capable. Her kind words do help though. Perhaps he will spend some time with Attican and talk out some of his hurt. Not Pippa though, she gives him the willies.))
Ahote
Male | 46 | Fighter
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Laying close to Curse, Ahote smiles softly at her question.
"A pack doesn't leave its members behind. Resin went to look for Pipaluk, and so I would have gone to look for you. We all need each other, and by the way," he said, pausing to nudge her with his nose,
"you're not a Straggler anymore." That he said with no small amount of certainty, as he knew Resin would agree whole-heartedly. In the silence that followed, he shifted a bit, sensing that there was more that she wanted to say. Much of the pack below them had settled down to sleep, huddled against one another in their little hollows as darkness settled in. As he looked over them, he was comforted by their closeness, and though it had been a very difficult day, he felt that so long as they were all together they could overcome anything.
Turning his attention back to Curse as she began to speak again, Ahote could sense the pain in her, almost as though it were a palpable thing. No one deserved such suffering as he saw in her, and even if there were those who did, he knew that through some cruel twist of fate that they didn't feel it the way the good did. He had little conversation with the former Straggler, he had heard some of her past from Resin and the others, and knew that the Darkness had followed her here from her past. She still hurt from that, and though she had turned her head to look away, Ahote moved so he could still catch her eyes,
"And now he is gone too..." he said softly, finishing her words for her. Wishing that he could take at least take some of her pain, he licked the tears from her face, lifting her chin with his nose before continuing,
"Death hurts, even if it is the death of a past we would rather forget. As though something that was always there is now gone, and we fall into the hole that was left," his mind turned to his own life, and how even how he dwelled on the loss of his old pack-mates as he tried to sort out his thoughts.
"But maybe sometimes it is okay to hurt, that we have to find that bottom before we can start to fill the void." he said, his voice introspective. Really, there is nothing he could say that could help either Curse, nor even Xani with their troubled pasts, but he still feels compelled to try.
Settling back down next to Curse, Ahote spots movement on the edge of the pines for a split-second he feels the fur on his back rise, but soon calms when the reactions of the wolves nearby tell him that it must be Resin returning. A smile comes to his face then when he sees Pippa's wobbly form make its way into the pack, as well as Attican's large frame. Having them all back safe and sound is a triumph for the pack, and at this time, they are sorely in need of a few of those. However, he also notes that she has picked up another wolf in her travels, and at first he thought it might have been the straggler who had helped them earlier, but as they draw closer to him, he realizes that the large black wolf is much older and more confident. Whomever he was though, Resin seemed to trust him and that was enough for Ahote. The pack needed all the able bodied members it could get.
After stopping to speak once more with Mirage, Resin and her shadow made their way over to where Curse and Ahote sat, and the fighter's tail thudded the snow behind him at their approach. Plainly happy to see her, he gets up and licks her chin in a warm greeting, then turns to Hrafn as he is introduced, giving him a nod of the head.
"Welcome to ScarPaw, Hrafn," he said warmly, as he has in greeting all new members. From his posture and bearing, Ahote can assume that this wolf too has once held a high position within a pack, and that brings a bit of a question into his mind. Just how many powerful wolves can survive together in the same place? His pack certainly didn't have the likes of Hrafn, Attican and Xani all together. While he had had a few big fighters, they were nowhere near the stature, both mentally and physically of these three, not to mention himself. However, if ever there were a wolf that could be a leader among leaders, it was Resin.
What follows next though, brings a flush of warmth to his cheeks, as he had not expected the compliment. Really, there wasn't anything that Ahote wouldn't do for his Alpha, and he had simply considered it his duty to care for the pack while she was away.
"By your side in all things, Alpha," he replied, smiling a bit bashfully. As his words had warmed Curse earlier, so too do hers warm him, and his tail sways gently behind him.
As Resin takes her leave to rest, Ahote replies,
"Rest well, dark lady," and touches her one last time with his nose before watching the pair walk back towards the trees. Heartened by her return, Ahote suddenly felt the weariness from the day and the lack of sleep over the past few catching up with him. Letting out a massive yawn, he turned back to Curse,
"Perhaps a bit of rest would do us all some good," he said to the ashen fea and moved to give her one last lick on the head.
"Sleep well. And I hope the Ancestors bring you sweet dreams."With that, Ahote took his leave of Curse to let her rest and perhaps find the same for himself. Mind tumbling and churning in on itself, he brought himself into the middle of the pack, looking for Attican. Perhaps a few words with the Keeper would help settle his unrest and finally allow him to get some sleep.