[Joral POV]
These mountains smelled like possibility to Joral. Whenever he talked like that to any of the rest of the swarm, they couldn’t understand him, but since he was alone right now, he allowed himself to indulge in the strange thoughts. There was so much here that nobody knew anything about, and Joral could feel it in his tail that there were dozens of things here that would help the swarm. He would be there, leading everyone to another discovery, something that would help the swarm. He could feel theTrue Alpha’s approval, and his imagination ran wild for a time.
“I’m proud of you, Joral.” Ashlani would say. “You’ve found something I never thought of.”
“Well, it wasn’t too difficult.” Joral replied.
“Are you saying I’m not too smart?” Ashlani retorted.
“No, never! I just–” Joral cut himself off, seeing the smile in Ashlani’s eyes.
“I’m sorry. I just enjoy teasing you.” Ashlani said “You’re a good member of my elites. I respect the way you’ve changed, and I look forward to your future.”
Even within the bounds of his imagination, Joral knew that went too far. The Alpha of the swarm wasn’t a teasing apologetic weakling. Instead, he was powerful of mind and spirit, demanding but understanding, a strong leader who never doubted and led continuously. The more time that Joral spent observing Ashlani, the more he understood that the Alpha was to be respected. When he was a fresh hatchling, he’d felt like Ashlani had robbed him of opportunities to lead his brood, but the more he grew, the less he regretted that. Joral didn’t enjoy being the leader of a pack, though he did enjoy being the primary caretaker of the herds.
Now that he was the Alpha Kou’Tal (though he wasn’t sure if Alpha was even nearly the correct term for it), Joral was the leader of all the Kou’Tal, disregarding how the Alpha remained the true leader of the swarm. Though there were some expectations for how he was to guide his subordinates and control the herds, Joral didn’t need to make the big decisions. He just needed to guide these lesser creatures to continue following the swarm as a whole.
Which led him to where he was. Arwa was convinced her old mate was somewhere nearby. Though Joral had tried to convince her that he was long dead, she refused to pay heed once she’d been given permission from Ashlani. Frustrating though it was, the True Alpha remained in charge and Joral would never question that. So Arwa led her pups and Joral on a merry chase up the slopes of the mountains the True Alpha called the Shandise. The scent that the wolfstags followed seemed to lead nearly all the way to the peak of the mountain, and the minutes passed by with only the sound of running feet and heavy breathing accompanying their passage.
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Joral found that he quickly outpaced every one of the wolfstags, his steps carrying him easily up soft slopes and his claws finding effortless purchase in stony cliffs. Where the wolfstags needed to loop around and search for alternative routes, he merely continued his path. He let a wide grin cross his face as he stood on a large boulder, watching the wolfstags make their less efficient approach. Arwa shot a grumpy look at him as they caught up, her chest heaving with labored breaths.
“Not my fault you’re slower than me! Should have been a keelish instead!” Joral laughed at the massive beast as he hopped down from his perch. She merely snarled weakly at him as she fought to catch her breath. He flicked her ear and snarled back. She frequently tested him, though he could tell this wasn’t a test so much as an expression of her frustration. Even so, Joral couldn’t let her ever think she was even an equal to him. He wasn’t sure why he knew that, or why he was so adamant on ensuring that Arwa never thought herself to be a companion to him. Even so, Joral generally trusted in his instincts and wrestled the dominant female’s head down towards the ground.
Though she’d suffered more than him in the journey, Joral too felt his legs shiver with exhaustion as he grabbed the base of Arwa’s antlers and shook her head back and forth. She tried to bite out, go fight back, but he held her back and it wasn’t long before she stopped fighting back and flopped tiredly to the ground. There, Joral scratched at her ears and base of her antlers while rubbing her side with his other hand. The wolfstag’s tail whapped against the ground repeatedly as she wagged her tail in tired acceptance.
“Good girl.” He said as he rose to his feet while commanding with a couple stronger pats on Arwa’s shoulder, “Let’s keep going.” The rest of the pack continued to pant but did stand up and prepared themselves to continue their journey. The younger wolfstags, though they followed Arwa’s every command without complaint or hesitation, obviously weren’t quite sure what their mother was following.
Their journey continued, the suns above orbiting the primary sun as they descended towards the horizon over the plains where the indlovu lived. Looking back, the golden fields and gentle hills seemed to swim with life, a herd of some creature he couldn’t place from so far away slowly traveling onward. Ripping his attention from looking at their past, though, were the wolfstags. All the pups perked up and began to rush forward faster than before. Joral supposed they’d finally found the scent or some other trail of whatever they were actually following and hurried to follow.
Before long, he heard what the younger wolfstags decided to seek and slowed his rush. The faint lapping of water on a shore greeted him and as they turned a corner around a steeper shelf of stone, a beautiful pond greeted them. Clear water surrounded by patches of flowers with nothing growing in the pond itself, and the wolfstags threw themselves into the water, chest-deep and drinking deeply. The pond was maybe 150 feet across and half that wide, and all the creatures that’d accompanied Joral indulged in drinking freely.
Seeing every wolfstag accounted for and happily drinking, Joral lowered his head and drank deeply from the water. It was cool and clean, the clear water soothing the slight irritation in his throat from so long running and walking through the mountains without drink. Pacing himself, he pulled his face out of the water and looked at the wolfstags, just in time to see Arwa lunging away from the rest and into the surrounding forest with a growl.