Re: [Lou & Atticus: wolfing]
Grotesque and twisting was part of the gig. Lou had had pack and she hadn't had pack. She had lived without it and she had lived at the center of it and she knew which she preferred. Pack made things easier, or they had for Lou. Her lived experience wasn't all that expansive. It didn't take a tour of the world. She wanted to see someplace hot sometime. Real hot, with sand. But her lived experience was a fraction of what was on offer and Lou knew that. Still her lived experience supplied pack making grotesque and twisting less painful and pack watched your back.
Living, staying alive and keeping from getting hunted out of wherever you decided to stay - that was important. It was goddamn primary and if you were wolf and a person, you still had to think about where the wolf was gonna go, thinking ahead even when you were walking around on two feet.
She didn't need obeisance. She could smell the distinction, the pack-that-wasn't on his fur. Lou was comfortable being woman and wolf and she stood, patient. He wasn't hers to toss in line, and he wasn't a challenger and she had enough goddamn work to do to keep the ones way out of line back in to get hot and bothered over an old wolf that didn't show belly to an alpha that still smelled like out of town. She waited instead. All the time in the world, to stand in the woods.
If her neck prickled, Lou didn't show it. The moon, it was a weak intro. Not a good one, but a crack, a joke, proof she wasn't set on asserting authority with teeth right now. She looked at him, and she shrugged. "Don't know what you want me to do. Turning back when the moon isn't out is a sonofabitch." Lou's voice was small town, but it wasn't Repose. It was soft consonants and drawl, with a little city picked up along the way but small towns that molded you didn't let go easy.
"Could stand here all day." Calm. She wasn't turning her back, she wasn't set on dominating but she wasn't stupid. She wasn't backing up or backing down she was just there. Like the woods. "Don't want the feds coming through. Some of em are already twitchy over the wolf-kill." But they were just words. Words that meant very little. It was smell and posture and Lou was relaxed, alert but not on edge.