Re: [Lou & Atticus: wolfing]
Packs ran different. It was what it was, packs - bites, if you were going to get real down to specifics, but no one liked thinking about bites when packs could cover off the friendly, furry side of things - could mean anything. The wolves ranged, from the ones that stank of pack to those who barely scented with it and they ranged in the way they ran, too. Lou had been a handful of moons with these wolves and she knew they were different to begin with. Repose wolves mixed.
But she had bigger things to think about. Lou wasn't the old alpha. She was hair-trigger temper softened over time to ornery, and she was small town stubborn and pig-headed. The wolf was smarter than she was but she ran on gut instinct and gut instinct flared. Not with the old wolf, because wolf was something Lou could take. But with what it meant, if she rolled over, walked away, stood down. Wasn't her stand-off to begin with, but wasn't hers to walk away from either. Lou stood, because to do otherwise was damned, and when the haunts came out of the woods, dead and rotting, she scented them before she scented danger.
It wasn't wolf. It was the wolf because the wolf stood there and didn't turn tail and run, but it wasn't his lunge, it was dead too freshly dead to be useless. Lou backed up. She was hair-trigger away from turning herself, and she liked the coat enough to want to stay in her own skin. Backed up far enough that the spate of them kept clear, and she levelled a look at the wolf, which wasn't anger so much as acknowledgment this shit was new.