𝚁𝚎𝚒𝚔𝚒𝚗 [❤️]

The day that Reikin padded into Duskveng camp flanking the King, Kaolin, she was promptly swarmed by many curious noses. Slightly intimidated by all the inquisitiveness, she shrank back a bit. Reikin could hear the rippling murmurs of "another Naonuma wolf? Why do they keep coming here? Are they trying to move in with us?" Reikin's heart leaped in joy. Were there other wolves from home here? That meant she wasn't a total stranger to Duskveng! They at least knew where she had come from.

A pretty young, blue female, much like Reikin herself, minus the black weaving throughout her coat, approached her. She had clear, white, ice-like eyes. "Hi," the young femme greeted, her tail wagging in a friendly manner. "H-hi." Reikin responded softly, her voice low in respect for her new packmate.

"I'm Rana! It's nice to meet you!" Rana's white gaze sparkled in delight at having a new friend. Reikin felt much more at ease with such a welcome from a new packmate. She wasn't much older than Reikin, but she felt very thankful that she was at least around the same age. Perhaps they could even be friends. "It's nice to meet you too. I'm Reikin."

"So you're from Naonuma, huh?" Rana asked, tilting her head. The rest of the pack had dispersed once their curiosity had been satisfied and went about their business, thankfully. Reikin had felt like she was on display. "What's it like? I heard Queen Reika's your mama! My mama's Primrose! See that pretty femme over there with the light purple coat?"

Rana gestured over to a rather stunning female with what looked like a pink wolf with a purple pendant around her neck. She was resting in the shade of a pine tree. Reikin was in awe of her stunning pelt. "That's your mama?"

"Uh-huh! She's pretty isn't she?" Reikin's mind reeled back to her own mother. Reika. The beautiful female with the stormy-red coat and icy-blue eyes. "Queen Reika's stunning in her own right though! She sometimes comes for visits! King Kaolin is always thrilled to see her. It sucks that our packs are so far apart, otherwise they'd probably visit a lot more often."

"I'd get to see mama a lot more often," Reikin murmured offhandedly, looking around at her new home. Not that long ago, King Kaolin had met her mother halfway at the border of the grasslands and the deciduous forest. The stormy female had entrusted her greatest friend with her latest daughter. Kaolin had agreed to take her in and thus they had parted after an affectionate lap of each other's muzzle. It made Reikin wonder if she secretly loved him as well as her father, Kaedin.
Her eldest brother, Inodorus, was a product of their brief romance when Kaolin had been a newly-crowned king. Or, that's at least what Inodorus had said. Amongst her new packmates, she spotted a similar pelt to her mother's and briefly wondered if that was the wolf, Maelstrom, that her mother had described. Maelstrom was another one of her half-brothers.

"C'mon! I wanna introduce you to my friends, Carnage, Kaomine and Phantasm!"

Reikin thought those sounded like odd names. But her name wasn't that different. It was a combination of Reika and Kaedin. Padding after the young female, Reikin spotted a pair of red eyes peering at her from the darkness of the den that she'd be staying in along with the other pups her age. As quick as a flash they were gone. Those red eyes reminded her a lot of the eyes of one of her packmates. A scary-looking but extremely gentle wolf named Kaname. He looked like a black void with demonic eyes.

"Who's that...?" Reikin asked, hurrying to catch up. To her surprise, they were approaching the mouth of the den where the eyes had been. "If you saw a pair of red eyes, that's Carnage. He's King Kaolin and Queen Carmine's son. He's a bit creepy because of his eyes and the weird black mist that surrounds him, but once you get past that, he's super nice!"

Carnage. What an awful name. The two of them slipped inside the den. It was warm inside and had a mixture of many scents. There were many other pups of the same age inside. All of them were finished with their daily training it seemed. One of them looked similar to Queen Carmine, just a lighter colour. He stayed closer to the one wolf whom Reikin identified as Carnage. He was entirely black with red eyes, but not quite like Kaname. Much to her surprise, a full-grown raven was sitting in the nest with him.

Rana introduced her as the newcomer to the pack. The other adolescents greeted her with warm welcomes. It turns out, three of them were headed to her pack as a sort of deal with her mother. Only she, Rana, Phantasm and Carnage were staying.

"Here, you can make your nest next to mind!" Rana barked, padding over to a pile of moss over by the back den. She scraped together some bedding and rolled it into a ball, nosing it towards the back of the cave. Reikin's pelt prickled as she noticed that it was right next to Carnage's nest. She could feel his eerie stare digging a hole into her hide. Was he always this weird?

Ironically enough, on the other side of Rana's nest was Phantasm, who was eagerly chatting with the blue female. Reikin felt a little shy despite the earlier welcome. She glanced quickly towards Carnage, who was still watching her with his strange eyes. "So you're the newcomer, huh?"

Carnage's voice sounded nothing like his father's. It almost sounded distorted. Like he was talking into a log. Reikin nodded. "Yeah, I'm from Naonuma."

"That's where my brother Kaomine's being sent when he turns a year old." Carnage responded. The raven was nestled into his side, head tucked under a wing. Reikin couldn't help her curiosity. "Why do you have a raven?"

"He imprinted on me recently. He was just a little fledgling when I found it. We've become friends. I named him Feichin, meaning 'raven'." Carnage responded matter-of-factly. Reikin was amazed. Befriending a raven was possible, but she didn't think she'd ever get to meet a wolf who had done so. It made her briefly think about Cregga, her old packmate, who had a fascination for avians. The old sitter was the one who had looked after Reikin and her siblings.

"He's pretty," Reikin commented. "So are you."

Reikin's eyes widened as she looked from the bird to Carnage. He had laid his head down on his paws and was staring out the den entrance. Had she heard him right? Did he call her pretty? Her dark diluted fur heated up. She'd never been called pretty before... especially by a pup her own age.

He didn't seem to want to elaborate on that, so she let herself simmer in embarrassment. She was eager to change the subject, so she didn't have to marinate in her flustered state. "S-so what are you training for?"

"I'm going to be a chaser." He responded. "Like my parents."

Reikin's tail lightly swept the ground. She hadn't yet started to flatten down her nest. "Me too! My parents are chasers too! M-maybe we can be on the same team when we're grown!"

"I'd like that." Carnage murmured, his own tail giving a little wag. "I'd like that a lot."