Ember splashes water in her face, gasps at the sharp shock of the cold water on her skin, feels the shiver run from the tips of her ears to her tail. Her heart is still racing.

[i]"Pin her!" "Under the knee!" Excitement, bursting like exploding flowers, goldwet! "You can do it, pup!" "Smother her!" Support, slate-gray star-speckled, buttressing her bones. "Teeth!" "Oh, little Ember~"[/i]

The moment of throwing Taurus was a blur of exertion and howling. But then she'd flinched, she'd looked down at her alpha and she'd felt unworthy of supplanting her in the pack, of the [i]crown[/i], crushing her skull, mistress of Ceronians, hiding behind the curtain, and all around her Disappointment had bloomed, sulfur-rotten, jeering at her, and she'd run, she'd run, and she'd run so far and so hard, and she's still shivering, her tail tucked between her legs.

She'd let them all down. She shouldn't have challenged the alpha. She scrubs at her face, her shoulders, trying to make the water kill the stink of the pack's Disappointment clinging to her body. What kind of wolf can't take charge when she's right? What kind of failure is more comfortable being disciplined and punished than standing up for herself and telling the pack what they'll do? Part of her yearns to go back and throw herself at Gemini's feet and beg for more attention, more correction, more opportunities to prove that she won't break again, not when it's important.

But the girl looking back at her, with the low ears and the tragic expression on her face, can't go back and do that. She's committed. She challenged the alpha. And she won. So now she has to go and solve the problem of Mosaic herself, and she can do it her way, once she figures out her way, and just because the pack would approve of her seducing Mosaic into defeat doesn't mean she has to do it. There's another way. She'll figure one out. She doesn't need them to howl for her and forgive her when she brings them Mosaic. She doesn't need the whole pack to come and call her a good girl again, and give her headpats, and get her right behind the ears, and... and...

Maybe Mosaic would understand?

[[i]Overcome:[/i] [b]8.[/b] A temporary, unstable solution.]