“Bring them [i]back![/i]”

She stands, alone, bereft of pack. Her teeth are bared, and her eyes are full of tears. She would be a morsel to be snapped up, but for the fact that she carries enough power to snap the foundations of their tower like twigs. But for the fact that she refuses to give in to her training and run. Not when there’s still a chance she can convince them to… to undo whatever they have done.

It’s not a killing weapon. That much is obvious. (Her shield flickers, the design changing from moment to moment: a laurel wreath crowned with stars, a Shogunate [i]mon[/i], a gaudy tricolor flag, the jaws of a terrible wolf, three hounds chasing each other around the rim, the rainbow surf, a gleaming pearl.) They would leave traces of the body, even seared instantly into ash. This is a weapon that makes someone be not here. So bring them back.

“I will level this city,” she growls, trusting in her training as a scout to sell the bluff. She hefts the shield, ears at attention, staring up at the descending huntresses. “Wherever they have gone, return them, or I will tear out your clan’s name from history!”

Maybe she can win this, but she doesn’t want to. She wants Mosaic back (what if they are out in space, scattered like pearls) and she wants her pack back (what if they are buried within the earth without even space to howl) and she doesn’t want them to call her bluff (they could lift the shield off her arm before she would use it in anger against a city full of Portuguese).

So she demands, and lets them look at what she carries, and she makes herself believe that she, alone, can frighten an entire pack into submission. After all, if she doesn’t believe it, how will they ever believe in turn?