Silvershore

Chapter Fourteen

Roscoe welcomed Leia and Alpine to move into his den with him. Although he still had no memory of them before Alpine joined The Pack of the Earth, they were all getting along perfectly, like they had known each other forever. Roscoe and Leia clicked immediately, and although he and Alpine weren't getting along before, they suddenly were like old friends. Alpine was opening up to Roscoe about why he didn't want to be a shaman again, despite his abilities.

"So...I was really good at my job." Alpine began. "I...I ended up being called an even better shaman than the wolves who mentored me through it, and I began teaching a lot of younger wolves how to do it as well. Wolves were constantly getting hurt or dying in The Pack of the Fire, because of all the fights we put ourselves through, the corporal punishments handed to us when we did something wrong, and on top of that, The Pack of the Water...so, y'know, I'd try to encourage pups to become shamans...so there'd be less wolves at such a high risk all the time. So, even though I was really great at my job...the amount of hurt wolves every single day made it a very, very stressful job." He sighed. "I remember the first time a wolf died in my care...I felt like such a failure. He, and everyone else, was counting on me to save his life. And there wasn't anything I could do at the time."

Leia rubbed Alpine's back with her tail as he kept talking. "Things under Aries' rule got worse and worse. He went crazier and crazier. Well, more like Daruk did...but, that's not my point. More and more wolves were dying, no matter how hard I tried to help them. I felt so guilty, as my only job was to heal them, and I had let them down. I let everyone down, constantly. I started to get verbally abused by the wolves from The Pack of the Fire, as well as the other shamans, who had been counting on me, since I was the best shaman. I don't blame them. Eventually...I started getting these hallucinations of all the wolves that had died in my care. They were like, horrible, distorted versions of them. They're still here to this day, blaming me for their deaths...and mocking me. I've stopped acknowledging them. They're just a normal part of my day, now. After a few more were dead, I stopped caring about others, except for Leia, and now you. When I stopped caring, new hallucinations of dead wolves from The Pack of the Fire stopped appearing. Just the old ones, that would be ingrained into my head forever. I became extremely cold and distant. I'd go to some pretty great lengths to avoid people. And, as you can see from how I treat others around here... I still do all that. I still act like the weird jerk that I know I'm not just to keep others away. I just...I can't care anymore. I'm so afraid I'll get attached to someone else, and then something will happen to them, or they'll betray me..." He took a shaky, deep breath in. "H-Heh...I'm sorry, I didn't mean to start rambling..."

"Don't apologize." Roscoe gave him a gentle smile. "You're free to say whatever you want."

"...Y'know..." Alpine sighed. "When I found out you were really...you..." He paused. "My immediate reaction was to try and get things back the way they were before, and on top of that, protect you at all costs, just like I did back then. But...the more and more I've thought about it...the more afraid I've gotten to care about someone else again. I know you're not the kind of person to purposely betray me, but I'm just so scared that something's gonna happen to you. Especially with you being the beta, now. So...that's why I'm never gonna let something happen to you. I'll kill everyone in this godforsaken forest before I let anything happen to you, or Leia."

In any other situation, Roscoe would be weirded out by someone he had no memory of saying something like that. But somehow...he felt this odd connection to Alpine. Like he hadn't truly forgotten him. Somewhere, deep in his subconscious, was his memory of him and Alpine's relationship. How much he loved and cared about him before everything was "erased."

"I won't let anything happen to you, either." Leia spoke up. "Both of you."

"Then...I'll make that same promise." Roscoe smiled. "I'll do my best to protect both of you. I'm not as talented or confident as everyone thinks I am...but I will be for you two."