"Sis, you got a second?" Stahl felt a bit surprised at Amboss's request to speak through their bloodskill this late. The two pretty well tried to limit such things to daylight hours, so Stahl figured it must be important.
"Yeah, just laying in bed. What's up? Need something?" Her brother didn't respond right away, leaving the she-wolf's mind to wander for a moment.
"Uh... Your human friend... Sort of walked in on me and Rouge a little while ago." Stahl let out a huge laugh.
"Sure that pretty well traumatized the poor kid. Thanks for the heads up, it'll probably shake him a bit, so I may need to talk to him about it. Aster isn't very good with processing things like that because he just doesn't have much interest in, or experience with them."
Stahl felt it was all just an honest mistake that tended to happen. Amboss was quiet for a moment before he spoke once more.
"Well, he was definitely interested if you catch my drift... I didn't even notice he was there until I smelled his arousal..." Stahl's eyes shot open wide and she sat up in her bed. Aster was interested in stuff like that?
"Wait. You serious right now?"
Amboss grew quiet. Stahl was getting impatient. The older brother finally broke the silence.
"Look, you remember when I first met Rouge? I know you were pretty young back then, heck, we were young back then... But you, father, and our siblings all noticed little changes in me over the next few weeks through our bloodskill... And then it was the first moon that kind of sank everything into stone back then. You remember that jolt? When I asked rouge to marry me?"
Stahl would never forget it. When enough emotion built up within a bearer of the Shared Sense bloodskill, it could force a connection open to other bearers in order to preserve the integrity of the pack. The skill had some great uses, but it came with it's own problems too for the Aschefell line.
On the night of the full moon, their skill was heavily amplified along with their senses. They could keep their thoughts guarded to an extent, but there was no fully closing off the connection like there usually was during that phase.
If the emotion was intense enough, it would send a mental jolt to the entire pack, alerting them to whatever had caused it. Stahl still wasn't grasping what her brother was trying to really say to her, though. Amboss found it hard to explain without just making his sister feel cornered.
"...Just... Be careful tomorrow. Maybe skip out on training? Take the day to relax?"
Stahl let him know she could handle it, and cut the connection after a brief goodnight. Her mind immediately fell back to what she had heard. Aster was interested in sex. She knew he didn't have any experience obviously, but a spark of desire was there.
Is he just into human girls maybe? Why do I even care? Stahl tried and failed to calm her thoughts and get some rest that night. Her mind restlessly flipped, churned, and twisted the thoughts all night regardless, stirring up worry and insecurity that the she-wolf didn't even know she had carried within herself.
By the time morning had arrived, she had managed maybe three hours of rest, and woke up feeling unreasonably grumpy and annoyed. Her day started with a growl of frustration.
Aster felt a bit out of place for the first time since he had lived at the wolf's estate that morning. He knew Stahl said she might be a bit different with the moon in play, but he wasn't prepared for this sudden shift in the tone. It felt... intentional to the boy.
Where Stahl was usually engaging, he found the she-wolf silent. Aster hadn't realized how much he had let his friend lead their conversations until he was met with a wall of quiet, moody fur that morning. It made him feel smaller and smaller every moment. Eventually, Stahl noticed the human was taking it personally, and the she-wolf caved.
"Sorry, lot on my mind is all. I'm only half awake to be honest with you, so maybe you'll have a good chance at finally beating me today." Aster almost let the words hurt him in his low state of mind, but when he looked up and saw the she-wolf was giving him her playful fanged smile, his heart suddenly felt a lot lighter.
The she-wolf wasn't mad at him, and Aster had no idea why that made him feel so relieved at that moment, but it did. The pair set out to the courtyard as usual after that. Well, maybe not entirely as usual.
It was barely one in the afternoon and Aster was almost completely worn out. The she-wolf hadn't realized how much she was bearing down into her attacks that day, but Aster certainly recognized it.
He understood though... His friend needed to vent some things. Doing that in training was effective, Aster had definitely done similar in his past with Javis, so he decided he'd stick to the defensive today so the she-wolf could work out what she needed to... Or so he thought, but he wasn't sure how much longer he could hold her off at this point.
His muscles in his shoulders were burning from their shielding efforts, and his face was flushed bright red from his cheeks up. He could smell himself from a mile away as well, and his entire shirt was drenched in sweat. In truth, he was feeling lightheaded from the fever beneath his sweltering flesh. He needed to stop soon.
Stahl wasn't going to, nor was she even paying attention to the boy's face or condition at this point. She had lost herself in her mangled thoughts, letting her body burn off steam by performing attacks on it's own instinct and memory.
Aster was just blocking hit after hit with his shield as best as he could manage. It was good training on that end at least. Stahl's thoughts shifted as her emotions spiraled beyond her recognition. She was never like this... she's never had a moon affect her like this...
'Dammit, what even is Aster doing? He's not even trying to strike back anymore. That staff may as well be a walking stick. Has he even been trying to counter me? Why wasn't he fighting like he usually did? Did he- is this human pitying me?'
The thought actually unsettled Stahl greatly, and that fear made her feel angry, and belittled. The human wasn't supposed to pity HER, she was supposed to be the strong one. She was the teacher here. She was the friend. She would protect Aster, not the other way around! Did the superior she-wolf need this charity from the boy's perspective? Did he believe he was letting her win? Did- did Aster think he was stronger than her?
Stahl wasn't usually this insecure by any means, but as the moon was already full in the sky, only hidden in the afternoon sun, the small concerns within herself, that she hadn't managed to identify in time, grew and sprouted roots of worry, making the she-wolf question everything about their relationship up to that point. She had let herself fall too far before realizing her childish, insecure error.
Aster was done, completely worn out, but Stahl came at him harder than ever before seemingly out of nowhere. Something had shifted in the she-wolf. Her ears had taken on an alert position, and she had her lips pulled back into a sneer upon her clenched jaw.
Her pupils seemed smaller now, her ash tinted eyes in general had something nasty and feral now as the driving force behind them... Something Aster felt clawing at the back of his skull, just out of clarity or recognition.
Stahl managed to get around the shield for a moment, and struck in a downward swoop between Aster and his staff with her left sword. Aster barely managed to react in time to release the staff to save his fingers before the she-wolf kicked his shield HARD, sending him tumbling backwards. Aster cried out in pain when he hit the ground this time, landing on his now bruised tailbone. The she-wolf was not finished yet, however, and was still lost in her unreasonable state of mind.
'He's beaten! He won't undermine me anymore! He will do as I say, because I am the victor. I am stronger. I will protect us. He just needed to accept that... He needed to be shown that's how it works... He needed to... HE... NEEDED...'
The she-wolf cast her swords crashing to the ground, and lunged at the exhausted and surprised boy right as her emotions reached a tipping point, immediately forcing a powerful jolt of raw emotion into the minds of the other two wolves nearby.
Stahl's father and brother were drawn into her chaotic mind and senses, bearing witness as the beast pinned the human flat to the ground with a singular primal urge and command roaring forth from her mind.
"SUBMIT TO ME, ASTER!"
Stahl felt her family struggling to get through the mental link, she ignored them but they persisted anyways. A moment later, her brother finally managed a break through.
"STAHL! GODS BE DAMNED, STAHL, STOP IT! LOOK AT YOURSELF! LOOK AT ASTER! HE'S FUCKING TERRIFIED!"
***