Private The Family that Time Forgot

Zare wasn't surprised. Many of the pack he'd tried to deal with had been dinosaurs even in his own day. The fact that they'd choose to face a slow slide to mundaneness in the narrow reality didn't surprise him even slightly.

But he was genuinely caught off guard by Dorian's admission that he didn't know what he was doing, his head cocking every so slightly as he looked him over.

"Then why did you take it?" He asked. "Why not just let someone else handle it?" He didn't understand, but he very much wanted to, and that was really going to change how he thought of the Blakes and their new leader.

Zare, to a certain extent, simply didn't get it. The mentality behind Dorian's actions was a largely selfless one, and Zare was... not that. It came from being from a species that was so distinctly solitary: the desire to help others (even in addition to ones self) wasn't there naturally.

"I see," he said, having learned that if he said anything to that effect people would assume he was thinking deeply about what he'd just heard. "That still does mean you're very strong, though."

He considered a moment longer, and then shrugged, an action that looked very strange on his clearly inhuman frame.

"You don't know anything about my history, and yet you're still willing to accept me," Zare said. "Which strikes me as a risk."

"I was sent here because my people didn't want me," Zare clarified. He supposed he couldn't really blame Dorian. Any records of his existence were gone, which meant any record of the attempt by the venomaws to integrate was gone as well. There was simply no way he could have known, and Zare raised one particularly large paw, gesturing casually as he explained.

"My people aren't social creatures. We don't talk with each other or interact much at all. But when the wolves approached us to attempt to come together, it was considered. When I almost died, the decision was made to change me and see if it would improve us as a species."

Zare bared his teeth, showing his prominent canines. It wasn't as if Dorian knew what a venomaw mouth was supposed to look like, but the teeth did look particularly large.

"It didn't," he finished. "We gained nothing from the exchange, so the other venomaw withdrew, and I was sent here to avoid the embarrassment of such a significant political failure."

Was he being too harsh? Maybe. Someone else probably would have said definitely, but Zare wasn't exactly in the business of pretending to play nice. He simply acted as he always did and let things work themselves out, and really... well, what else could he do?

"You misunderstand," he said. "I just wanted you to know. It seemed like a bad idea for you to do anything without knowing what you were getting into."

He reached out, paw facing up towards the ceiling, and spreads his hand out. A gesture of peace. Of openness. Certainly not combative by any metric.

"I'll take you up on your offer."

Simple as that.

Zare cocked his head, looking Dorian over like he wasn't quite sure what to make of him.

"You should," he said, and then when that obviously wasn't clear he opted to clarify. "There isn't anything wrong about being the alpha if you are the alpha. You're in the position because you won it."

Really, he didn't see the big deal about someone taking control if that was what they were supposed to. It was the natural way of things as far as he'd been informed, and it struck him as strange that Dorian seemed so intent on going out of his way to not be like that.