-Slip on the Ice-

“Sure hope they haven’t closed up the exercise yard today on account of the accident,” Lightning Dust remarked as she and Rainbow Dash flew laps around the training facility.

“Yeah, I’d hate to be stuck with only the weights we have here,” Rainbow Dash grumbled, she shook her head as they barrelled around another turn.

The Wonderbolts Training Facility was well equipped, but during the junior recruit training camp it became fairly obvious it was mostly meant for the forty actual wonderbolts and not the few dozen trainees on top of that. There were barely enough cots, let alone weights or even towels. They’d finish doing laps and then sprint their way to Canterlot Royal Academy every other day for strength and agility exercises for just that reason.

“You know what happened?” Dust asked, pushing the pace faster.

“I heard it was some sort of magic explosion, but I haven’t heard anything from my friends so I’m not sure,” Rainbow said, she’d barely broken a sweat. This was an easy pace for them, even if they just lapped the other teams left and right.

“Oh well. Race you, wing-pony?” Dust said with a smirk.

Rainbow rolled her eyes, still somewhat sore about that ruling. But so far Lightning Dust had been pretty cool about it. “Last one to ten laps buys the shower tokens!” Rainbow cried as quickly as she could, she smiled as she took the lead.

The guards shifted nervously around the cage, spears aimed unsteadily toward it. Celestia herself had assured them that morning that the antique cage was made from a metal stronger than any other, and that so long as the wolf was kept inside it and the door unopened it could never be forced open from the inside. But still, none of them had ever seen a dog bigger than themselves before, let alone a wolf.

The grey wolf paced tiredly within the small boundary of the deceivingly delicate metal lattice, his shoulders brushed the ceiling of it a good head above even the tallest unicorn amongst the day guard there. The injury on its chest had been seen to before it woke up, a neat white bandage now covered the gash. They had each asked about the decorations on the wolf’s upper foreleg and pierced into its left ear, or why its skin hissed and burned when it touched the cage, but none had been given an answer.

They’d been informed to stand on guard until further notice from either the doctor assigned to the animal by Princess Luna or from Celestia herself. That didn’t make watching the muscles under its grey dappled coat ripple as it walked any less unnerving to them. And yet, as disturbing as it was, watching the dark grey of its back blend into the lighter around his legs was almost hypnotizing.

The wolf would often stop and stare intently at one of the guards until the pony was ready to piss in their chainmail. But then it would shake its head with a snarl, which made the entire regiment jump, and then it would start to pace again.

The tension in the dank dungeon room built as such, until a pin drop could have set off a tremendous fright amongst them. Which is why when the doctor crashed down the stairs, every guard jumped high enough to scrape their horns against the ceiling. Which of course, set off the wolf; it snarled and banged against the cage in a violent fury.

“Doctor!” Filibuster, the ranking officer on this assignment, snapped angrily at him as he approached the cage. He wrinkled his nose at the smell of the wolf’s singed fur and burnt flesh as it made its displeasure known. “Is it so necessary for you to make such a scene when you enter?” he panted, his heart raced from the scare.

The pale green unicorn only smiled wider as he came down the stairs, he avoided an icy puddle on the floor idly. “Yes, especially if it makes you uptights shake loose a little bit.” He blew his shock of fiery orange mane out of his eyes as he approached. “Besides, if that polearm had been any farther up your ass you’d have been choking on it!” he laughed and skirted around the wall of heavily armed guards and approached the snarling wolf unphased.

“Oi!” he yelled at the wolf as he smacked his medical bag against the bars to get the wolf’s attention. It snarled, scratched and bit at the latticework despite the pain it caused him. “Yes, yes. I know you’re unhappy, no need to throw a fit now-” The wolf barked loudly, a deep rolling thunder that filled the stone chamber completely. “Rude,” the Doctor remarked as the wolf paced on the opposite wall from him. “Here now, this will help with any pain and should calm your nerves some,” he muttered and pulled out an envelope with his transparent magic.

Rather than touch the contents with his magic, he used a set of tongues to pull out the clump of purple flowers and leaves. He tossed the clump of herb into the cage and watched as the wolf stopped to sniff at the leaves immediately. The Doctor made careful note of this in a small black book, he could tell now that the wolf was already familiar with the herbal treatment.

The doctor leaned in carefully toward the cage as the wolf snapped up the flowers. “Are you ready to speak to me, old friend,” he said in as calm a voice as he could manage, he made sure to keep his voice far below the usual volume he used. “I know you can. We should start with names, yes? I am Clean Cut,” he said. He motioned toward himself and repeated his name.

The wolf stared silently back at the doctor, much calmer now but no less threatening as it chewed on the flowers. Filibuster snorted, he had grown extremely tired of the eccentric doctor’s masquerade. Luna had allowed him to care for and examine the animal before it had been caged and woke up, and he’d been incorrigible the entire time. “It’s a beast, Doctor,” he said as he motioned for his guards to return to their positions. “It can’t speak, it can’t think, it can’t understand. The most this thing wants to do is eat, shit and fuck its way to death in the dirty woods hundreds of miles-”

“Clean Cut.”

In that moment, the dungeon room seemed very small, because the wolf’s gravelly voice had just repeated the doctor’s name. The thin unicorn gave a cheer as the wolf repeated his name again and stared directly at the doctor. “Yes! Yes! Now-” Clean Cut motioned from himself to the wolf, who growled out something incoherent as it shook its head. “That’ll be difficult to pronounce …” Clean Cut mumbled to himself, he motioned again for the wolf to speak its name once more.

“The most I can make out is … Coalback? And that’s only a partial best guess,” the doctor noted to Filibuster, who merely glared at the wolf that had instantly made his point moot. “I need to inform the Princess of this, there may be hope yet,” Clean Cut said, he tucked the book away and turned back up the stairs. “Don’t antagonize him!” he yelled back as he went through the door.

“This is gonna be a long shift,” Filibuster groaned.

“We shouldn’t be keeping him locked up,” Luna said desperately as she tried to keep up with her sister’s longer gait. “Clean Cut says that he suspects the wolf has been kept in captivity before under extremely harsh conditions and that continuing this kind of treatment any further-”

“I’ll hear no more of this, Luna,” Celestia said tiredly, her brow furrowed. “There is too much real danger to allow it to be given any freedom, that cage is our best defense at the moment.” She didn’t turn to look at her sister as she walked, a feeling overcome her that she often only felt when she had to deal with politicians; detachment.

Luna was able to recognise it instantly, and she would not have it. With a grunt she lept into Celestia’s path, she stopped the taller alicorn with a glare. “We often meet our fates on the paths we choose to prevent them,” she said sternly, which only earned a glare in return from Celestia.

Celestia didn’t have to raise her voice, or light her horn, or even spread her wings to cow Luna. All she had to do was take two steps forward and look down her nose at her younger sister. “It stays in the cage,” she said, low and calm, “until I say otherwise.” Celestia turned her gaze away again. She stepped around Luna and swept her wings over Luna’s head to further seal in her statement.

“Now if you don’t mind,” Celestia sighed, “I have to attend a press conference to keep your guest a secret.” Celestia walked around her sister unimpeded this time, she didn’t notice Luna’s downcast expression.

Coalback lay on the floor of his enclosure, paws under his chin, and fumed in anger and revived fear. He hated cages almost as much as he hated the ones who put him in cages. But now he was exhausted, hungry, and stung all over from when he thoughtlessly threw himself against the cage.

He hadn’t understood any of the words that the little horses spoke, he still found it surprising that they spoke at all. The pain in his head was confident the speaking was normal, though by no means very happy about it. It had been a strange realization, but recently he’d found that worrying over details like pastel colored animals was not worth his time. He had more important concerns at the moment, these realizations were simply facts at this point.

The guards’ leader, or who Coalback assumed was their commanding officer, was unhappy with the thin green one- Clean Cut -that had come in and offered him the wolfsbane. It had been so long since Coalback had tasted that flower and the euphoric wave of relaxation that came with it that he hadn’t bothered to show restraint. Now he simply felt like sleeping as he basked in its fading effects, and would have if not for the displeasure that nagged him. Coalback needed to get out of this disgusting dungeon and fill his belly, hunger gnawed at the edges of his mind.

He glanced up, and locked onto the commanding guard again in thought. They’d made no overt moves to antagonize him, nor had they punished him when he banged against the cage- if the burning from the silver in the cage’s metal wasn’t a punishment itself. Whoever had put Coalback in here had given orders that he was not to be harmed, maybe even to keep him alive. Would they let one of them inside to try and revive him if he ‘died’?

He supposed there was only one way to find out.

Coalback rolled over onto his side and let his breath whoof out from him. Here was where the act started; he didn’t breath in again and let his eyes stare blankly through the guard. Coalback knew how long he could hold his breath before he began to blackout, far longer than any dog should have been able to. Especially long enough to be worrying.

The head guard stiffened as soon as Coalback fell over and stared intently at the wolf. “It’s not breathing,” Coalback supposed he said to himself, he didn’t even believe his own words. “It’s not breathing! Get help!” he yelled and pointed a hoof at one of his subordinates which sent him running. The polearm in his hooves spun around, the blunt, metal tipped end slipped through the lattice and jabbed at Coalback’s ribs to try and revive the wolf on his own.

Coalback didn’t move, but before the guard could try anything else the air beside him shuddered. The thin green horse exploded into existence, he appeared with a thunderous snap of the air. It only took the clashing colored pony a moment to fall for Coalback’s ruse, a key materialized in front of its horn.

Coalback was surprised at the sudden authority in this one's voice, Clean Cut quickly overtook the room as he commanded the guards. The guards bristled around the his shoulders, spearheads aimed steadily toward the door of the cage. The key slid into the lock with a translucent green glow, tumblers slid over themselves.

Coalback moved the instant the lock clacked open heavily, long toed paws underneath him in the time it took to blink an eye. His shoulders hit the door and smashed it open with a crash of protest, the door bent outward against its hinges now that the spells strengthening the otherwise soft metals were interrupted. The metal pushed apart the wall of guards, and smashed into the doctor’s nose, and burned against Coalback’s hide as he burst through.

A paw found purchase on an equine leg, the bone snapped and stole some of Coalback’s grip but he shot toward the stairs in a single bound. He only barely heard the screams of pain, shock, and anger that erupted from the guards past the fury that screamed inside his skull. Fear! Blood and bones! Feed! it screamed to him, but he could not listen to it now: He wanted out, and then he could eat.

Coalback was up and out of the thin stairwell as fast as his long legs could carry him, his shoulders and hips brushed against the walls. He blew past another group of guards, knocked them over and barrelled toward the first door that didn’t look like a cell. He snapped at a guard that came around a corner and made them jump back as he went through an archway and up a much wider set of stairs.

The hallways and ramps rushed past, the guards shouted and gave chase all around him. He leapt over groups that cut him off or flanked him, if he stopped to kill them like the drum in his skull told him to he would be overrun: By the sheer number of opponents if not the piles of the dead to slow him.

Before long he was presented with a more fortified group that cut off a brightly lit palace hall with shimmering walls of light in various colors. Coalback slid to a stop in front of them, his claws ripped through thick carpeting and into the stone beneath. He knew in an instant that the wall was no illusion, the pain in his head quite clear with its message on that.

Coalback snarled and twisted around only to find the way behind him blocked by a wall of charging horses who marched down the hall toward him. He barked at the ponies in their fortified position as they tried to move forward. He let out a bellow more befitting a bear than a wolf at the ponies who bore down on him from the end of the hall.

Cornered! His mind’s eye flashed with chains, tables covered in knives and his own blood, a mirror made from windows where he could see his own guts spill from his stomach and into a molesters grip. Fight, Kill, Eat! He could practically feel the needles pull on his flesh again; always drained, always in pain. In a moment of fear fueled adrenaline, he turned toward the brightly lit windows of the hallway … and jumped.

The ground met him in an instant, three stories down a white marble wall and onto mulch. Long shards of glass fell around him, some bounced off his hide and others dug into him. Coalback stood shakily and ripped what pieces of glass he could out and stalked away from the wall.

A meticulously cropped garden stretched out away from him, it extended in all directions and climbed up a tall castle wall where more guards patrolled. Coalback needed to move, a few had stopped on the wall and started to turn his direction.

He loped to the bushes and found his way into cover to get his bearings and pull the rest of the glass out of his skin. Now that he was outside he could hear much more: The wind that howled around what could only be mountain peaks; Hooves marched frantically along the stones, they would try to find him; But far past that noise he heard something else, the hum of a busy crowd - a city. He smelled more horses on the chilled winter air, could tell where the paths were and how commonly they were used just with his nose.

It was a tense crop of minutes that he spent under the frosty bushes to work the glass out of his skin with his tongue and teeth, let the flesh close itself. He calmed his heart as he watched the edges of the hide stitch together again and the hair follicles regrow, like a timelapse video. The ground was stained black and red around him before he was done, one leg drenched in saliva where he still slowly bled but he didn’t want to wait around to groom the fur around every cut.

By now the guard ponies had spread out through the gardens in a search line that wandered past him in a rush. Most find it surprising that simply a low position was extremely effective, enough to break the line of sight: Coalback knew it by instinct. Now all he had to do was follow their scents to the exits. He avoided gravel paths where he came across them, but on dirt his pads were silent. He only had to dodge one guard who ran back along the search line, he took a sloppy dive through a hedge before the horse stomped around the corner.

The gardens were increasingly expansive, and it seemed to Coalback that he’d found his way along the opposite direction of the search party. The throb was dull now, simply a hum of pain at the base of his skull, soon his nose was able to find a reason to revive it however: It was a strange smell, one he could only describe as hot, musty flesh; it reminded him of cooking alligator meat.

The smell was wrong, inherently unfit amongst the horse-stink. Coalback could feel the throb ready to leap into a fury at the smell: A part of Coalback recognised it, instincts ignited where they were usually buried underneath his will.

Coalback saw red. He could tell now what he smelled: another predator. It didn’t matter that this wasn’t his claimed place, his hunting grounds. He was no passing visitor; his blood called for the sation of his hunger, to install his dominance across every range he passed through.

Competition! Kill the challenger! Eat its heart! the drumbeat called in concert with the hunger in his gut, the rings on Coalback’s arm burned with fury. Dragon! the pain in his head screamed, Dragon! Slay the beast! Kill off the tainted breed!

It was an old hatred that the smell revived, bred into his blood and his bones. He knew it immediately, his ancestors hunted that smell with the express intent of culling its owners into submission. Coalback could not resist the pull of the hunt when it called him.

The idea of subtlety was abandoned there, claws dug into the dirt as he tracked the smell to the trail it had left in the gardens. He followed it to a partition in the castle’s grounds, drank in the stink of brimstone and dead flesh down a ramp and through an archway in the wall. He could ignore the paved path and the intricately inlaid carvings along the walls, he didn’t care about that anymore.

He could see it now, across a sports field covered in equipment. It had slithered its way across and into a hidden, shadowy alcove and curled up inside there. It lay in wait, Coalback could see its slitted eyes track something on the field.

The horses passed in a blur, and Coalback jumped back into a corner where he was less visible in the archway. They were of all different colors and rocketed above the track in small groups. It was with a start that he realized these horses had wings, they practically were part of the air. He spotted more at the ends of the field, they made use of different exercise equipment or did various exercises.

For just a moment he forgot about his quarry, hypnotized to watch the pegasi fly. He was mesmerized by how they simply twisted through the air and demonstrated an agility that he would never have expected from an equine. They were a part of the wind in Coalback’s eyes.

The unicorns had hardly been a shock, his first assumption that they were some sort of deer or moose breed. But now he realized, with
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the fog of the hunt temporarily at bay, that he knew these creatures from mythology: Pegasi, Unicorns, Dragons. Each name produced a wave of hate from the blood in his veins.

Perhaps it was fitting that a werewolf, one of the Blaidd, found himself amongst other fantastical creatures such as these.

His eyes snapped back to the dragon unbidden as a particularly colorful pair of Pegasi towed heavy weights past it, he watched the dragon track them and shift its shoulders. A growl snuck its way into Coalback’s throat as the pegasi started to approach the wyrm again, he could see a pounce ready in its shadowy stance.

Now, while it hunted. That was the time to make his strength known to the interloping dragon and any who followed it that Coalback was at the top of the food chain: First in the pecking order, Alpha. Apex Predator.

Coalback was across the sports field before he even realized he’d started running, he snarled explosively the whole way. He heard a scream of fear from one of the horses as he streaked under the path of the colorful pegasi and dodged just under their tucked hooves as the dragon lunged at them.

Coalback’s teeth sank into the wrist of the claw as it came down, not able to stop the momentum but caught the dragon even as it nearly slammed him into the ground. Something wet and warm and smelling of horse splashed across his muzzle, red flashed across his vision as his teeth dug down to the bone. The Pegasus was thrown away and the heavy block it was held went down with it.

The dragon pulled against Coalback’s grip, shocked dumb as they struggled out onto the field. Horses shrieked in fear and fled as Coalback pulled the scaly beast into the light, he twisted with corded muscles in his neck to throw it off its feet and drag it along. Pink tendon tore under his fangs, the dragon screamed in pain.

A guard shouted from the wall, yelled at the Pegasi in the field to get clear. The dragon's black horns whipped through the air and sliced through fur and flesh. Flames surrounded the wrestling blur of blood red and graveyard grey with a roar from the dragon. Coalback fled with only a singed tail and a bloody flank, slipped out with a swipe of his claws along one of its legs.

Blood sprayed from the wound and steamed on the ground. In the moment that the dragon stumbled on its bleeding leg Coalback spun back around and locked his jaws back onto the dragon, snapping his teeth down on the dragon’s pale neck beneath its jaw. It gurgled and roared in rage, tried to turn its black horns again to dig into Coalback’s hide but the wolf’s grip was too close to its head. Its undamaged claw shot out and dug into the wound that its horns had rent in Coalback’s side but able to do little else.

Coalback had complete control now, he held all the leverage he needed at the base of the dragon’s skull. Coalback shook his head mercilessly, his fangs scraped across hard scales that didn’t allow a single moment of reprieve. A low growl leaked out from his throat as slowly, agonizingly slowly he pressed his fangs through the thick scale armor. A single tooth broke through with a spray of blood, quickly followed by the others until the dragon poured blood from the wound in its throat like a fountain.

The dragon became fatigued in only moments, its struggle ground to a halt. The dragon let out a death keen as it finally allowed its legs to collapse under it, it had surrendered to its fate.

Coalback succumbed to his hunger instantly and tore into the searing, tough meat of the dragon. The flesh grated on his throat and tasted much stronger than he expected from raw meat, but it was incredibly able to sate his unending hunger. He didn’t stay concentrated on its throat after he wrestled the tongue out through its shredded larynx. He needed more; the fat between the organs in its gut were much better than its meat.

But what he truly desired was the heart.

He was too eager for satisfaction to attempt to break through its breastplate, and he had already spent too much time. Instead he clawed out the diaphragm to rip the heart out through its abdomen, he dug through flesh as if he were to make a den in its chest. He wrapped his teeth around the still lightly fluttering organ and pulled mercilessly, he shook his head violently to snap the arteries that impeded him.

The fact that the dragon was still momentarily alive as he feasted only added to the flavor of the meal.

Coalback’s front dripped with gore and dragon’s blood. He stood in the desecrated corpse of his enemy as he chewed on the ball of muscle. He barely noticed the horrified mob of guards all around him until he had bitten the heart in half and choked down whatever chunk was left in his mouth, he let it fall with a sickening squelch amongst the shredded organs he was ankle deep in.

Coalback shivered with ecstasy at the feeling of his full stomach, the stench of the dragon’s blood was all too satisfying. He could never have called the euphoria of the kill bad, but he knew he was addicted to it all the more because of the satisfied pulse in his head.

He came to his senses in waves, and only noticed the still form of the colorful pegasus from the corner of his eye. He stepped out from the carcass heavily, his full stomach already made him feel drowsy. Here he could examine the mythical curiosity up close, and he made no effort to not drip dragon blood onto the powder blue fur. Coalback had to lick the blood out from his nostrils in order to get any decent grip on its scent.

Before he could lean down to prod at the small wings on the mare's back, a nervous shout from one of the guards made him freeze. Coalback looked up lazily at the miniature horse - devoid of horn or wings - as it shook in its thickly padded armor and its spear tip danced unsteadily. He barely had to raise his hackles to cow the guard into a retreat, but he made sure to press his tongue against his bloodstained teeth for good measure anyway as he looked around the field.

Now he could see the sheer number of guards that were within the sports field, though none came near Coalback or the steaming dragon corpse. Several hundred had rushed in with spears and shields in hoof only to freeze as they came into sight of the feeding wolf. Unsteadily sparking barriers formed in front of unicorns; pegasi guards flew in slow, nervous circles at a distance with grimaces on their muzzles; more ponies, thicker and bulkier than the rest, stood in a “resolute” line of shivering armour.

The pegasus stirred weakly at his paws, he hadn’t noticed the steps he'd taken to stand over her possessively. He leaned down again to look over her and prodded the diminutive wings with his nose. He flinched when the pegasus hissed in pain, which brought Coalback’s attention to the swollen joint in the middle of the wing and the blood that flowed from a tear in the shoulder of it. There was more blood than he would have expected, but he couldn’t tell if the powder blue flier had turned pale yet.

Time to learn, Pup the pressure in his head intoned and clouded his thoughts as it tingled along his arm rings. The clouds cleared in only moments, but once they were gone he retained most of the intention behind it.

He stepped carefully around the pegasus and took careful care not to disturb her further. An innocent bystander, he couldn’t let that wrong go unrighted. He needed to help the pegasus. Just until she could care for herself again, he told himself. With an apologetic sigh he leaned forward and ran his tongue over the injuries as gently as he could.

The pegasus grunted weakly at first in her dazed state, the pressure from his tongue enough to set the pain anew. Coalback’s saliva worked quickly though, the natural painkillers took effect as they seeped into the skin. The gentle attention of his tongue, though it still spread dragon blood with every lick, would soon be able to start the healing process for the Pegasus in its own way. He could already see the swelling start to go down, some satisfaction came to him past a wave of guilt for the Pegasus.

Coalback didn’t notice his own black blood drip into her wounds, but he did notice the spark of prismatic energy that arced from the Pegasus onto his tongue.

Rainbow could barely concentrate, and her eyelids felt like they’d been weighted down with cinder blocks. She couldn’t figure out what had happened, one minute she was flying with a fifty pound weight along the track and the next thing she knew she had her cheek pressed against the grass. And her wings hurt like nothing she’d felt from a workout before.

When she was able to force her eyelids up she could only make out vague shapes and colors, mostly a red lump but she couldn’t tell what it was in her haze. The images came in waves with the strength it took her to open her eyelids: A red lump jerked spasmodically; an unevenly speckled, grey and red blur crawled over the lump; she could almost make out the shape of somepony’s muzzle, stained red, as they leaned down in front of her.

She tried and failed to ask them what happened, the effort sent new waves of exhaustion through her past the throbs of pain in her wing. The pain exploded suddenly and she flinched despite her exhaustion. Then it happened again, but this time the pain quickly faded. It rose and fell in weakening waves, enough so that she could tell it was her joints in pain instead of just a blinding wave of pain from the general direction of her wing.

Rainbow struggled to thank whoever had made the pain go away, she could feel it massage away gently now. A loose thought determined she must have pulled something in the workout and that, for some reason, a masseuse had come to melt the pain away with her hooves.

She started to fall to sleep as the pain faded and the skin on her shoulders started to feel tight, but not before she noticed the tell-tale tingle of magic. Not the magic that a unicorn uses to carry their groceries or cast spells, but rather the unique and warm feeling of the Elements of Harmony at work. She could practically feel her Element thrum inside her for some reason.

She fell into mercifully numb sleep as somepony picked her up off of the grass.

Author's Notes:

Alright, 'nother chapter for you guys. This one I took a different approach than I usually do and tried to actually downplay the fighting itself, and instead tried to draw more attention to Coalback's actions toward others. I wanted him to appear violent and/or rude, but not outright malicious. Also threw in some tidbits about my particular brand of werewolf into the fray, though some aspects may be less obvious than others. Next time (most likely posted next week) I'll introduce one of the first major changes I've made to the story in the relationships between some of the characters and how they develop. I actually only have about 5 chapters (re)written at this point, so once I've posted those the post rare will go down dramatically. As you may have noticed, the "prequal"/"rough draft" is still up and available to be viewed (I hope), and there it will remain. I do have another chapter partially written for the previous version, if I end up finishing it you may notice that, despite it's cancelled state, it updates -- still no promises on finishing that "draft" or not.

Anyway, here's an interesting irl tidbit about wolf behavior that relates somewhat to Coalback's actions at the end of this chapter: Coalback hunts the dragon without giving it a warning, however he raises his hackles and bares his teeth and tongue to the pony guards, this is known as an ambivalence display:

Ambivalence Display

An ambivalence display may be enacted when the Wolf is confused, afraid, or trying to warn off an intruder or submissive. The Wolf will bristles his or her pelt (raise hackles) in order to appear larger and more threatening, at the same time the eyes will take on an angry wild expression and the lips will curl back to expose the fangs and gums. It is felt that red is a threatening color in nature, thus baring the gums and tongue, which is pressed forward between the incisors during the display, makes for an especially effective threatening appearance. The purpose of this display is to look dangerous... it is a warning meant to avoid violence, not to incite it... and is not used during hunting or stalking, as prey animals are never warned, just attacked, killed, and eaten. Ambivalence display is often implemented during the defensive threat posture and during a dominance display in order to demand the respect of submissive Wolves.

Many experts consider the Ambivalence display as one of mixed emotions; where snarling and bearing of fangs represents aggression, and the extending of the tongue is a simultaneous act of submission. This, of course, is the very definition of ambivalence, but I have difficulty agreeing with this opinion, and think of this posture as
more of threat display.