"Alpha's, step forth!" Ulag commanded after rallying his willpower to stop grinding his teeth together.

Duraz and Gregory shared a glance between them, and then both moved forward toward the proving master's balcony. The moment Gregory stepped forth and confirmed that he was the alpha, Ulag let out a roar of frustration. It didn't stop the human's approach, although it might have stopped a charging grizzly bear.

“What is the meaning of this!?" Ulag bellowed. "ULf! What in the name of Dal Gahlla have you done! ?"

Duraz halted as he stood before the proving master, though he certainly didn't seem to be the focus of things. Gregory continued right up to Ulag's balcony where the white-haired orc moved to set his hands in balled fists around the guard rail. This was not ULf's argument, and Gregory was content to take the weight of Ulag's frustration upon his own shoulders.

“Proving master, I am the alpha of The Runts. Did you want something?" he kept his tone as Level as he could manage, and tried very hard to stop his knees from trembling.

Ulag looked down upon him and openly snarled.

“I didn't think this would go down easy with you, Ulag. I mean you no dishonour, and I think I've just proven that I can lead my pack well enough to get a victory here. They were pretty short on those before, so they tried doing things differently. I'm a part of that, and it's working."

The snarl remained in place, so the human opted for a different tactic with the proving master.

“Look, just between you and me? ALL I want to do is get my ring back and get out of here. I have a home out there, and the only way I get there is through these provings. So, if you let this go, we have a chance of passing, and if we do that then I'm planning to Leave within the year. I'm out of your hair for good.”

The snarl shifted and Ulag's brows furrows as two of his primal instincts came into conflict. It sickened him to think that a human could stand as an alpha of a war-pack, even one as strange as The Runts. But on the other hand, getting rid of that human was quite possibly one of his dearest ambitions in Life. That he might have to yield on one of these attitudes to fulfil the other hadn't occurred to him until then.

What's more, it wasn't as if the human was wrong as such. The Runts did fight better under his leadership, and their new weapons and movements on the field were clearly not Ulf's doing. So, the proving master looked out over the assembled gathering of orcs in the stands and frowned at them. They didn’t seem nearly as outraged as they should have been.

In the end, he half-heartedly raised his arm toward Gregory to accept that his pack had won the bout, shortly before turning and storming off back toward his tent in the hopes of getting drunk.

Gregory let out a Long breath whilst some token applause began from the orcs who had watched the match, and quite a few hushed conversations started. It wasn't the rousing ovation their first win had gotten, but at least they weren't skewering him on the end of a spear, so he was happy to take the Little victories where he could. Turning to face Duraz, he gave the alpha of the Blood Snakes a respectful nod.

"Good luck in your next fight," he said.

“You too, Tuskless." Duraz grinned around his own tusks to show that the nickname was a friendly jibe rather than an open insult. Then he turned and went to rejoin his pack.

Duraz was halted in his tracks when he looked behind Gregory at the entrance to the proving pit and his eyes widened in shock. Upon seeing this, the human's mind was filled with visions of Ulag charging at him in a crazed, rage-fuelled death Lunge. He immediately turned on his heel to set himself into a braced position with his arms raised up into fists. It wasn't the proving master. Instead, he was facing down the mountainous form Grolfir himself.

Given that raising fists to the war-chief of the orcs was generally not a good idea if one considered life a valuable commodity, he immediately shoved his hands back to his sides before Lifting one arm to smash his scarred chest and raise it up in an orcish salute. It wasn't exactly required in the circumstances, but it felt Like the right thing to do since Grolfir didn't often go to the proving grounds except to quietly watch the occasional match. Him actively walking across the pit floor was damn-near unheard of.

In response to the gesture, the war-chief returned the salute, which caused every single orc that had assembled in the proving grounds to immediately stand up and return it in kind. Once the war-chief lowered his salute, everyone retook their seats and the newly-outed alpha lowered his own arm until they stood opposite each other. Strangely enough, none of the orcs seemed interested in Leaving the pit just yet despite the day's match being over.

“War-chief," Gregory was careful to keep his tone respectful.

“You are alpha here now then?" Grolfir's tone was casual enough that he could have been chatting about the weather.

"Yes, sir." The ‘sir’ wasn't all that necessary in addressing the war-chief, but the human felt that the extra formality might reduce his chances of getting his bones ground into dust.

“That is good. Your fighting is... strange." "Yes. When we fought in the normal way we tended to lose a lot. We found strangeness suited us better."

At that, Grolfir's mouth shifted into the slight, but genuinely amused smile of someone whom innately knew they were dealing with a respectful smart-ass.

“Then I look forward to watching you all get stranger.” He nodded to the rest of the Runts, having no trouble doing so given that he was well over a foot taller than Gregory. It gave him a distinctly high vantage point to view everyone.

“No fear of that, sir." Gregory felt himself relax a little. He was definitely getting a handle on how to deal with excessive amounts of weird.