"Grr-ee an' Cass!" Deacon had chirped. Oh... joy... Sköll, while partially pleased that the boy wouldn't be subject to suffer such things like Angier's diction lessons or constantly being hounded by his mother to talk, was inwardly jealous. He considered that the names "Deacon" and "Castiel" were easier to pronounce versus "Asriel" and "Morganna," but still couldn't shrug it off. That was, until Mother Dearest came along...

He spotted her along the path, and though he smiled, he respectfully gave her his customary nod and the gesture of folding back his ears in reverence. His tail swayed a bit more as she uttered his name, "Skoll..." For some reason, to the young royal it always sounded better in her voice and tone - at least, to his ears, regardless of whether she was furious or pleased. What came soon after was a bit of praise, something the second-born soaked up and bathed himself in. Had it been possible for her words to form into something physical, it might have readily become a shining cape of liquid silver, the emphasized words of her being proud of him becoming the diamond-encrusted, silver metal crown atop his midnight black head.

Had the moment been longer than a moment in passing, Sköll might have thanked her in words, but as she lowered her head to give her younger son an approving nudge, he let out a low woof in appreciation. Deacon saw her off with a quick "Bye Mum!" and, in turn, nudged his brother's leg. The Archer, whose pace only slowed while he turned to look back at the cub, raised a brow. "What?" he asked, simply asking what it was his sibling had wanted. The Lyall was quick to follow through, "Where?"

Sköll returned his attention on where he was going, continuing to lead Deacon through the willows, "I'm taking you back to the den," he explained slowly, his pointy ears returning to their normal positions, "You're not supposed to be out here. You were lucky Mother wasn't mad at all."

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He knew that as soon as those certain words had left his tongue, Deacon was going to make a ruckus. "No den, no den, no den," he rallied. Sköll rolled his eyes. Oh, boy... As his brother cried out, the Archer sighed, turning back to see the cub all forlorn with his shoulders slouched and his head down. Play... he had said. As much as Sköll wanted to frown and grouse and gripe, he didn't as he turned his head and eyes back to the forest in front of him. If he was his mother's son, he was going to set a good example. He already was such a dark and brooding thing, surely, the pack had no room for one more; and, in any case, he wanted to be the only whatever-he-was in the family.

"Oh, Deacon, stop," he drawled, picking up the pace. "Come on, keep up. Maybe -" he tossed a glance over his shoulder again to look at the little punk, "-maybe if you're good, we can stay out for a little bit and I can show you a little something Dad taught me." In his head a mental list of what they could do began to compile itself, complete with an associated image. Judging and considering Deacon's age and what knowledge or lessons he could possibly soak up without hesitation, he wondered how the boy would take to the topic of plants.

"We can help Mom and Dad gather some things," he mused, hoping his baby brother would not continue on with his possibly tantrum-driven sentences. "If I don't take you to the den, we can do that. We'll make it a game..."

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"Mmhmm," he replied when Deacon seemed to question the idea of what game they would play. "But you have to play by the rules and I'll tell them to you as we keep walking. All right?" In all actuality, while he had thought to put the cub to work by stripping a few willows of their bark, Sköll figured out a better way to get his baby brother back towards the den. Every so often he kept looking around, sampling the air for a whiff of anything that would cue him in to whether he was close to a nearby cache or not. He would find one eventually, in-between keeping an eye on Deacon and minding where he was on a mental representation of the territory map in his mind. They had to be getting close, but whether or not the young Lyall was going to call him out on really leading him on some sort of "long way around," he had yet to see.

Eventually the Archer came to a stop on his invisible trail and began to dig at the base of what seemed like an ordinary willow tree. What he unearthed was neither appetizing nor pretty to look at, but the scruffy rabbit that had been cached away did have some sort of value as a possible plaything. He placed the rabbit at the cub's paws. "Here, sniff this," he instructed. "Look at it, taste it, bite it a bit if ya want... But I want you to memorize everything about it." A small smile played along his ivory-touched muzzle. "Because in this game, I'm going to hide it in a really, really good place and it's going to be your mission to find it. How's that for a game?"

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