Draven was bored. All the excitement from his mouse had died away, and his foot was feeling much better now on top of that... but now there wasn't very much new stuff to do. Everybody had gone back to treating him the way they did before - just boring Draven, nobody special, never mind that he was the first one to get a mouse - a crackerjack among his litter, at least as far as hunting mice went. Phooey.

The darkest Crest prince tried to distract himself from such gloomy thinking by wandering around the territory. Maybe he would find another mouse to bring back to the den. Now that he knew how to catch them, maybe he could even bring a whole bunch of mice home. Nobody would forget that so quickly!

He stopped and lifted his nose to sniff at the air. Smelling one would be a lot easier than looking and listening for one - not that looking and listening hadn't worked before. But there wasn't a whole lot of wind blowing right now, and when he did finally get a little breeze he didn't smell any mouse, just a lot of birds and trees and... Ari? He sniffed again, then put his nose down and sniffed at the ground instead. Yep, that was Ari all right. How come she wasn't with Kino or Gent?

Well, at least if he caught up to her, he wouldn't be bored anymore. She was good at coming up with adventures and ideas for new games. Nose still to the ground, Draven followed her scent as best as he could (and felt really proud of it, too, because how many other pups could follow scent trails?) But he screeched to a halt when he realized her scent went over the borders - right where Mom and Gent and Kova and Raela were constantly telling them they weren't ever allowed to go! Black ears folded back against Draven's head for a moment; should he go tell somebody? Ari might get in a lot of trouble out there by herself... but then, if Draven left, he would be leaving her all alone anyway. What if something happened while he was telling on her?

The black pup danced around in place, whimpering softly as he tried to decide what to do. He could get in trouble for leaving her alone out there and not trying to get her back, and he didn't want her to get hurt at all, and who knew what might be out there?

With an aggravated yip, Draven jumped over the border and pelted after his sister, still following her scent. It was stronger now, easier to follow without having to put his head down. The sound of something chattering made him hesitate, but Ari's answering bark made him double his speed. He arrived just in time to see a... something disappear into a hole in the ground, Ari close behind.

“Whatcha find?” Draven asked, skidding to a stop a little ways away from Ari. Forget getting in trouble - Ari found something new!

Draven's tail wagged a little as he stepped up to the burrow and leaned his head closer to the entrance. So Ari didn't know what it was, either? On one hand, at least that meant he wasn't a step behind her... but on the other hand, now how were they supposed to know how to catch it or play with it? Draven knew squirrels were good for chasing, and mice for pouncing, and lizards for chasing and pouncing, but what in the world were these big fluffy things good for?

“It looked kinda like a big, fat squirrel,” the dark pup supplied, sitting back with a plop and looking at the burrow thoughtfully. “Except squirrels usually run up into trees, not down into holes in the ground. D'you think we should try to dig it up?” He had done that once before with @Gent, except that time it had been in pursuit of a tiny mouse. Draven decided not to bring that part up - both of his siblings had started getting really grouchy the more he mentioned mice in general, and he was pretty sure it was because he kept bringing up his mouse. He was having too much fun to get into another argument about it with his sister, though.

Draven gingerly reached out with one paw and poked at the mouth of the whistle-pig's burrow - and then swiftly pulled back again, half expecting the creature to come charging out and latch onto his foot like his mouse had. This thing had looked a lot bigger than a mouse, which probably meant its mouth was also a lot bigger. Draven was happy keeping all four of his feet attached to him - and if he really had to lose one, he'd prefer for it to be in battle against something a little scarier than a fat fluff!

Draven dug eagerly beside his sister, his black snout lowered as close to their churning paws as he could make it go without getting bopped by a stray kick or buried under a pawful of flying dirt. This fat fluff was buried deeper than the mouse had been, and it felt like its tunnel was wider, too. Gent and Minka were gonna be so impressed if he and Ari brought this thing back for food!

It didn't take very long after they started digging for them to finally spot the fluff again, although Ari's crowing made Draven's ear ring a little bit. He shook his head to make the ringing go away and said, “Why don't you poke it? It's your fluff-thing!”

Despite his protest, the pup reached in with his good paw - the one that hadn't gotten bitten by the mouse - and gave the fluff a poke on its fuzzy butt, not hard, but hard enough that it squished the whole fluff forward a little bit. This was a very, very bad mistake to make.

Draven yelped as the whistle-pig whipped around and snapped at his paw; thankfully those big teeth missed his foot, and Draven fell over and away from the dug-up burrow without losing any skin or fur - but here came the fluff, barrelling out after him with an angry squeal!

The pup yelped again and jumped away, again only narrowly avoiding being slammed into by the fluffy ball of rage - except now it was between him and Ari! “Ari, run!”