IC: A light drizzle showered the entirety of the Vale of Secrets, shrouding it in a light mist that seemed heaviest over the falls, where water was thrown up in a wild spray to accompany the rain itself. It leant the Darkwater Rapids territory even more mystique and allure, and kept the wolves that called it home safely hidden from the rest of the world. Their hidden havens was a blessing to them, and to their enemies, a curse. The Attaya children would grow up knowing this secrecy as a normality, and in fact, would become secretive themselves because of it, without ever realizing it.

Already, the eldest of the quartet was light and sure-footed when it came to walking, and part of it had to do with being brought up in a territory that was fabled to be hidden, and feeling the need to keep it a secret. Part of it also had to do with his attempts to become an accomplished hunter — Rowan had caught a hare just the other day, leaving Mace feeling slightly bested but determined to one-up his siblings, so he had been making strong advances in his hunting technique that might otherwise had been unheard of for him — and yet another part was simply due to his being a wolf, and wolves being graceful and quiet creatures.

As he picked his way around a bend in the river, however, he was unconscious to all of this; none of his quietude was on purpose, none of his strides carefully monitored. It had simply come with the territory of getting older and getting bigger, and now was part of who he was. Despite his thicker build (especially compared to his sisters, who were beginning to show some of the slimness of female wolves in particular, rather than the chunkiness that plagued puppies of any gender), he was not clumsy and brutish, although he couldn't be said to be amazingly graceful, either. He moved like a wolf, which was probably better than moving like a bear, even though sometimes his broadening shoulders and chest made him feel like he should've been a bear.

The young prince paused in his meandering along the bank. His nose tilted skyward momentarily, only for his legs to splay slightly so he could shake out his fur. It had only been a few short weeks since Mace had been caught unaware in a thunderstorm, and though he was coming to an age now where he felt he needed to start being independent — although he was very much still a mama's boy, he just boasted more so as to sound less like it — he was still worried about the rain. He was still worried the sky would darken on him and he would be lost again, and he was equally worried that this time, Maksim would leave him out there.

However, the sky was only a light shade of grey, and the rain had been nothing but an on-and-off sprinkle all day, so despite his anxiety, he had come out to trace the river anyway, secretly pretending he was Kade patrolling the territory even though he didn't yet know too much about actually doing it properly.