Mercy looked up when he heard a familiar voice, and with little surprise, he nodded solemnly. There was Crowe, and just as he'd expected, the large male's weight was hardly enough to make the ice so much as creak. Mercy wasn't best pleased to hear this news, but he'd already figured out as much- fishing wouldn't be an option until the spring thaw came, and while it felt as though the winter had already stretched on forever, it didn't feel as though it was going to end anytime soon, either.

He groaned softly when Crowe mentioned hunger. After the journey, they'd all been low on calories, and even the hunt, which had fed them and restored some of their strength, had not stopped the continuously empty feeling Mercy felt. "I feel hollow," He said, though he knew complaining was useless- everyone felt the same way. None of them were fit and fat, so it was a burden they all shared. Still, it made Mercy feel better to complain, even if it was useless.

Crowe reassured him about survival, something which made Mercy feel a little unsettled. He didn't like having to be told that he'd live- he liked to think it was simply assumed by all that he and the other pups would survive the winter. "Starving's not an option." He said with a grim sort of stubbornness, before he cracked half of a grin. "There's lots of meat on your bones. Worse come to worse, I'll just eat you." It was just a friendly tease, after which he padded calmly toward his friend and bumped his nose to Crowe's shoulder.

Though he was hungry and upset by the fact that there was no food, he still felt playful when he was around Crowe. The winter had not yet taken the light out of his spirit and rather than become too morose and glum, he felt himself lose a bit of his winter woes when he tagged along with Crowe, following along his trail like a love-struck pup. He grinned and waved his tail from side to side when Crowe mentioned becoming a curse to him, should he ever become a meal, and out of instinct he bared his teeth and flicked his tongue over them, somewhat disgusted by the idea of having hair stuck in his teeth forever. "Yeah, well if you eat me, I'll be a never-ending bellyache!" He retorted with a laugh, neatly sidestepping to avoid Crowe's snap and clicked his teeth in the air in retaliation.

Mercy was completely ready to continue with teasing and a bit of scuffling, but as soon as he made the decision to try and grapple Crowe to the ground despite his past failures, he noticed the change in Crowe's demeanour. The trickster's grin disappeared from Mercy's face and was replaced with an empty one, one that turned into a look of disgust and disbelief. Why was Crowe talking about these things? "Of course I will be," He said, in disbelief. Why did Crowe even need to tell him that? Oddly it didn't even occur to him that he'd been training more as a hunter than a guardian- as soon as Crowe mentioned him being a guardian, he accepted it. "But that'll be like...Years from now when you're all old and frail and...Well, at least you won't go grey!" He said. He couldn't take Crowe's warning serious- he didn't want to, and he was too young to know how unpredictable life could be. He laughed, and nosed the ground, still trying to find something to eat.

Some day in the future, Mercy would look back and realize that he'd been too young and foolish to take Crowe's words seriously. But in the present moment, he wanted nothing to do with seriousness about topics such as death- he'd never experienced it before, first-hand, and thus could not expect how he would react, or fully grasp the concept. He could see that Karpos had felt loss in a way he never had, but it didn't make it any easier for the boy to understand it. Death was something he kept at a distance, something he ignored and taunted. He would not imagine Crowe dying young, not now, not ever. If and when he died, he would die of natural causes, as a very old man when Mercy was fully prepared to let him go.

Mercy didn't register the last word Crowe said as anything unusual. The boy was used to having no biological parents, though Sagacity was every bit his mother as any other wolf would have been. But as for a father- he'd never known what to expect. He saw Mapplethorpe as a father to Aponi and Nova, but if he was what a father was supposed to be like, then Crowe was a very different sort of father. He took the word naturally and accepted it as a gesture of familiarity. If he could have chosen anyone to be his father, it would have been Crowe, without a doubt- but it didn't mean that Mercy was prepared to call anyone 'father'. He'd never used the word before.

He smiled and skipped aside when Crowe growled and made a move toward him, side-stepping out of the way but using his smaller size and speed to help him snap at one of Crowe's hind legs as he did so. "Unpredictable? I coulda seen that from a mile away," He said. He danced on his nimble paws. "C'mon, you can do better than that," He teased, baring his teeth in a grin.

It would only occur to Mercy later on in his life what Crowe was trying to do, and it would only be some time after that that Mercy would realize that Crowe had done his best to make sure that he hadn't alarmed Mercy when speaking to him about the fickle ways of life and death. Though for Mercy it was all fun and games, the lessons he learned from Crowe were important for his survival; the snowy guardian had taught him how to hunt and had begun teaching him how to fight- skills the growing pup would need as an adult, and especially as a member of the pack. For all wolves needed these skills to survive and contribute to life in a pack.