Willow Ridge catch me if you can

July 9th; Mid-Afternoon; Partly Cloudy; 78 ° F, 25 ° C

Niles was supposed to be napping again. Well... to his credit, he did sleep for a whole, whopping twenty minutes before those mousy brown ears perked up and a pale blue eye fluttered open. Something was clucking outside, calling to him. This time, without much hesitance, he tiptoed from the innermost reaches of the Infirmary and to the den entrance. There was no one outside but, yet, the sound came again:

Roak, roak, roak-roak-roak!

Something of a growl came from his husky chest and he immediately went looking for the creature. With his nose to the grass and his paws stomping about as quickly as he dared, he scouted around the surrounding area. What he came to find was startling - so startling, perhaps, that he let out a yelp in surprise. His little nose had bumped into something just as wet and it was slimy. It even smelled of yuck and it jumped away when the boy had cried out.

The prince scampered about to run away but came running back to where the wood frog had landed, silent for the time being as it waited for Niles' next move. He let out a high-pitched yip at it and the hopper croaked back. A stumpy paw excitedly reached out to touch its back leg and off it went again.

Again, Niles barked, woofing at it as if to scold it for trying to get away. Tail wagging and tongue lolling out of his mouth, he took two big hops of his own to catch up. It ribbited again, sending the little Lyall into his own chorus of barks and yips, possibly alarming, not just his sisters, but anyone else who happened to be nearby...

At two months old, Angier was ready for the cubs to move into the main den. It wasn't for his convenience, per se, but he often came by that den well before he reached the Infirmary on the days he traversed this particular route. Nap time within Willow Ridge was something most of the pack preferred, or so he liked to believe. It welcomed a certain kind of calm throughout the territory, one in which the pack did not have worry about the cubs - Niles, Ravenna, and Isolde - getting into trouble. And, yet, as he came upon the Infirmary for his usual head-count, to make sure that this brood of three was behaving, there came that specific string of barks.

It could only spell out one thing - excited puppy - and who was that in this trio?

The only boy in the litter, Niles.

The Leader stalked forward, coming upon the boy whose attention was solely focused something he could quite yet see behind those stocky puppy limbs. "Niles!" he barked, knowing full well that he would startle the cub, just like he had a number of times over the past week. "Git back in th' den," he scolded, his hackles rising and his tail lifting in a way that told his son that he was not at all pleased or impressed.

His pale gold eyes locked on the boy, wondering if he would even move. Compared to his older brothers, Niles was a challenge of his own; and, frankly, it was terrible of Angier to expect anything else and hold him to the "molds" his brothers had left in place. In all actuality, though, Niles was the problem child now. He was the new "baby," the youngest Archer-Lyall boy and he was prone to getting away with everything. He was twice as adventurous as Asriel, more calculating than Skoll, a little bolder than Deacon, a little less timid than Castiel but much more certain of himself, and just as delayed in speech as Greer, which made communicating with the toddler a little harder than usual.

As a last resort, he scowled, waiting for the little masked boy to make a choice. He could continually disobey or he could do as he was told... Either way, he was sure @Elettra was going to hear about it, just as she had several times before.

"Niles!"

The sudden boom that was his name in his father's angered tone had indeed given the cub quite a scare, but Niles, despite jumping into the air and spinning about to face the Leader, growled in reply. Not in defiance (not yet, anyway) but rather in that all too familiar and stubborn sort of way that was characteristic of his uncle Borden and his cousin Xetor. If the bark that came at the end of the alto-pitched growl could have been formed into any word, it might have been a brazen, "WHUT?!"

Angier did not hesitate to relay further instructions, "Git back in th' den." It was an order and it made the little Lyall stumble back with a snort. On his behalf, this was a dare, even in the face of his father's impressive stature. Niles attempted to mimic him, at least, in the sense of play. A crooked grin and a wrinkled nose and a still-wagging tail made nothing about the little prince intimidating at all. One thing was certain, though, and that was the fact that no one could get him to go down for a nap. Not today.

Another little puppy-bark and the boy squared up his own shoulders, wondering if the warning would come again. Dad wasn't scary. Not. At. All...

He stuck his tongue out and took a step backward, startling the frog at his back. It croaked in fear, hopping a few times to get out of the way. It only ensnared Niles' attention and he spun about to chase after it with renewed interested and another set of excited yips.

The frown on his face hardened, unimpressed with his son's feat of trying to one-up him. Maybe in a spar for dominance this might be useful, but facing an adult, this was an act of rebellion. It was disrespectful and uncalled for. A part of him was sure that El wouldn't even stand for this, despite allowing Skoll to act out and do as he pleased. "Niles," the pup's name came again, but it was too late. The prince was already distracted and it was clear now as to why he had been so excited in the first place. He had discovered, for the very first time in his life, a frog. A plain smooth-and-bumpy-skinned amphibian. To any adult wolf, they were nothing special - noisy, bad-tasting, hyperactive, slimy, and mud-colored - but to the littlest Archer-Lyall boy, they were something to make noise about and off he went.

Angier fell into step after his son, watching Niles gambol about after the hopping thing and feeling rather sorry that it had found its way far from the stream and into Niles' reach. "Ah," he faltered, coming forward to raise a paw and touch it over so lightly on the cub's lower back to keep him from bounding off further. "Stop." He wondered if the boy would obey, withdrawing his paw. If he didn't talk much, then that meant he had the capacity and patience to listen a little more, right?

Maybe.

"Out of bounds," he decided, wondering if that would be something a little simpler for him to comprehend. "Sit. Stay?"