Sex: MaleEven though it had only been a few days since @Rose had gone back home, Draven was already beginning to feel bored and lonely again. Calanthe had managed to tempt him out of the territory again once or twice since then, it just didn't feel the same without his new secret friend from Secret Woodlands along to play and explore with him. Cal was really nice, and so was @Raela when she was around to play or talk to, but they weren't his age. They were bigger and older than him, and more often than not they were both busy when he was most eager to play. This was exactly why he needed people his own age to play with. Rose wouldn't have been too busy to play! But Rose wasn't here, so Draven found himself wandering around the territory, bored out of his mind again. Without Cal or Raela around to escort him beyond the borders again, and with nobody else registering in the boy's mind as a possible substitute for the two women, there wasn't a whole lot he could do about his situation. Until he was bigger - or until Gent lifted the ban completely - he was just gonna have to get used to being stuck in boring old Round Stone Crest. I know a place where no one cries, he thought, remembering the Bend with a sigh. And I can't even go there right now because it's outside of the stinking territory. Which, if he was completely honest about how he felt, stank worse than a pile of fox poop. The former prince sighed and kicked at an innocuous little crab apple in front of him, sending it skittering away through the undergrowth. Briefly he considered trying to find a mouse or maybe a squirrel to try to hunt, but decided against it with a huff. Those would be too small to be worth taking to the caches Cal had showed him, but he also wasn't hungry at all, not even enough to be able to eat a little mouse. He didn't think he would ever be bored enough to kill something he didn't plan on eating... unless that something was a bug. Like a spider. Or a beetle. Or those nasty little centipedes Cal kept pretending not to see. So... what to do, then? Draven thought hard for several moments, but eventually flopped onto his side with a defeated groan. All the really fun stuff he would have liked to do required at least another wolf to be around to help him with it. He couldn't play tag by himself, or explore by himself, or play hide-and-go-seek by himself. And he was way too old for imaginary friends - five whole months was a big age! He couldn't go around chasing pretend wolves or battling enemies that weren't there! That was just dumb! And it was also yet another thing Draven couldn't do to entertain himself. The darkling boy groaned again and rolled onto his back, curling his forelimbs close to his chest as he stared accusingly up at the trees and the sky beyond them. Maybe if he laid here long enough, somebody would find him and want to do stuff. Or maybe a raven or three would come along and want to play with him; he'd seen other wolves chase the obstreperous birds around occasionally. It looked like fun - fun he could be having. |
After having spent the sunrise visiting with @Cessair atop her favored hill, as the king had done every morning since the pack meeting upon the mesa, Gent had transitioned directly into his patrol. It was known throughout the territory as another fact of life that if one was looking for the leviathan shade, they would most likely find him at work near the outer perimeter, constantly securing the borders and with them the safety of those who resided within. His interactions with the subordinates under him were not hindered by this. Often he would cross paths with them as he went about his business and them their own, fixing the work to be quite perfectly suited toward his needs. It offered routine, a normality that overrode the barricade of grief to connect the time before Minka's passing with the present in which she was so terribly absent, as well as being a clear progress toward being useful to the pack despite what they individually might think of him and building upon the future that he was so determined would be bright. Along the way, each little interaction, was shallow enough to keep him in the loop without exposing anything too raw from either party. They could smile and act as though they were both just fine, and whether this was true or not was completely irrelevant.
It didn't matter who it was that crossed his radar, either. He was not selective in who he did and did not approach, regardless of how the other might feel about him, and so as Draven's scent wafted by, the king did not think twice as he swerved away from his course and followed the trail. When he found the boy, it was clear to see that his pup was being plagued by boredom. The recognition prompted him to swiftly begin to think of ways to remedy this, and could only think of offering the one thing not allowed to the children just yet.
"Hey Drave," he greeted with a wag of his tail. "Wanna go check out the western timbers with me?"
Still on his back, Draven greeted the sound of Gent's approach by tilting his head all the way back until he was looking at the king upside-down. The polite thing to do would have been to actually get up and give the other male a proper greeting, but Draven was too bored to bother with good manners and still too unsure how he felt about Gent to really care if the man didn't appreciate him staying down. Besides, laying belly-up worked just as well as keeping his head down, right? Gent could deal with it. His suggestion was pretty tempting, though, even in spite of the fact that it came with the stipulation that Draven would end up spending all that time with Gent. Figuring an uncomfortable few hours with the larger man was the lesser evil compared to continuing to be ridiculously bored, Draven rolled back onto his belly, scrambled to his feet, and gave his pelt a quick shake before using his tongue to smooth down the increasingly noticeable boof of silver fur on his chest. "I guess that sounds like fun," he said when he was done straightening himself out. "Are you sure you don't have any more patrolling to do, though? I don't want everybody else having to work more because we're gone," he added, and the sentiment was genuine. Minka's burial had left a deep scar in the boy's heart; he really didn't want to make anybody else think he was being selfish again. He didn't want to be selfish again, and right now he still wasn't entirely sure what the line was with the majority of his pack mates. |
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His question seemed odd, and given their relationship of late, Gent took it as the boy attempting to push his adoptive father away. However, he refused to be dissuaded so easily, and maintained his smile along with a few amiable wags of his tail as he trotted forward on coriaceous paw pads, passing the boy to lead the way outside of the pack's domain. The beast paused for a moment to look over his shoulder and toss back a response before continuing on.
"Nah, I can finish my rounds later. This is more important," he had told him.
And truly, it was. They had enough bodies now to keep the land secure, and for the first time in a long time Gent felt comfortable again leaving the territory, rather than nerve wracked that something would go wrong the moment he turned his back. Perhaps Draven did not yet understand this, but the king's duty was not to simply walk in circles all day. Restoring the children back to who they had been before their mother's death was vital to him. Minka may be gone, but their chance for a happy, healthy life was not, and he would not allow them to become lost in their own grief.