Stonewatch Timbers i'm going to be the main event

Bored.

“I’m bored,” the child huffed to herself for about the seventh time, and still neither her littermates nor her older brother appeared. Gent was no where to be seen, and her mother had ventured off earlier in the morning – to do something interesting, no doubt, and without her! Everyone was off, no doubt having a better tie than her and leaving her to the mundane task of patrolling the Round Stone Crest territory. Oh, how quickly that became something else entirely.

Wandering feet soon crossed the borders she was most definitely not {i}supposed to trundle over, and Marianna couldn’t have been more pleased with her decision to cross into the timber forest once more. She’d discovered friends out here before – once she’d found the singing trees! Minka had told her that it was Tokino offering his song, though the child wasn’t entirely convinced, and she had half a mind to visit again – but no, that was boring, that was the same, and she wanted to find something entirely new.

The chunky child crossed deeper into the forest, content with all the new smells and sounds until she stumbled across a small, chubby woodchuck. The animal began to chatter fiercely, standing up on its hind legs. Shocked, Ari’s ears pivoted about her head as she took a single step backwards before her chest puffed and she summoned the mightiest bark she could. While it was certainly not the roar an adult could muster, it seemed to give the rodent a second thought, and the animal turned, zipping for its home. The puppy quickly gave chase with an excited chatter, only halting when the groundhog disappeared into its hole.

“Come back!”

ooc: So I noticed Ari needs some playmates. Draven needs to bond with his siblings. :D

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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!

If @Draven hadn’t said anything, his sister might not have noticed the shadow’s approach at all. Often the youngest in the litter walked so gingerly in comparison to the bear cub, he was more ethereal than @Kino in that regard. Jumping where she stood, the princess whirled around, her stormy grey eyes wide as her thick tail swung behind her slowly. For a moment, she had half a thought to hide her discovery from her brother – after all, he had caught a mouse, and hadn’t let any of them forget it. Marianna had yet to make her own kill, though in truth, it had a lot to do with the fact that she’d yet to really try, more consumed by her overwhelming desire to explore the world beyond the artificial borders put into place by her parents and packmates.

After a moment of gnawing on her bottom lip, the large puppy bobbed her head and turned herself that she might look between her brother and the burrow she’d chased the groundhog into. “I dunno,” Ari admitted after a few moments, her eyes sparkling before she stared back into the shadow. “Never seen nothin’ like it! Was all weird, and fat, and it rans all jiggly!” she babbled excitedly, bobbing her head for a second time before jogging back to the opening of the whistle pig’s burrow.

Sticking her head in, she stared into the darkness for a moment before resurfacing, offering Draven the opportunity to have a look inside as well. “Whatchu think it is?” she wondered aloud, tipping her head to one side.

 

A wild dissertation appears!

Shallow water has trapped several fish in a small pond. Hunt Opportunity

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!

So, exactly how much trouble is this whistlepig about to give our pups? :P

“Well it’s not a squirrel,” Marianna snorted unhappily, ears folding back as her brother started explained things she already knew. If she wanted a lesson, she’d have called for one of the pack adults, or even their middle brother. (She loved @Kino dearly, her adventuring partner in crime, but the silver cub was a bit of a know-it-all himself, especially when it came who could find the coolest adventure.) Besides, if it were just a squirrel, the girl probably would have chased after it already. As it were, the groundhog was at least half her weight – at four months old, she was already nearing eighty pounds – in fact, it would probably take three to weigh as much as the girl.

That being said, it had a much larger set of teeth than anything she’d dare chase before.

When the groundhog did not come charging out at Draven immediately, the princess tipped her head to one side. Her eyes flipped out to the side and she waited with baited breath. Whatever it was, it didn’t seem to be tempted, and the child gave a large whuff of disappointment. How anticlimactic! After several more moments, the ruddy girl gave a bob of her head and began to slink forward, joining her brother at the mouth of the burrow.

“Let’s dig it up,” she agreed, peeking down inside one more time. Maybe the burrow actually went somewhere else? Or maybe it really was still in there – in which case, two wolves were definitely better than one. Bold as she was, Ari was not sure she wanted to engage the weird mammal in a donnybrook all her own. Nodding again, the princess began to dig, wide paws scraping up piles of dirt and flinging it behind the pair eagerly. She was silently as she worked, but the deeper they got, the more she could see – soon a brown swatch of hair appeared. “Drav, look! Poke it!”

 

A wild dissertation appears!

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!”