Hearthwood River keep your eyes wide

RE: Atropos, a snake slithers across your path. 
Thundery outbreaks in nearby, 69° F, 21° C

More River snakes! All welcome.

The little ghost had her ears perked as her neck craned around the outside of the den's walls. She itched to find the source of the low sound that was coming from, what felt like, everywhere. The outside smelled different today, wild and exciting. The blue skies were gone, and it was a new purple and grey colour that replaced it. It did not give the cub the same sort of free-loving feeling that the sunshine did, but it also did not deter her enough to stay inside with her family. Once she was sure the great sound was not in the near vicinity, partly because she could not fathom something she could not see, the white smudged female darted out of the den. She paused a moment, looking back to the other den opening that had all of the commotion the other day, when her and Bennett had been plucked from the unseen dangers the adults had identified. She decided to head in the other direction, and quickly forgot the past.

Atropos stayed on the easily accessed paths that the adult wolves followed, some of the taller grasses tickling her still-thin puppy fur. The jamboree of blundering sound happened again, giving the girl curious pause again, this time turning her face towards the clouds. Up there? Looking ever upwards, she stumbled slightly, unable to balance effectively without the visual stimulus of the ground. It was not until another noise of ruffling grass nearer to her sounded that she finally broke her concentration of the clouds. A strange slithering and winding tail disappeared into grasses up ahead, almost unseen had the cub not been so close. What was that? Her tail wagged curiously high over her back, ears and eyes pricked forward in concentration. She lowered her nose and body to the ground as she padded slowly after the weird slithering creature where she had seen it disappear into the grass.

For once, it had been Atropos sat restlessly while her black milk-sister lay quietly, breathing softly as if asleep. The girl had been dreaming only moments earlier, but something had interrupted them, planting that seed of awakeness which had slowly taken root until she was fully alert underneath her closed eyelids. There was a strange rumble outside, like the world was vaguely unhappy, and it sounded like she felt when her belly was hungry. Not yet aware that her sibling was contemplating escape, the sound of a small body scampering out of the den immediately snapped up her attention, an eye cracking open to see a thin white tail disappear.

The other eye opened, two accusatory blue lights staring at the spot where Atropos had just vanished. Sensing no other movement inside the den, Bennet could quickly determine that nobody else had noticed her sister sneak away, nor that her mother or Kyrios had gone either. There was no question or hesitation about what she was going to do. With no warning or farewell to those still oblivious and sleeping, Bennet got to still slightly-unsteady legs and stalked with wobbly determination after her sister.

It was fortunate that Atropos was so starkly coloured, for it made her easier to spot. Quietly and without announcing herself, Bennet followed as her older milk-sibling moved, unconsciously making use of her eyes, ears and nose to keep herself on track even when Atropos dipped out of sight for a moment. When the sky made it hungry rumbles again, Bennet glanced up just like her sister, only her attention fell back down onto her target while Atropos' remained fixed on the grumbling clouds. It was a good thing she did, too, otherwise Bennet might have missed the slip of movement which caught her sister's attention only moments later, the sight of it familiar and exciting, sending a strange, rolling feeling from her nose down her spine to the tip of her tail, which wagged in absent-minded pleasure.

As Atropos trotted after it, so did Bennet, who finally broke her silence by calling out to her sister - by means of a low, constant hiss, as if to inform her what it was she was chasing, but more importantly because it felt good.

Bennet is gonna turn into a Parseltongue before she speaks English.

The unfamiliar sound of hissing caused Atropos to stop abruptly and wheel her head around. Had she been caught? Relieved all at once, she saw Bennet’s dark pelt trotting towards her. She furrowed her brow at her sister, weirded out that she had chosen to hiss at her instead of speak, but such was the younger girl’s way. While Atropos wasn’t overly talkative, unlike her jabber-mouth brother, she didn’t think she had heard Ben speak even one word yet. Luckily for the two girls, it was not a difficult task communicating nonetheless. In fact, once she realized that the hiss had been more of a description than a greeting, her face returned to normal.

“Come on, B-b-b-ben!” She stammered – a large part of why she wasn’t a fan of speaking. Sometimes words were just so hard to spit out! Whines and barks and growls were effortless, and they were learning body language more and more every day. Her tail wagged enthusiastically to bait her sister into joining, though she knew that she would come anyway. Her sister was always up for things like this. The hissing sound gave her brief memory of another time with a slithering creature, though the encounter had been so brief before being picked up that she had never gotten much of a good look. What luck that they had a second chance today!
 
She turned back into the grass, disappearing through it so that she didn’t lose sight of her friend. She expected her sister to be following, and did not bother to look back. She crept after it, not realizing the animal had stopped. Only when she had gotten nearly on top of it did it urgently begin slithering away through the grass again. Due to the height of the grass, the sound and slight movement that it gave off was the only indicator for following the hisser. The surprise gave the Stark excitement, and she continued bounding after it, staying hot on its tail without so much of an idea what it would soon be misconstrued as.