Willow Ridge the flutterby conundrum

The wolf was a simple creature.

In the short span of her life so far, Isolde had made immense strides in her study of life; her family were her favorite subjects. This home of theirs was something called claimed and they patrolled it every day. Each day the members of the pack controlled the cache, which was where they put the food that mom ate. She used to turn it into milk but these days she turned it into different food that suited her new teeth better. They worked during the day and slept, preferably in dens, at night. The wolf was not so hard to figure out.

For some time she had believed Morganna and Greer were simply born of that size and that herself and Ravenna and Niles would be ankle height forever, but then one day she stood up and headed toward the mouth of the den and bumped her head on a low hang that she had always been able to clear before. Surmising that she had grown, she moved on from an amateur to a true scientist.

What she had been studying for several mornings now was a winged thing - a bug, she'd been told. Specifically, a flutterby - one that came around the den a few hours after she woke each day. It had beautiful wings in shades of the sunset, bright orange and soft red and even a little yellow from the right angle. It was veined in black and spotted in white, and most amazing of all was that it walked in the air. This was called flight, and was something Isolde had been informed was not possible to achieve for a wolf (she'd see about that, of course). It went wherever it pleased, as high as it could go, stopping on flowers and trees and even rocks sometimes. But every time the youngest Lyall followed a little too close to its trail, the flutterby would run away into the sky and completely disappear from sight. This frustrated the budding scientist; not only could she not determine where the flutterby came from, she couldn't figure out where it went. Did it sleep in a den at night? Where was its mother? Why didn't it understand her when she spoke to it?

Invaluable data, simply unobtained. Today would be different, she decided as she crawled forward from the den (minding to lower her head at the bump spot). Soon her subject would appear. Nose twitching and ears alert, she poised herself at the mouth of the den in wait.

Leaving his sisters in the den was not a common occurrence but today was exception. While Ravenna and Isolde had been left to their own devices, Niles had taken free reign over what could possibly be considered "within bounds" because of something similar to what Isolde was currently focused on finding. Her brother, however, did not remain concentrated on the colorful insect he had seen and instead grew intent on finding the "hopper" his father had scared off the last time he had snuck out of the den. When he returned to come into view of the den entrance, his tail wriggled and he grinned as wide as he could with the small frog in his mouth. Obviously, he had been successful in his feat, but wanting to call to his sister's attention allowed for some space for the frog to wrestle free of the prince's set of sharp white teeth. Gone now were his infantile set of milk teeth, all replaced with the adult teeth he would use for the rest of his life.

Issi! Issi, look! he yipped in excitement without so much as articulating his statement with actual spoken words. His tongue stuck out of his mouth and he poked the amphibian with a paw as to prompt it into leaping to where his sibling laid in wait. He followed after it. One hop, two steps, another hop and another two steps... Once it had come to a stop some distance between the two cubs, it eyed them both before letting out a croak in what could have been something like an unintelligible warning.

Niles lowered into something of a play bow so he could see the creature eye to eye before looking up to his sister, wondering if Isolde would approve. I gets for you, a chuffed in what could have been implied pride. A singular note followed as he came to lay flat on the ground, You like?

we can say goodbye, just head home, but if we're going to be alone
Chimera is currently traveling with Niles and may hop into this IC thread!

The excitable yips for her attention were addressed immediately, a contagion that piqued her curiosity and put a wiggle in her still-short tail before she even made eye contact with Niles. Flutterby forgotten (momentarily at least) her gaze trailed from his stuck-out tongue to his outstretched paw which directed her attention to a --

Her earth-toned brow furrowed in confusion. It was certainly not a bug - no shiny shell - but it was entirely hairless and green like a leaf! The naked blob rose toward her and she rocked back on her hindquarters with an instinctual retort. When it landed with a non-threatening plop she leaned toward it, casting a curious glance between this green thing and her brother. The closer Niles drove the odd creature the wider the grin on Isolde's maw grew, until it was equidistant between them and the 'chase' discontinued.

Then it spoke! Of all the things she'd seen she had never heard another being speak - and boy was that an ugly bark. The girl met her brother's eager eyes and beamed at him in response. Yes, she liked it - whatever it was. "He's weeeird," she crooned at the frog. "Good weird." Her face contorted into a moment of positive perplexity, questions already turning in her head. "Who is it, Ni?"

The who continued to stare at the pair, each eye wide and unblinking and focused on a different pup. It croaked again an indiscriminate alarm. This time Isolde called on the most guttural of utterances in her puppy pipsqueak of a voice and echoed his sentiment with a proud, "Rrroak!"

She turned a cheeky smile onto Niles then, and wondered if she could master 10 languages before her first birthday.

Still remaining in his play bow, his tail waved about in the air. Sure, his vocabulary had grown considerably since he and his sisters had left the den, but he had yet to fully utilize that boundless sense of confidence had naturally had when it came to actually articulating words. The girl brought forth a good question, one that made his little whiskered brows rise up on his forehead, "Who is it, Ni?" He hummed in amusement before Isolde croaked back at the frog. It didn't seem to mind, though it did turn about to look at all the open space as if it were considering just how fast it would have to be in order to get away from the two cubs.

"Iss.." this could have been her name or the beginning of the question. In Niles' mind, however, it was both. He brought himself up into a proper sitting position, staring down at the amphibian again with a grin. "Issa fawg." He made a face, knowing that he had said all of that wrong, and immediately withdrew his tongue back into his mouth, grinding his molars together in disgust of himself. At the end of his muzzle, his nostrils quivered and he cast a curious gaze at his sister, wondering if she would understand him if he tried to actually speak.

"Haw-per," he was able to enunciate, his ears perking up so that they stood up straight in both surprise and delight. Then, supposing that another go might not hurt, he tried again, "Hopper... for Issi." It might not have answered Isolde's question of who it was, but it certainly answered what.

The butterfly that the little princess had initially been spellbound by still lingered in the air, forgotten about until the frog had leapt forward in pursuit of it despite it being well into the air. Little did the little Lyalls know that hoppers ate things like those. Niles stood up, clearly startled, even if he had seen it at least once before. His head tilted in question as he took a step back. It wasn't as nice as his sibling's inquiry, but he was sure he would get the hang of it eventually the more he practiced. "Whoozit?" To make his question clear, he lifted a right paw to gesture towards the red-and-orange winged thing. "Fly-by?"

we can say goodbye, just head home, but if we're going to be alone
Chimera is currently traveling with Niles and may hop into this IC thread!

"Fawg hopper," she repeated with absolute confidence. Her brother Niles had a natural expertise, one where she trusted his word without hesitation. Isolde was clever as any, but prince brother was truly intelligent. The lapses in his conversational ability had nothing to do with it. They fell upon deaf ears, not filtered but understood on a special level.

But she did notice her brother's frustration, manifested in his scowl, her ears pulling back from the sound of his teeth pressed together. She understood him perfectly (perhaps even in cases where some others could not) for after all, he was her brother. There were the bonds of siblings, the bonds of litter-mates, and then there were the bonds of Isolde and her litter-mates, something she prioritized above all. Her tail gave an encouraging if not spastic wag, leaning toward her brother and air-kissing the space between her and his cheek.

Whozzit? Niles questioned at the monarch flying overhead. Her brain switched course from pupil to teacher, yellowing eyes rolling to the sky where the winged creature stole her attention. A quite smile pulled upon her face for a moment, watching its black-veined wings beat against the wind with a silent grace as it danced in the air. How wonderful to fly.

A blink and the stars in her eyes disappeared. "Almost! Flutterby," Isolde corrected him gently and wrongly, a wide grin expanding to take up nearly her entire face. "Flutterbies's the prettiest bugs. They fly, but they don't bzzzz." This was one of her first scientific discoveries, that not all bugs that fly made a sound like bees or flies.

The fawg hopper, on the other paw, was not interested in Isolde's crash course and began to creep closer to her beloved flutterby. Its' hop had changed into a distinctive four-legged hunting crawl, black eyes glazed with a singular intent. If their ears had been more capable the cubs would have been able to hear a very distant and tiny rumbling beginning in the belly of the frog.

A young deer has been separated from the rest of its herd. Hunt Opportunity

"Fawg hopper," she echoed after him when she had tried the amphibian's name for herself to put it to memory. It made him smile, the way she was able to accept him as he was, regardless if he was quiet or actually up for a small chat (then again, it took a special sort of air that made Niles want to open his mouth, and Isolde naturally had it by simply being his littermate). When asked about the butterfly, she encouraged him. She didn't scold or even correct with a firm tone, she just gave him the proper name. It was not a fly-by but a flutterby. A younger Skoll would have frowned at how many syllables it would take just to pronounce it, but Niles merely took a stab at it. "F'utterby."

He stared at his sister's face after she told him that they didn't buzz, puzzled for a moment, before following her gaze to the colorful creature. She was right to say that it was the prettiest bug; it had easily ensnared to the two cubs just by taking flight. It danced and hovered about in the air for a time, soon flapping unsteadily to land in the grass. It opened its wings to flash both the top and undersides, revealing its strange coloration. On the ground, however, it had also garnered the attention of Niles' hopper. Here, the little Archer-Lyall realized that his creature had stopped... hopping... and it was crawling towards the flutterby?

Niles sat up straight, a paw lifting to direct his siblings' attention to the two lesser animals in their midst. "Wha's doing?" he asked, absolutely certain that she would have the answer. The frog didn't seem to pay the cubs any mind anymore, much too focused on its next meal. The prince watched, his pale-ringed pupils as wide as the full moon. It happened in the blink of an eye. The frog's head angled as if to really look at his target then, all of a sudden, the flutterby's wing was in the frog's mouth!

The boy couldn't believe his eyes; his jaw had dropped and he stared back at Isolde in surprise, torn between whether or not he should pop the fawg on the head for being bad or if he ought to ask her if she knew that was going to happen. By the time he had figured it would be best to give his creature a reprimanding paw on the nose the flutterby's wings were gone. It made his ears fold back and his tail droop down to his heels; he was left standing without much to do but wonder how Isolde, his more delicate and dainty sister, was going to take it all in.

we can say goodbye, just head home, but if we're going to be alone
Chimera is currently traveling with Niles and may hop into this IC thread!

sorry this took me so long! real life is busy/exciting/busy pbttt

Her tail gave a fervent wave as he repeated after her (missing the L sound, but who cared? Language was a fluid concept - something Isolde would probably understand and cherish in like a year) and wriggled an excited hair closer to the flying enigma. Niles' eyes rolled skyward and followed the flutterby as it moved effortlessly through the air, hardly beating its wings like birds and yet it was twice as graceful as any sparrow she'd ever seen. Her chin, tilted nearly perpendicular from the ground, slowly dropped as the flutterby danced and flitted toward the grassy earth beneath the eager cubs' bodies. Its legs, so thin she could hardly see them, perched delicately among the green blades. Grass, which Isolde could practically floss her teeth with, looked massive beside the gentle creature.

Wha's doing? Her bright eyes blinked, head turning just slightly to peer at fawg hopper. Before it had been sat upon the ground, its legs carefully bent against its slippery belly so that it looked more like a blob than an animal. Now, however, its legs were carefully extended, planted firmly in the ground. Its stance seemed somewhat familiar, almost like Morganna... when she was about to descend on a tasty snack... Her jaws narrowly parted to make this revelation known to Niles, and in that millisecond the hopper's own jaws parted and a long, unbelievable tongue popped in and out of its mouth and took with it the beloved flutterby.

Her golden eyes turned rounder than the sun. She was an excellent scientist, a very bright pupil in the discipline of biology, and yet she was still a princess... a princess whose dainty heart had cracked in two at the slaughter of such a magnificent and beautiful creature. Her pale jaws fell open and from her broken heart and belly she emitted a horrible shriek, decibels and decibels of utter desolation. "It EATED it," she wailed. "EATED my flutterby whooleeee!"

It was unlike her to be completely aware of anyone but herself, yet at the moment Isolde was so caught up in her first ever experience with death that she did not consider how her (severe) reaction might affect her beloved brother.

He wondered momentarily why he hadn't actually thought to trust his instincts. He had depended solely on Isolde for the proper way to react and react she did. In a snap decision, his ears and tail had come up and he did what he thought was right by his sister as she wailed and cried what his fawg hopper had done to her lovely flutterby. He raised a paw and practically slapped it down on the frog's head. It was too quick though and what the boy managed to do was plant his paw pads on the amphibian's slimy back and hind legs in a hard smack. There was no doubt in the message that sort of touch conveyed. The prince did not approve of the frog's behavior and, in addition to wanting it to know it had done wrong, he wanted it to hop away as far as it could hop. The more distance it put between itself and Isolde, the better. It meant Niles wouldn't have to subject his sister to a show of his rougher side, but at this point, the boy was not against snatching it up in his mouth and giving it a good shake.

Niles let out an angry growl as his muzzle wrinkled and his lip curled up; it was the loudest he had ever managed and it reverberated not just in his chest and throat but in the air surrounding him. He mindlessly charged after the offensive creature, chasing it away with as much gumption as he could muster up then and there. The thing had upset his sissy! Of course, it was absolutely going to pay for it. A brief chase ensued and when he found himself certain that it would not return, he marched back to Isolde's side with his little puppy brows angled upward in worry. The fur that had bristled about his shoulders and spine had flattened and his tail had lowered into a gentle arch behind him. There were no visible traces on him that translated his body language as terrifyingly angry or hostile.

That would be the last time he invited one of those back to the den. Ever. No one was allowed to make Ravenna or Isolde cry.

"I surry, Issi," he whimpered, his tail wriggling in atonement. He practically head-butted her in the gentlest of ways, pressing his forehead to her shoulder as a means of comfort. Being two months "young" (on top of having a bit of a speech delay) had Niles realizing that he knew very little about the world. There was no way for him - or even his sisters - to realize that frogs ate butterflies just as wolves ate rabbits. A whine lifted from him as he lowered his head and buried his face into the hollow under her arm. "I getchoo 'nother one," he offered.

we can say goodbye, just head home, but if we're going to be alone
Chimera is currently traveling with Niles and may hop into this IC thread!

Through her wolfish tears Isolde could see her brother transform, from gift-toter to gift-smiter. She witnessed his mighty wrath, hammer of justice descending upon the little green thing that had caused her so much pain. Her sobs turned to sniffles, watery eyes observing his solution. The voice he used to speak to her was certainly not the same voice that produced the thunderstorm in his chest, a growl that vibrated in her paws. As though powered by the sound she watched him take off with righteous abandon, her bottom raising off the floor to try and peer at his disappearing form as long as she could. Niles sure moved fast, she wondered with one last dramatic sniff. Why had they never raced before?

Too young to understand the brutality of Niles' protective instinct, she accepted the interaction as simple fact: Niles made the bad go away, which made her happy. Comforted by his swift action, the baby Lyall lifted her pout and accepted her brother's affections, giving a gentle squeeze of her shoulder to armpit-hug her brother - which was a genuine display of familial love, despite the armpit thing. A grateful smile stretched wide across her pale muzzle, quick to reassure his apology. "Issokay, Ni," she whined, "We can find 'nother one together."

But the question remained within her still-forming brain, which slowly drained her smile. "But why it do that?" She enunciated the verb with both her voice and body, flopping her tubby puppy tummy to the ground, truly perplexed at her first glimpse of nature's cruel law. "Isn't it s'posed to eat the rabbits and the deers?" It made sense, since those were frequently on the menu at Chez Archer Lyall. "Do we eat flutterby?" The horror! That they might munch on something so pretty and unique that she so enjoyed to observe. Eyes wide with curiosity she sought her brother's gaze, but more specifically, his influence.