Broken Timber Pines Didn't know 'bout a world wide web

July 26 2015, Mid-day, Light rain shower, 64F/18C

Bracken is looking for a bug and... @Koda, a ladybug lands on your nose and won't leave! xD

WHUMP!

Bracken threw herself, all four legs out-stretched, at the forest floor. The pup scrabbled frantically for a moment, then froze, staring down at the space between her two clumsy front legs. A dark nose pushed in close as her tail waved whip-like somewhere behind. Her nose was only inches from her paws, thoroughly cross-eyed, as the pup waited for the bug to appear. She must have caught it now!

Five seconds went by (the longest Bracken could bear waiting) and she slowly pulled muddy paws back to check. Nothing! The girl barked in frustration at the ground and scrambled backwards to look where she'd been standing. Nothing again! She barked again and spun to shove her head into every clump of cedar needles to search for her ladybug. In her wild flurry of activity, the young girl completely overlooked the black-speckled insect flying away.

Finally Bracken had to give up. She sat down on the scuffed up mess she'd created and panted. A pink tongue lolled out, crusted with leaves and bits of twigs. With a huff the Reinier girl got back up, looked around her with one last woe-is-me whine and scampered along. She would just have to find it again! There were lots of crawling things inside the Pines, anyone of them would suffice really, but Bracken still held determination for that particular one.

The girl toddled back to the den expectantly. After all, that was where she'd found it earlier and simple puppy logic said it must have returned there.

(This post was last modified: Aug 12, 2015, 12:07 AM by Bracken.)

@Bracken so sorry for the wait, if you want we can push it up to current times x.x

He was resting. Today for the Reinier was a lazy day, perhaps the first he'd had since founding Broken Timber Pines with his wife those many months ago, and boy did it feel good. He stretched wide, extending his long limbs as far as they would go as his salmon hued tongue rolled out with a robust yawn, his eyes having never opened the entire time. Next to him, as far as he knew, were his daughters whom he had finally coaxed into taking a afternoon nap with while their mother went off to get some alone time, it was much needed after all and he figured he could handle both girls without her, what trouble could they possibly cause?

His head shifted on the floor of their den while he struggled to get comfortable, it had been nearly an hour since he'd fallen asleep and he was sure that eventually his daughters would be waking soon with a desire to go outside and explore, and because of this the aging Renier wanted to get in as much sleep as possible. A thick paw was outstretched to search for each warm body as if double checking that they were indeed still sleeping, mentally he counted one when he felt the plush fur of Ember along the front of his paw, but when he could not feel the second warm body, which surely couldn't be too far from her sister, his head shot up in frantic search. His eyes adjusted slowly to the darkness of the den as he glanced toward each nook and crack of the den and still could not find Bracken--lifting himself slowly, as not to wake Ember, he broke past the light of the entrance in hopes that his daughter was playing near the mouth.

He caught sight of Bracken just as she was returning back to the den and a faint frown crossed his black lined lips. He was happy to see that she was not harmed but annoyed that she had ventured off without the slightest indication to either of the slumbering wolves within. "Just where were you going?" he questioned with a tilt of his plush head, a look of displeasure on his face as he studied his darker daughter. This look shortly began  to fade the moment a bug the size of a pebble landed on his nose and flashed wings the color of black and red before his now crossed eyes--it was a ladybug and it easily found a new landing perch away from its persistent chaser. "is this one of your friends Bracken?" he questioned jokingly as thick paws lifted to shoo the pesky bug away.

(This post was last modified: Aug 30, 2015, 04:48 PM by Koda. Edit Reason: added the tag. )

Arla and Emma are the ish and made my pretties!
Koda will most likely always be accompanied by Chiron unless otherwise stated, or requested.

sure! I ended up using the description for the birth den, so we can say it's set right before the move all the pups together into the main den

Where was it? Where was it? The girl was distracted by every likely hiding place, and there were a great many places that a tiny lady bug could hide in. Perhaps the lady bug had stopped on it's way back to the wolves' den? What if it was under that leafy plant right there? It was all the assumption she needed to investigate further. Bracken scooted under the leafy alder and peered upwards. There were lots of bright, green leaves in the way and she indelicately pulled a mouthful away before being sure: The lady bug wasn't here either. She fought her way from the alder, twisting like a fish to free herself the branches, and continued back to her den.

Bracken was determined, holding all the single-mindedness of a puppy to her goal. Hurry! The lady bug was getting away! Tiny paws dashed over a carpet of red-cedar needles, once or twice the girl had to stop and squeeze underneath the great fallen trees. Something buzzed at her face and she impulsively brushed it away. The insect made one more pass. Bracken merely sneezed and turned to give it a brief, dirty look. She froze in shock, paw raised to swat it away before realizing. It was her lady bug!

Just as soon as she made that discovery, it was buzzing away. She raced after it, pelting back to the den where she'd left her sleeping father and sister. Frantically, wildly she pushed her body under the salmonberry that sheltered the small den. By the time she popped back up on the other side it was gone again. She spun at her father's voice, tail lifting to sway happily and ears folding back in apology. "Was coming back here!" Was the piped up reply as she pranced over to him. "I was followin' a bug..." Her gaze hopefully scanned the ground before lifting to her father, confused by what he'd said. "You foun' it!"

There, perched right on Koda's nose, was her bug! She inched closer, now sitting nearly directly on his front feet and craned her neck to stare at the tiny thing. "Daddy..." Clearly she wanted the lady bug. Whether it wanted to go back to the pup or whether Bracken could keep it was anybody's guess.

(This post was last modified: Oct 06, 2015, 06:10 AM by Bracken. Edit Reason: changed the table! )

@Bracken !

It wasn't every day the pale leader admitted to having a ladybug perch itself so comfortably on the bridge of his nose in hopes of escaping the frantic chase of his budding daughter, but this bug seemed determined to flee, most likely in fear of its safety but it landed on the least likely of spots--his nose did not conceal it well. He stepped backward slow, fearing the bug would flutter away with the fast movements of his daughter but luck was on their side and it seemed content on crawling up the length of his nose, he fought the urge to cringe at the feeling of a bug crawling on his face and watched as his daughter made her way slowly toward him. She was excited to see that he had found it, whispering in surprise as she neared him slowly. "Shhh, it's watching you, and anticipating your next move." he whispered in response as he cautiously lowered his nose to the ground, hoping the bug would not be any the wiser to what he indeed to do.

The bug stood still as though sensing the move and he grew ever more still, his eyes crossing every so often to be sure that the bug had not flown away before his daughter could capture it. Without missing a beat he lifted his large paw toward his face and pushed the bug off slow and careful as not to scare it. Surprisingly the bug had no intention of flying away and he wondered if in the process of fleeing Bracken the poor creature had injured its wings, he could not be sure from this position and watched as it fell to the ground and landed squarely on its back--it was probably too injured now to flee. "Look, I think its injured itself while flying...." he started, inching closer to the bug, so close that his nose was nearly touching it, and whispered to Bracken, "see if you can turn it right side up without injuring it any more, Bracken." he advised his daughter, waiting to see if she could successfully flip the bug over without squishing it.

(This post was last modified: Sep 29, 2015, 01:06 PM by Koda.)

Arla and Emma are the ish and made my pretties!
Koda will most likely always be accompanied by Chiron unless otherwise stated, or requested.

She was torn between giggling hysterically and frowning in concentration. How funny that it landed on daddy's nose and so strange that it had never landed on her nose despite the many hours spent chasing it. Very peculiar, indeed! Her eyes went wide at her father's words. It was watching her?! Bracken crept all the closer, determined to beat the ladybug at its own game. As Koda lowered it closer to the ground, Bracken pushed her face in closer.

Bracken watched from a distance of mere inches as Koda gently pushed it from his nose and onto the ground. It was too much for her to stay still as it finally fell from his nose. It was free! It might get away!! She bounced a tight circle around, ears perked and tail whipping wildly. When Koda instructed her to "look" she did so, copying her father and touching her nose to the ladybug on its opposite side. She was even further excited to learn it was injured. Now it couldn't get away. Not-very-gently, Bracken gave it a nudge with her nose. Tiny legs waved in the air and she delicately hovered a paw over it, torn between wanting to smoosh it and not wanting to touch those waving insect legs.

"Why?" She wanted to know. "What're we gonna do after that?" Bracken had a very unpleasant fate planned for the bug and she was hoping her father wasn't planning on... taking it away and trying to heal it or something bizarre like that. Right? She gazed up with a perturbed expression and slowly lowered her paw to push it right side up.

She wasn't particularly coordinated and it was dazed and just a little bit flatter than it had started out. Once right side up, it started crawling... away from the wolves. Bracken looked up at her father with equal parts shock and dismay and then scrambled to cut it's escape off.

There is a rabbit\'s nest nearby. +1 Health

@Bracken Sorry I didn't realize you had responded until now >.<

He could sense her excitement, the way she concentrated on her target and the fast movement of her dog-like tail made him smile inwardly, anticipating her next move. He watched in complete silence as the Reinier girl flipped the ladybug onto its legs and watched with fleeting patience as it began to crawl away from its tormenting captures--he'd known his daughter was waiting on the word to go after the bug. His ears perked the moment she had lifted her paw with intention to squish the bug, wondering if she would indeed hurt the bug while it was already injured and judged immediately from her expression that she'd been waiting to capture it from the moment she had laid eyes on it.

No longer wasting time, he nodded his head toward his daughter, giving her the non verbal cue to do as she'd been wanting to do for nearly a half hour now. He had taken this moment to teach his daughter a bit of patience and she had passed this practice with flying colors--what he'd hoped to teach her next would require a bit more skill. With his interest in the bug now fully diminished, he lifted his head to sniff at the delicious smell of rabbit in the wind, it was tantalizing in the fact that rabbits could either be an easy kill or a hard one, and he hoped for his daughters sake this one would be easy. "Do you smell that Bracken?" he asked her, having stepped away from the bug whose life was now completely left in her paws and toward the direction in which the smell was coming. He would allow Bracken the opportunity to seek what he had already sought out for them.

Arla and Emma are the ish and made my pretties!
Koda will most likely always be accompanied by Chiron unless otherwise stated, or requested.

While her dad might've had more important things on his mind, Bracken was completely and thoroughly occupied with her bug. The ladybug was now reduced to merely crawling away, but the wolf pup was not giving it any opportunity. She leapt circles over and around it, scarcely waiting for it to pick a new direction before scrambling to anticipate it. Sometimes it didn't move -either injured or stunned- and she would scurry forward to poke it with her nose. It was no fun if it didn't move - Bracken was easily amused, but also easily bored by one-sided games.

She sat down with a huff as the bug finally ceased all movement. Now what was she going to do? Her gaze rose from the lifeless insect to her father at the question. The game had been very energetic while it lasted and Bracken was still a little out of breath from it. Her panting paused for a moment to sniff noisily, tiny muzzle pointed directly at the sky.

Oh! Surprise made her breath come out in a rush and she dashed over to Koda. She knew that smell! "Those're hoppys!" Arion's name for them came out in a rush with her excitement. "Me and 'Rion found some... but they got away." Now she had a chance to ask the question that had been puzzling her since she'd found them with Arion. "How do you catch 'em when they're so fast?"

His eyes shifted but once toward the bug who's stiffness was the indication he needed to ensure him that the game they had been playing was over; complete concentration was now on the hidden rabbits. As his daughter would learn with age, rabbits were the most convenient meal when big game was scarce but they often required patience and excellent skills if one wanted to catch one without having to waste unnecessary energy. He was not sure if the rabbits they were sensing were close by, but he was confident in knowing that with a bit of tracking they could easily be found. Standing on all fours, the large ashen male stepped over his daughter, the excitement she showed in the opportunity to catch new prey showed on her tiny face and he held back the urge to show her everything he knew in just one day. He knew great hunting took time, lots of time. "Those are called "rabbits" and the trick to catching them, is to really quiet and patient..." 

He didn't quite expect his daughter to get the concept of being still, being a pup gave her energy that she often times did not know how to control, but their previous lesson had given her some of the tools she needed to get the very basics down. What was better was that the young lass didn't quite need her father to help bring down the beast either, considering how it would most likely be about pup size. "lower your nose and sniff the ground, really concentrate on the smell. See if you can figure out just where those rabbits are hiding because I am positive that they are trying their hardest not to be found..." and he waited for the growing girl to head in the direction in which he was sure the smell was coming from.

(This post was last modified: Dec 04, 2015, 11:02 PM by Koda.)

Arla and Emma are the ish and made my pretties!
Koda will most likely always be accompanied by Chiron unless otherwise stated, or requested.

Oh, they were 'rabbits'. Bracken nodded vigorously at the explanation while peering under nearby foliage. The poor bug had been forgotten in a matter of seconds and the object of her energies had shifted. Where were the rabbits? Perhaps if she was just a little bit faster, maybe if she—

Oh, they had to be quiet and patient to catch them. Well... that explained a lot of the pup's earlier failure. Throwing her wild, yapping self at them had been entirely the wrong way to go about it. The girl looked up dolefully at her father and nodded, much more seriously this time. She really did want to catch them, it was just hard when every part of her wanted to GO!-GO!-GO!

She tried to be quiet, and -until she started moving- she was quiet. Little nose going, she looked around the small clearing, narrowing her eyes each time the scent grew fainter. Finally she decided on a direction, a tiny growl starting as her excitement grew. The brushes rustled and caught in her fluffy coat while the girl tried her hardest to ignore it. Once or twice, she glanced back, making sure her dad was right behind. Bracken still wasn't quite sure how "being patient" was going to help her catch something extremely fast.

By luck or by chance, she did get close to the rabbit. She could see the shiver of it's downy fur and the wide eye it rolled in her direction. The rabbit knew the wolf pup was there, but had not yet made a run for it. Bracken looked over her shoulder - eyes wide with excitement- to see what to do next.

(This post was last modified: Jan 15, 2016, 12:01 AM by Bracken.)