Oak Tree Bend two tickets to Iron Maiden

For @Ayla
October 14th 2017

The Aquilas Don’t Attend Parties Thrown By Outsiders

Aponi was beginning to find that spending time with her children was much more manageable when she did it one one one rather than with the trio. Not that she did not love them all, but three pups was a lot. Especially with Mabel rilling everybody up until there was some kind of argument. Typically it was the two daughters who were nittering back and forth, Corsair just happy to be following and doing whatever the cream coloured girl was doing at least until she took it too far. Sometimes the silver mother wondered where her russet child had gotten her personality from, the temper was hers without a doubt but the fear of breaking rules was certainly not from Aquila blood.

The Donata woman did not mind that Ayla did as she was told with very little prompting, but there was concern that she was not fitting in with her siblings. The rules were in place to keep them safe and Mabel spent more time grounded than enjoying her freedom but some rebellion was to be expected. After thwarting yet another escape attempt from Mabel and a complacent @”Corsair” the mother decided to seek out her third child who had once again been left out from this endeavor.

Settling her rump upon the cool damp ground near the borders Aponi lifted her muzzle to the sky to call for her youngest daughter. Perhaps she would be interested in a totally sanctioned, supervised walk outside their home’s markers.

saw you in the village playin' mandolin

Ayla Donata

Normally, the firey coated girl would be shadowing her sooty brown brother and pale sister but not today. No, Mabel had been mean and Ayla had had enough. She wasn't going to get herself in trouble today, no-sir-ee. She was going to sit by the stream near their home, and watch the fish no longer than one of her toes dart between the stones that lined the bottom of the water, providing them with little patches of sun and shade, much like the trees did here in the open clearning around the Oak tree.

She was leaning in close when her mother called, the sound enough to startle her into jolting her face right into the frigid water. She pulled back with a gasp, a furgitive glance thrown around the vacant clearing before she sheepishly shook her head, oversized ears slapping her cheeks as she did so. Well now she'd have to come up with an excuse as to why her face was soaked but the rest of her body was dry... if her mother decided to ask... but she wouldn't keep her mother waiting for long enough for the water to evaporate from her coat. It wasn't every day she got to hang out with her mother without the other two being loud and mean.

She trundled towards the borders on gangly legs, stopping every now and then to sniff and check she was on the right track. One particularly deep inhale pulled a trickle of water into her nose and she began to sneeze uncontrollably right as she rounded a tree and spotted her mother waiting. She smiled through watery eyes and greeted the leader with a brush of her muzzle under the woman's chin and a wave of her tail. She was here!

@Ayla

The Aquilas Don’t Attend Parties Thrown By Outsiders

As expected Ayla did not keep her mother waiting long, however when she rounded the corner she was sneezing and her face was soaking wet. Aponi did her best to smother the bemused grin that threatened to spread across her muzzle. Her youngest daughter got teased enough by her siblings, the last thing she needed was to think that her own mom made fun of her too. Maybe it really was third time's the charm for the mother, Kyna and her had never been close, Lila and her had been much closer but Aponi had been unsure of every step but now motherhood seemed to come easy. Maybe it was all the practice she had, or maybe it was the support of Serach and the pack but the reason why didn’t much matter.

Ayla went to brush against her chin and the silver queen made quick work of beginning to wash her daughter’s face clean with her salmon tongue. If she spent too much time with her coat soaking wet she would surely get sick before the week was done. Her children were almost as big as she was now, and soon you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between them and the rest of the pack but emotionally and mentally they still had a long way to grow. Sighing as she lapped up a particularly wet area Aponi asked the question the russet girl had been anticipating, ”Oh Ayla, what happened to you?” The answer had better now be that her siblings had pushed her into the stream or they would both be grounded faster than you could say sibling rivalry.

(This post was last modified: Nov 11, 2017, 07:50 PM by Aponi.)

saw you in the village playin' mandolin

Ayla Donata

She sat patiently while her mother groomed the worst of the remaining water from her face. What happened, well, sure it was super embarrassing but she wasn't going to lie to her mother of all people. "I uh, I was watching the fish in the stream and I leaned in too close." There was a sheepish grin on her face, she even managed a laugh at her own foolishness, "But Don't tell Mabel!" Not that she expected her mother to dob her in, but she'd already decided that if she saw either of her siblings she was going to lie.

Ayla tipped her chin up with a serious look, as though this wasn't some great blunder but a deliberate act. "I was just practicing fishing." Never mind the fish were small enough to escape between her teeth. Her tail waved expectantly, waiting to see how her mother would react and to see why she had summoned her here today without the other two.

Ayla sat still and allowed her mother to clean her face and dry off the worst of the cool stream water. The last thing they needed was for one of the pups to catch a cold, and then spread it around to the rest of the pack. There numbers were small and they couldn’t afford to have members down for the count while they battled an illness.

Thankfully, the reason that Ayla was soaking wet had nothing to do with her siblings. The mother tried to smile back reassuringly at her child’s sheepish grin, not wanting to make the embarrassment any worse. Shaking her head she got back to her feet, ”Ah well, fishing isn’t for anybody. I learned a little when I was a yearling but I’ve hardly don’t it since then.” Her and Mercy had learned together and the act still rubbed some old emotions raw. It had nothing to do with the wolf that was now a man in his own right. It had everything to do with the lingering feeling of abandonment.

Clearing her throat in an attempt to ignore the sinking feeling of unease that came with the memories the mother focused somewhere in the distance. She wasn’t sure how to express how she felt or even if she should so instead she stood up. ”What were your plans for the afternoon?” Anything other than focusing on ghosts of the past, and the thoughts that came along with them. If everyone else had disappeared into the night, would Serach do the same?

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

I saw you in the village playing mandolin

Ayla Donata

It came as a surprise that her mother had fished before although she wasn't quite sure why. Surely there were lots of things she had done that Ayla hadn't heard of before? "Yeah... I don't think shoving my head in the water is for me either." She admitted rather readily, a shy smile working its way onto her face as she did so. When her mother asked of her plans, her tail gave a ready wave, "Didn't have any, well, other than trying to catch a fish..." but her tone made it clear that plan was scrapped. "Do you need any help doing leader stuff?" Not that the girl was much of guardian herself but she could walk with her mother and stretch her legs or learn how to keep a proper cache or maybe they would hunt? It seemed that her mother rarely stopped moving, and the girl would be more than content to simply keep her company.

The Aquilas Don’t Attend Parties Thrown By Outsiders

Ayla’s personality never ceased to amaze the mother, amaze and occasionally worry. The other two pups were far more adventurous and likely to push the boundaries and that often meant that the youngest was left in the dust. Aponi knew that she didn’t help herself with her need for approval from her parents and how that often led to ratting out her siblings antics. The silver woman was not sure where her traits had come from, but it reminded her a little of her relationship with Nova.

Just hopefully there would be less violence and disdain. One could only hope.

The shy smile and waving tail was still always a more welcome sight that the eye rolling and pouting that often accompanied Mabel. Standing and ruffling her fur back into place she quickly came up with a plan since she had gone into this interaction without one. Glancing around she smiled, ”Let’s go see if we can catch something, then maybe you can dig your first cache. How does that sound?” Aponi fully expected Ayla to agree, her daughter always did.

I saw you in the village playing mandolin

Ayla Donata

Ayla nodded at her mother's suggestion enthusiastically. She had been quietly practicing chasing small rodents and bugs, though they were speedy and better at hiding than Ayla was at finding so she hadn't had much success yet. The thought of having a hunt, a real actual hunt and then learning how to properly put the meat away so that it didn't spoil was something that would contribute, it was something useful and meaningful. What more could a girl ask for in a lesson?

It was then the frantic bellowing of the young deer caught her attention, ears perking immediately atop her head. It sounded... terrified. Did it overhear their plan? "What's that?"

1/3 hunting display

The Aquilas Don’t Attend Parties Thrown By Outsiders

It was almost as if the world had heard what the mother was offering her daughter and offered it up on a silver platter. They had barely finished agreeing that they were going to have a hunting lesson when the sound of a fawn crying filled the trees. It was clear that it was afraid, and the sound seemed to wander from spot to spot without any kind of response; it was alone. Easy target.

Aponi wasn’t the only one who noticed, her shy conservative daughter was nothing if she wasn’t smart. Smiling in encouragement, ”It’s a fawn, a baby deer. Whenever you hunt you always want to hunt what the easiest target is, this will be good practice.” Her own mother had dragged backa  half dead fawn for her and her sister to chew on when she had been young, and now Ayla could have the same opportunity.

Moving forward the mother got low to the ground as they got close, her belly practically touching the dirt by the time it came into view. It was definitely alone, ”Okay, you want to try and bite the neck, pull it to the ground but stay away from it’s hooves so you don’t get kicked.” Aponi would watch from here, step in if anything went awry.