Blackfeather Woods Relatively ideal circumstances

Apart from the shadowy wolf and the patchwork wolf that sometimes stopped by to deliver food, no one had come to the glen in a while. The pups were left to their own devices, which was proving to be worse and worse the colder it got. Now the ground was almost permanently blanketed in white, a substance Ramsay had come to ignore, and it brought an unwelcome chill to every night spent huddled with his siblings. Potema was gone now, and though Ramsay didn't miss her, he instinctively knew that they had been abandoned by a figure who was meant to care for them and warm them, and he despised her for that.

He found @Euron quickly enough. The boy hugged the shadows and edges of the woods almost all the time, whereas Ramsay was easily found out in the open, though he was no less cautious for it. He was confident as he strode toward his larger and probably stronger sibling, employing a quieter step than he'd ever used before. The grey-and-white cub was far stealthier than he, but Ramsay was taking cues and learning quickly, and he'd already pieced together the knowledge that being quiet and quick was a good way to get around what few caretakers still showed their faces. There was no one to try to avoid in the glen that day, but the lighter step, though still a lot heavier than Euron's, was becoming second nature to him by now.

"Come," Ramsay said shortly in his babyish cadence, turning suddenly and heading for the gentlest slope the glen had to offer. All of them were steep and littered with dangerous obstacles, but Ramsay knew that wolves came from up there, and he was growing tired of the loneliness of their self-imposed prison. Cicero and Damien were their only recent visitors, but Ramsay knew there were others. He had smelled them, seen them maybe once or twice, then never again. It would be arduous for his small, still young legs, but he was going to break out here and now. At least this time, he was determined to take Euron with him. Next time he would try to take Maegi, but as surely as she had noticed how different and strange looking he was, Ramsay had noticed her twisted foot, and knew that for now she was the least capable of making it to the top.

Euron had his snout shoved into the snow. Some mouse had started a tunnel under there and he smelled it. He would have spent the better part of the day tracking it down had his brother not come along. "Come." The boy lifted his head. "Hmm?" Had Ramsay come by later when Euron was in the midst of his hunt — having developed a fondness for it from his first kills on insects — he may have found Euron was less inclined to follow. But as it were, he was more curious about what his brother was up to than the dribble of mouse urine beneath the snow.

He padded along behind his darker littermate, making a game of trying to place his relatively small paws perfectly in Ramsay's broader, more masculine tracks. It was awkward. Ramsay had a far shorter stride and trying to match it had a notable effect on Euron's usual poise. His steps were not as balanced or smooth. He wavered on occasion and carried himself more stiffly. The discomfort of trying to walk this way quickly ended the game and Euron resumed his natural gait. His eyes lifted from the ground to his brother.

"Soooooo," he hummed. "Goings to where?"

Oblivious to Euron's game and the fact that their gaits differed significantly—his awkward and short where Euron's was fluid, feline and rolling—Ramsay approached the hill and peered up it with a stiff tilt of his short neck. "Ups," he answered vaguely, licking at his dry lips nervously before taking his first monumental step onto the slope.

Slopes were tough for young pups even without balance problems. Ramsay was going to have a tough time of it thanks to his disproportionately long limbs and stumpy body. Nevertheless, even after he tumbled backward several times, the young Melonii kept attempting to climb it, hopeful that his brother would join him in it, though surely Euron would be able to do it with more ease than he. Eventually he managed to gain several feet up the hill, wedging his body at last against a tree trunk and panting toward the top.

"Kay." He answered back and followed along.

He was in no rush. For the first few minutes, Euron was content to sit and watch his brother try to scale the slope. Soft hee hee's accompanied Ramsay's backwards tumbles. In watching his brother, the last born had a head start before he even moved his paws — Ramsay's efforts had showed him the path up. Perhaps there was an easier or quicker route especially given that Euron had a better reach, but taking the time and effort to find one was not needed.

Euron cautiously chose his foot holds as he made his way to Ramsay. Sniffing the rocks and the dirt, and testing the surface with the tips of his toes before he committed. "Oooo," he uttered as he peered down from his ever heightening perch. Even a foot or so had made a difference in what he could see and the boy declared with a furiously beating tail that he rather liked the new perspective. "Up up!" He chirped enthusiastically to Ramsay, keener than ever to reach the top.

As he hastened to his littermate and let his caution lapse momentarily, Euron's paws missed their mark and slipped. The pup dug in his nails and braced, scrabbling for grip and ultimately sparing himself from a fall. Eyes wide and heart drumming, he peered at the drop down for a brief moment, then grinned and let out a triumphant ha!. The near miss only invigorated him more.

He closed the distance, his nose within reach of Ramsay's tail, and held himself back from giving his brother an encouraging shove. There was a delighted glint in his eye as he looked upward, tongue lolling comically.

Euron was smart to stay back and observe, drinking in the results of Ramsay's bull-headed assault on the hill. Someday Ramsay would learn to be observant as well, but in his youth he invariably tackled the world head-on, with little regard for strategy. When the mottled pup finally began to climb, it was in a ponderous and meticulous fashion that differed greatly from Ramsay's persistent forward hurtle. Suffice it to say Ramsay was shocked, given how cautious Euron was, that his brother made better time than he to reach the same point, and thought about it for much longer than it ought to have taken for him to understand why.

Alas, those thoughts flew out of his mind once Euron reached him. He celebrated his sibling's success with a wild shake of his tail and a panting grin. Given his struggle to reach this point and how easily his able-bodied litter mate had outdone him, it wasn't likely that Ramsay was going to make it to the top of the hill today, but the poor thing wasn't aware of his own shortcomings. He charged ahead anyway and only slowed upon reaching a steeper portion of the hill, where he made his first major misstep and twisted to fall on his shoulder. With a loud yelp, the boy careened back down the hill, and his only saving grace was ironically his twisted little figure, which managed to avoid a nearby tree on the way down. Had he been anything more than half a wolf, Ramsay would certainly have snapped his spine against its trunk.

Despite Euron's eagerness to climb higher, he did not hastily follow Ramsay. Instead he continued to hang back and observe his brother before following along in the best path as he had done before. Fortunately for the pup with the queer coat, this meant he was not in harm's way when Ramsay took stumbled and fell back down the bank.

Euron watched with a giggle, unaware, perhaps, of the danger that such a fall posed. Or associating it with the enlivening experience of his own paw slip moments ago. "That is going to down. Not ups." He teased, before flicking his eyes forward and taking a step as if to finish the climb on his own. But he stopped before his paw touched down, hesitated a moment, and then turned and started working down the slope. It was hard to say what stalled Euron in that moment and changed his mind — concern, curiosity, a lingering dependence on his brother, or a combination.

"Rams, I am coming." He said calmly with a wiggling tail. He discovered quickly that the easier path up was not always the easiest path down, but with grace and relatively sure footing on his side, he made his descent look more practiced than it was. Euron padded to his brother.

"Try more up?"

Much like a newborn child was flexible in ways an adult could never dream of, a young wolf pup like Ramsay was plenty flexible enough to manage such a tumble safely, even with his deformity. When he came to a stop in the snow at the bottom of the glen, it was with no major injuries. A scrape of angry red flesh peeked through his coat here and there, mostly on his legs and face where twigs had whipped, but all would heal to invisibility in due time. They stung, but taking after his father before him, Ramsay wasn't so bothered by the pain as he was intrigued by it.

He shook his head and directed his navy gaze up to toward the canopies at the hill's top, and then noticed Euron heading back down the hill. He made it look a lot easier than Ramsay had and did it the correct way, although if it came down to an argument on the matter, Ramsay would claim that he had done it much faster and was therefore better at it. Nevermind the fact that it was an accident, or that it could have resulted in serious harm if he had hit something more solid than twigs and naked bushes. Ramsay liked to think he was the best even when his siblings truly took that honour, and that was that.

He shook his fur as he struggled to his feet once more and awkwardly bobbed his head in answer. Euron seemed optimistic about it so Ramsay would as well. He wasn't really one to give up on a challenge, else he might have just died as a newborn to save himself from dealing with the antagonism he was likely to receive later in life. Not that he was aware of that. "Try more ups," he repeated affirmatively, but as he tackled the hill again, he was measurably more cautious and mindful of where he put his feet, and made it to the tree he'd reached the first time faster.

Rinse and repeat. The boys scaled the slope in much the same fashion as before but with far greater ease and speed. Euron took to serenading them with a soft and harmonious hum while balancing precariously on every boulder and outcropping they passed; intentionally gripping their edge with his toes and leaning forward on them as far as he dared. On the outside looking it, it may appear that the pup was showing off his poise, but that was not the case.

He was looking for something.

Once they reached the tree they had reached before, and he hung back to allow Ramsay the chance to find the rest of the way up, Euron moved to the edge his brother had slipped down previously. He sneaked forward to where part of the slope jutted out a bit. With his toes curled over the earth and stone, he leaned so far forward his rear end started to lift. There, he found what he was looking for — he felt the blood rush and his heart hammer. He felt an odd sensation. It was what he had felt before when he had slipped, only amplified at this greater height.

"Whoa.. ah-hah!" The boy grinned. Still peering over the edge, he addressed his brother. "Rams. Dids you feel... hm." His brows furrowed and his mouth shifted. He had no words to ask what he wanted exactly. He turned back and started making his way up. "Were you liking it? The falling?"

He charged on ahead, intrepid in spite of his recent spill, but he took a leaf from his sibling's book in placing his paws more carefully on toeholds and level surfaces. He proceeded past the tree, reaching nearly to the top of the hill, but stopping himself before reaching it. His short figure was suspended there, and in that moment he decided he wasn't going to go right to the top. Not today.

He was just trying to figure out how to turn himself back around without losing his footing when Euron presented his question. Unable to turn his head to look over his shoulder, the boy struggled to find a means to turn around for a moment, then gave up before replying: "Fun." They were both probably destined to be thrill seekers in their own right, but Ramsay betrayed in the next breath that he wasn't quite in the same league as his brother. "Scary." He didn't realize that Euron was tipped head-first over the precipice, or he might have gave a strangled cry and attempted to save his litter mate without ever realizing that Euron was loving it.

Ramsay was facing the other way, though, and only knew that he was kind of stuck.

In his short life thus far Euron had not truly known fear the way it was meant to be known. To him the words scary and fun were synonymous. The situations that ought to have frightened him instead imbued him with tingling energies and made grins form on his face. He felt fear, but he felt it as a pleasure, as a thing to be sought out and experienced often.

"Oh yes!" He agreed excitedly with his brother. It thrilled him all the more to share what he felt with Ramsay. Only later would the two learn where the similarities ended and the differences began. "We shoulds go to find more scary things." Euron hummed. The upward progress had stopped, leaving room for new thoughts and a bit of boredom to barge in.

He sat on his rump and peered expectantly at Ramsay.

Well, that was an interesting suggestion. Ramsay didn't think enjoyed the sensation quite enough to purposely seek it out as Euron suggested, but he was a bit too young to realize it for what it was. The apprehension he felt was fear's normal effect, whereas Euron felt something entirely different that even the halfling couldn't relate to. He didn't know there was a difference, and assumed his brother was just braver than he.

Not one for being outdone, or at least not one to sit by while others had fun without him, Ramsay nodded and said, "okay." He didn't know where to look for things that were frightening—unbeknownst to him, the entire forest was supposed to classify—so left it to Euron to take the lead.

Feel free to fade here if you like

Ramsay agreed and Euron thumped his tail before he whirled around and bounded down the slope and off, in search of something scary. Like his brother, he did not know where to go looking either, but the two boy went roaming nonetheless.