Blacktail Deer Plateau you ain’t no messiah with your fancy friends

Oh, he heard them through the brush. He knew the difference in step, though he couldn't have told anyone that he knew it was Reyes with Raleska. His company had largely been with the latter in a smattering of occasions and beyond that? Valtari was something of a pale wraith across the plateau and it's fringes, not yet venturing out to see what could be found. Not when there was much to do there, and much to keep an eye on.

So when the pair leapt from the brush in their mockery of an actual ambush, he whirled on them—rather the approaching rogue that was Reyes—and let loose a snarl far more menacing than it was in play. To incite fear, perhaps, to warn out of habit; it was as instinctive as it was reactive. Yet it was in play with tail waving, even as his head swung towards the boy to grapple with him as he grabbed for open flesh.

Valtari soon learned that the boy was mouthy and his teeth sharp.

He would teach him as his father had taught any mouthy child—he applied the same force if not an iota more. If Raleska joined in, then she too would learn if she hadn't already, and he was certain somewhere she most definitely had.