Stone Circle skip the sun, stay with the moon

ooc: puppy-sitting time! For precious @Sunny and @Dawn but other puppies are allowed to hop in too! TAGGING FOR VISIBILITY @Grayday Went ahead and did a hunt roll here

It was a crisp and cold morning for krypton, she had lumbered from the warmth of her den to check on the kids today. After the whole situation with Sunny and the intruder, Krypton ad been on high alert for the Day's kids, especially because he couldn't keep an eye on them all the time. She felt sorry that his kids couldn't spend all of their time with him, so she wanted to fill in for him again today. 

As she made her way over to the, she managed to snag two rabbits, surprisingly. One small one, most likely a juvenile and a medium sized one, perhaps a young adult. Holding them within her crocodilian jaws, she trotted towards the two kids' den, hoping that they would at least both be there so she wouldn't have to wrangle them up. She wasn't sure what she would do with them, perhaps today she could just play with them or even nap with them. Whatever they wanted to do (that was safe, of course), she would do with them.

Nikai was tracking a pair of rabbits, he thought, but when Krypton came into view holding the two dead rabbits, he realised suddenly that he must have been following rabbits that were already hunted. He did not let it get him down, however, and just as Krypton pulled up at Day's den, Nikai arrived by her side with a soft smile on his expressive face.

"Hiya," he said, having seen her around but not really having met her before. "Good job on the hunting."

she dropped one bunny, the medium sized one, near the entrance, thinking about hanging around for a bit, though she saw another come by her side. she hadn't exactly met this one in person, but after being smooshed in the cave with eachother during the blizzard, she picked up steady's kids names. keoni she knew mostly because she was with krypton on recruitments of the borders, along with valette's buffalo mission. this one however, she had yet to talk to him one on one. what was his name again? it didn't start with a K like his sister, it was something else. Nick? Nero? No, those didn't sound even close! 

The beast thought for a moment before she finally remembered. Nikai! she smiled at him, setting down the smaller rabbit at his feet.  "Hey to you to, Nikai" she said lightly with a smile as her plume wagged behind her.  "thank you, i'm not as good of a hunter like your mother though, she's the real hunter."  valette truly was a mature wolf and a good friend to krypton. not once did she falter in STM or EH, in terms of her skills and loyalty. it was no wonder she was leading with steady! "Are you hungry? You could have this rabbit, if you'd like, I was going to give it someone anyways," she offered him, nudging it a bit closer to him. she was sure that he could eat meat, valette wouldn't have been able to produce milk due to her lack of being in heat since she was quite young. krypton wondered if valette would have her own with steady or not when her heat came in.

Nikai was surprised she remembered his name, though mostly because he didn't know hers. He thought of asking, but then he didn't want to seem rude and so he ended up not asking. He would remember along the way, at some point, he was sure... He glanced at her when she complimented Valette and smiled, though didn't know a response right away. He didn't want to reflect badly on Valette by giving the woman another compliment, but neither did he want to seem like he agreed. He had never even contemplated measuring how well wolves were at hunting. So he just smiled.

She offered him the rabbit, but he shook his head. "Maybe we can put it in the cache together?" he asked thoughtfully, since he had just eaten something before departing from the den. He had been hunting to train himself, not to sate his hunger, and he was pretty sure the rest of the fam didn't need any immediate food either. It was probably best to cache it, if the ground was unfrozen enough someplace to bury it.

His remarks of caching it made the gamma smile at him and nod her head. She was a bit surprised that he didn't jump onto the eating boat (like most children would) but he instead offered to put it away for later. Perhaps, he was a bit different that the rest in the best way possible. He seemed like the puppy that would grow up to be nothing but a gentle wolf, a wolf with a heart of gold and an endless supply of forgiveness. Hopefully, that would be the case with Nikai-- Krypton hoped he wouldn't turn into a bad apple.

"Sounds good to me! I think we have a cache nearby," She said to him as she picked up the rabbit gently and peered around a bit. With a soft walk pace, she headed off with the rabbit and turned around to make sure he was going to follow her. She didn't want to lose him in the snow and all.

Nikai waited for Krypton to lead and stayed close behind. When she looked around he said with a grin, "Don't worry, 'm not that hard to lose in the snow." He was always found first when the pups played hide-and-seek, and it always took him a lot longer to find his sister Keoni when he was the one looking because she had so many light bits.

"I hope it's not too frozen," he said in manner of small-talk while they walked. Caching was harder in winter, or so he'd gathered — he hadn't helped hunting much before the snow had come — and he was looking forward to warmer weather when the food supplies would rise and be easier to upkeep.

ooc: *wheezes* i'm so sorry for holding this up!

His soft little grin made Krypton chuckle just a bit and return the smile fully. Now, krypton tried to not pick favorites with all the kids of the hollow, but nikai was on the right track of climbing the ladder by earning these polite brownie points. as the two traveled along together, krypton could only nod her head to the boy's small talk. "i would hope so too, but we're strong! we'll be able to open it up with both of us working together." the ground was frigid and cold, yes, but two wolves working on it together would hopefully speed up the process. krypton didn't have sharp nails or anything, but she had her endurance and strength. ripping dirt from the ground shouldn't be too hard for her. besides, working with nikai might give him a job to enjoy, or at least, give him an idea of how the pack works together. 

she doubted this would be a lesson he would remember, but she hoped it would lead to something dawning on him.

the pair finally reached the cache that was covered in mounds of dirt and snow. krypton inched a bit forward, often testing to see how hard the ground was with scratches of her nails. hard, but not too hard. the she-wolf looked towards nikai and motioned him to come closer.  "i'll get us started, just follow me lead," she told him gently, though guessed he probably knew the fundamentals of digging. with powerful strokes, she began to dig as hard as possible. she slowly made her progress, beginning to make a small crater from her front paws. hopefully they would strike softer dirt soon.

no problem <3

Nikai followed Krypton, and he hoped that they would manage. He'd found digging in winter was hard, but he also had no idea that temperatures would soon rise and that it was already causing the ground to be frozen a little less solidly. It helped to have an adult along who could make the first strikes, too. He sniffed the air to help find the cache, but Krypton found it first.

As Krypton found the nearby cache she started to dig. He watched at first, not sure if he was supposed to follow her lead right away, or just observe for now. After watching her for a bit and the surface was breached, he tried it too, starting to dig alongside her to help make the hole bigger.

he slowly immersed himself into digging alongside her and the two dug for quite some time. it felt forever, perhaps because it was the cold nipping at their noses and making time slow down for the two, but at least she was getting to know nikai better and was getting a nice relationship with him. after what felt like forever, they struck gold after krypton's nails slashed at something other than dirt. fur. her digging slowed down drastically, halted eventually, and then she looked to nikai with her lop-sided grin.

"looks like we found it," she said to him before starting to dig a bit more before stopping once again. she wanted the cache to be a bit deeper when they threw the rabbit into avoid attracting the scent of others. she tossed a gentle look to the boy, motioning to get the kill. "wanna throw it in?" hunting stuff was fun as it was, but getting to throw it in- now that was quite enjoyable for her to do, considering she never really got to do it to begin with.

It seemed to take forever, the digging. He grew warm during the digging, which was good, but his nails were swiftly beginning to hurt from the digging because of the frozen state of the earth. It didn't seem to progress very fast at all. He was glad when Krypton finally stopped digging and when he looked he saw that they had found the cache. Nikai looked to Krypton for further instructions, following and copying her every move as the more experienced of the pair.

His tail wagged when Krypton asked him to throw in the rabbit. "Yeah!" he said excitedly and he picked it up and put it on top of the other food in the cache. Luckily the cache was deep enough so that they could still throw enough earth back over it. Nikai carefully adjusted the rabbit so that it lay on top of the other meat and didn't stick out too much. Then he looked at Krypton for approval before he'd start pushing earth back over it again.

he seemed excited, making the older woman just smile her charmingly crooked smile as she observed him closely. he had adjusted it nicely, making sure that it didn't poke out excessively on the mound of meat. she nodded her head in approval to him before she began to gently push the dirt back in with her paws and muzzle. as soon as they would finish, krypton would lead the duo back to the den before the little boy's mother became too worried. perhaps, on the way there, they could play a game together or maybe even play-fight. she doubted he would do that though, nikai was definately more in tune with a gentle side over a rough and tumble personality. it was good, the world needed wolves like nikai to keep it in check.

seemed like a good place to finish :) thanks for the thread!

Nikai helped push the dirt back after receiving Krypton's approval. Once the cache was filled up again he licked his lips, feeling satisfied. With a patch of dirt on his nose Nikai turned away then and followed Krypton as she lead him back to the den, finding it easy to follow without needing directions. Once at the den he was tired from the work and quick to say goodbye to his new friend and fall asleep.