Moonspear a little something to make me sweeter

Maybe @Jarlio or @Wraen? Or both?! Alya has a game in mind.

Alya had remained largely disinterested in her yonger siblings, thus far. She stopped by often enough to look in on them and drop off meals or toys, but never really stayed to teach or interact. They were just... boring. None of them looked like her, and none of them seemed to be like her, either. But, as Alya grew into self-awareness, she was beginning to realize that such things did not make or break a wolf.

She liked, for instance, Terance and Wraen, though she'd not interacted much with the latter. She heard only good things about them from her sisters, and it didn't hurt that her father seemed fond of them as well. They would never be blood, but they'd become 'family', and Alya decided it was time to be spending a bit less time outside of the territory, away from the wolves that were most important to her. She'd be on her way soon enough, and when that adventure came, she didn't want to be wishing she'd spent more time at home.

Alya ranged the middle-reaches of her mountain home, thinking about seasons and friendships and the passage of time. She wondered if Nikai had forgotten about her even as she contemplated her impending visit, and what had happened to Cypress, the dark love of her youth.

In a long string of cold, cloudy, wet, rather gray days with daylight hours that became shorter as the season marched in the direction of the solstice, even the sight of the sun between the gaps of the thick, misty blanket was a welcome change. Wraen, who was tired after the late evening and early morning hunting expeditions, had climbed up the mountain, found the most perfect corner (hidden from the winds, but open to sunlight) and was enjoying the meager rays of warmth.

She had been dozing for a while, when she heard soft footfalls coming her way. Eyes opened and she lifted her head lazily, to see, who it was. The person did not appear right away, therefore Wraen yawned and put her head back on the ground, sighing and stretching her limbs and deciding that it would not make any difference in what position she was waiting for the person's appearance, as long as her eyes were open. However after few blinks, they closed and she was almost asleep again.

Thoughts of both boys faded quickly when she caught sight of a familiar shewolf up ahead. Wraen appeared to be sleeping, but Alya was probably much more important than that, so she had no qualms about prancing right up and chirping a cheery greeting in the other girl's direction.

"Hellooo... Wake up... It's time for friendship stuff," Alya cajoled, hardly able to contain herself. She'd found, lately, that befriending new wolves was a rather thrilling experience. She hoped that Wraen would prove as interesting a study as Ben, but Alya wasn't sure they'd be participating in the same festivities. Probably, they'd be doing girl stuff... whatever Alya usually did with her sisters, right?

"Do you wanna go kill something?" she asked, not quite feelin' it but figuring it was worth the suggestion either way.

Wraen's sleep was not meant to last long, because the footfalls came nearer and nearer and suddenly something big and fluffy was very near and happy voice broke through the thin veil of the girl's dreamworld. She got up with a start and, with a tail tucked to her belly jumped few steps away from the offending party, balancing only by a bit on the ledge. 

It took a while for the girl to get, what the other was offering and why. "Friendship stuff, cool!" she chirped back and made a little, excited jump on the spot - since she was not sure, which sister of the trio this was, she tucked her stress for the rude awakening for later, and mirrored the other's excitement. "Let's!" she agreed.

Alya wagged her tail, pleased at Wraen's prompt acceptance of the situation. Seeing that she was being very straightfoward and cooperative, Alya decided that she ought to be rewarded. "What do you want to kill? Something big and scary, or something fun and easy?" she asked. "Or we can do something fun and easy and pretend it's big and scary. Oh - " She remembered another thing that she and her sisters had done together in their youth, though the game had disappeared along with their childhood. "Have you ever played Rescue the Princess?"

It normally took at least three wolves to play the game, but if they kidnapped some of her younger siblings, or even just got a dead rabbit or something to stand in, she and Wraen could play the knight and the dragon and still have a grand old time.

Feeling a little lost since mama had really skirted him pretty badly lately, he wandered around while it wasn't annoyingly cold out yet. Trails on papa weren't getting him anywhere good, either, and his littermates were off doing their own things without him, so the green-eyed boy resigned to simply slugging around the middling grounds. He wasn't hungry enough to rally for food, nor tired enough to just go nap some time away, and this was what he got--frustrated, bored, kind of lonesome? He set his jaw and plodded on with his nose low across the chilly ground.

Until he smelled a big sister of his, then Wraen a while after that, which eventually led him to realize they were maybe together--all perks, in his opinion. Since he had nothing better to do, there wasn't an ounce of hesitation on him when he went trotting their way, and straight onto their scene. "Hey!" he announced when he could see them with his tail swinging and chest puffed up because he was just excited to see someone. He didn't stop to ask any questions yet, and moved in close enough to plant licks on each of their chins in better greeting now that he had thoroughly barged onto whatever they had been doing before he'd arrived.

Still a little asleep and dizzy from the sudden awakening, Wraen was slow to process all of the things either Alya or Lyra (she was now sure that this was not Hydra, because, if there wasn't a secret side of her Wraen was not aware of, then that lady was all about business, no place for nonesense like a pretend-play or games) suggested. "Kill... big... scary... easy... fun?" she repeated each of the keywords in the order they were mentioned and then got really confused. How did rescuing a princess go hand in had with killing one? Was it some sort of twisted, horrible game or?

It was a relief, when Jarilo arrived - all happy and excited - and saved Wraen from thinking too long and get the wrong answer. She smiled at the boy, turned briefly to Alya-Lyra and then to the boy: "Your sister suggested a game - would you want to join?" Then she looked at the older sibling, silently asking to repeat the rules.

"Perfect!" Alya said as Jarilo appeared on the scene. Whether he answered Wraen's question on the affirmative or not, Alya eagerly plowed on to explain the specifics of the game. "Well, there's not technically any killing if we're going to play with Jar," she said, mostly to Wraen in response to her mumbled question. She addressed them both after that. "Okay, so we need someone to be the princess, someone to be the monster, and someone to be the hero. I'm fine with any of those roles. What do you guys want to be?"

She most often played the princess or the hero, trading off with Lyra when they felt like it. Hydra tended to play the monster, but she'd taken a few turns as hero and princess as well. (She was not a terrific pretend-princess, despite being such a stellar one in real life.)

Alya looked expectantly between her two wolf-dolls, waiting for them to claim their roles. "Once we decide who will be what, the monster takes the princess and hides her away, and then the hero counts to one hundred and then goes after them to fight the monster and rescue the princess."

He perked up, and found himself quite pleased to have his arrival heralded with a perfect from his dark sister. Although he did not know why yet, he gave some wiggles of his tail, happy to be that ideal the moment needed, even if it was by a huge accident and simply by showing up when he had nothing better to do.

Next he found out it was a game, so still half-beaming and nodding between looks, he volunteered of course before the details came rushing. His eyes were wide, and opportunity arose before them. A growing smirk turned into a toothy grin, one that was bordering on mischief already. "I can be the princess??" More big eyes followed up the question, especially since it was not the obvious choice for the only son. Without really knowing what he was in store for in the game his sister proposed, he did know he had a slew of inspiration for princesses all around him constantly. Honestly he felt pretty equipped for the role today, and awaited next order with his prettiest princess look getting put on with a small toss of his head to lift his muzzle smugly, yet gently, like a royalty might.

"Oh, that's easier then..." Wraen said to herself somewhere between Alya's thorough explanation about, how the game was going to happen. She was familiar with this type of game - having called it "adventures" during her childhood - and was quite happy now that there were people, who still found time and interest in such a thing.

"You will make a great princess," she told Jarilo encouragingly and, since now the choice was up to her - whether she wanted to be a hero or a monster - she fell in a contempletative silence. Both roles were great and interesting, therefore she decided to make the decision making process easier for herself and asked Alya: "I am fine with either too. Who do you want to be?"

"That's probably for the best," Alya agreed with a sage nod of her head; it wouldn't be any fun to see the monster and hero fight when one of them was so much bigger than the other. Now it was just between Wraen and Alya - and honestly, Alya loved all the roles equally - that was why she strived to be all three in her daily life.

For this game, however, she thought she'd let Wraen have the more aggressive role, so that she could set the pacing of their battle and decide how hard they were actually going to fight. It seemed only fair, since Wraen was obviously going to be softer than Alya was. Alya was the best.

"You can be the monster," she said to Wraen. "That means you get to hide, too. I'll count to tw-hundred, and you and Jar have to go hide somewhere - in your evil lair. Then I'll come and find you, and you have to keep me from tagging Jar. If I do tag him, then me and him will run back here, to base. If we get to base before you can tackle one of us, we win. That's when the game ends, and then we all switch roles."

She looked brightly between her two new friends, tail wagging in anticipation. "Ready?"

You can assume that Alya will start counting, if the two of them agree that they are ready.

His request for princess met no resistance, in fact, very much the opposite: further encouragement. That had his tail waving steady even as he stared wide-eyed in the face of all these instructions his older sister spelled out for them. It was so much! And she really seemed to know what she was talking about. But, he did find his role in it all easy enough. That was as much as he concerned himself with for now.

First, he was the monster's victim, so would go with Wraen, the monster. He could do that (and secretly hoped she wouldn't tuck him into a real-life goblin hole or something), so stood poised and ready for the next step. "Yes! Ready!" he yapped, patting the ground with his forepaws.

"Cool - I will be the evil dragon-monster," Wraen replied, letting the excitement of the others seep in her too. Lyra explained the game rules, which were a bit different from the games the young she-wolf had played in her childhood, but therefore the game was all the more interesting to her. 

"Come along, princess, you are officially kidnapped," she made up her most serious and business-like voice and nudged Jarilo in the shoulder to make him move ahead of her. "You walk, I tell you the direction. You try to run - I will bite your pretty head off," she told matter-of-factly.

With Lyra's counting voice in the distance she led Jarilo to a sandy hollow that was located under a set of massive roots of a long dead willow tree. "Hide in there," she told the boy.

Alya giggled when Wraen called herself a dragon-monster. In their childhood, the Cerberus had always called the monster a dragon, despite having no idea what one looked like. She was glad to know that dragons were universally hated; Alya hadn't said anything about dragons, after all.

"One, two, three, four..." Alya began to count, calling out as loudly as she could to add to the mounting excitement of her compatriots, as well as to drown out the sound of their escape. While she counted, she tried to get into the mental state of the Hero. Jarilo was her Princess, and she had to rescue him before the Dragon got bored of simply keeping him and decided to eat him. "One-hundred ninety-eight, one-hundred ninety-nine, two-hundred!" Alya hollared, opening her eyes and glancing around. Her heart hammered in her chest when she realized there was no sign of her darling Princess anywhere in the surrounding area.

"Oh no!" she cried out theatrically, dashing forth from the 'base tree'. "Princess Jarilo! Where are you? Have you been taken by some savage beast?" Of course, if Wraen was a good Dragon, she'd keep her prisoner quiet. "Like, whatever! I'll just come and find the Dragon and kick its pansy ass!" she roared, tail wagging as she lowered her nose to the ground and began seeking out Wraen and Jarilo's scent. Over the course of their lives, the girls had gotten better and better at confusing their scents and double-crossing their scent trails. Alya would be sure to teach each of them in turn when it was her turn to be the Dragon.

She drew nearer and nearer to their hiding place, calling out taunts all the while. Eventually, she was pretty sure she knew where they were hiding.

If you want, you guys can roll to decide if she actually finds them yet. Or we could have just the one quick round. Or we can go through a couple quick rounds with them switching roles. Lemme know what you prefer/if you have questions.

He refused to let his eyes bug at the mention of an evil dragon monster (which alone inspired a million questions about how those looked and what they would smell like!!) and now, in a beat, he was officially its captive. He still had to further slip into the role for more smoothness.. but maybe a princess would look absolutely horrified at the thought.

But the energy was contagious. The older wolves led the way and he was painfully quick to glom onto the situation, even if a little clunky in his execution sometimes, he wore his best worried pretty princess persona--who was obedient beneath the threat of having his head bitten off for the time, although not without a glowering scowl and dramatic steps and tail lashes where he could toss them in: "You'll pay for this..!" he warned with a hiss. Not wanting to find out what would happen otherwise, the princess listened, and tucked himself in small between the roots to wait, hidden and guarded.

His ears perked when he could hear his sister calling out, then he shot a stare to the dragon guarding his position. He gave a worried rise of his hackles, wanting to call so badly his tongue burned! But the dragon.. he swallowed all of his words, and whined a tiny bit as he bid his knight good luck against his foe, or for an opening to show itself. For now, he was under watch, and no princess was going to get themselves dirty on an unnecessarily messy way out, right? He watched, wiggling anxiously.

i'm alright with whatever really 0:

ooc: me too. 

Wraen made sure that the pretty princess Jarilo was safely tucked underneath the roots and then she took some steps away to decide for the best guarding position. She could either sit or lie down right in front of her lair. Or... her gaze traveled up to the mesh of roots that was sticking in the air and the tree trunk that was behind it. 

"Remember, what I told you," she said quietly, looking her hostage in the eyes. "Try to escape - I will bite your head off. Make a squeak or even a peep, I will eat your pretty ears," she clacked her teeth to make a point. "I see everything, even if you think I don't," Wraen grinned as nastily as she could and then moved away. 

She jumped on a trunk and hid herself from the view, behind the upturned roots, all the while listening intently, how Alya's taunting voice was drawing nearer and nearer.

Let's just close it up after this game, since the thread is sort of dated and I'm so terrible at keeping up with Alya.

In the end, it wasn't scent that led Alya to her quarry, but the quarrelling of said quarry. With an evil chuckle that she quickly corrected into a valient - "I'll save you, my dear!" the dark girl leapt toward her brother, aiming high over Wraen in order to get to Jarilo more quickly. She might not make it, since the ceiling was pretty low, but if she did, she would most likely bowl the smaller wolf over.

What fun!

Unfortunately, she had misjudged the distance and ended up on a collision course with the Dragon. Seeing that a fight would be inevitable, Alya readied herself for impact - and for battle.