Blackfeather Woods that fuzz on peaches blech
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Set after this thread. @Cicero :D

He did not understand all that he heard. Since his mother had shooed him off and forced him to eavesdrop from further away, he had only caught bits and pieces and, unbeknowst to him, had misheard some of what he did hear. Still, Euron was feeling exceptionally proud that he had successfully spied and, though he did not grasp the full extent of the conversation, he felt that what he had spied on was important in some way. The strange white wolf was not a packmate, and his mother had tried to make him leave; that alone was enough to make him think so.

"Cicero!" Euron called out as he snaked through the trees. Torn between running to tell Ramsay or finding Cicero, he had decided to look for his teacher and mentor first, thinking that the black and white male might have more things to teach him as a reward for his efforts, and also thinking that he might know something about what Euron wished to report.

"Cicero, I am looking for you! Come out! Do not be sneaking!"
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Ears turned at the crunching of leaves and snow underneath paws. Head turned to see Euron rushing through the forest to find, apparently, him. At the second time the boy called him to come out of hiding, Cicero chuffed to announce his presence as he made his way towards Euron (who might've found him himself had he been less giddy, Cicero thought; he was a clever boy, even if being good at hiding did not mean you were also good at finding).

"What happened?" he asked, assuming that it was something, considering he was looking so specifically for Cicero.
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Euron paused and looked among the trees with one paw raised in the air. His father chuffed to him and the pup spun around to see him. He grinned and hurriedly bounded to meet Cicero half way, sliding to a graceful stop in the snow with his tail thumping and batting the ground and his whole body wriggling. He drew in a deep breath as he prepared to answer Cicero, and held it, and held it some more as he tried to find his composure under all his quivering excitement.

When he did answer, it came out as a tiny squeak eking out between his still-grinning teeth.

"I spied!"

Followed by a long exhale that flapped his lips comically.
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The child was enthused and he wondered if this was what he had been like when younger. He did not remember much of it, but shreds were painted in his memory. Euron disclosed that he had spied, proudly exclaiming this. Cicero did not yet know if there was actual important information within that statement or if he had simply looked without finding out anything and wanted to share this, too. The latter could be a thing a child could do.

"Aha, did you," he said; "And did you find anything out?" He was curious for this because he knew information was power and thus Cicero enjoyed gathering information very much. It was not that he cared much for power, but he knew that others did.
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"I am thinking so!"

Euron had to take a few more breaths and sit in smiling silence before he could start to calmly inform Cicero about what he had seen. Truthfully he had no idea if what he had witnessed and heard held any value, but his father was keen to hear and that encouraged him.

"I saw mother at the borders. Some white wolf called her there." The pup paused, trying to go through his memories in order so as not to miss anything. "He had spots." Unique spots. Spots that he had noticed. Spots that any other wolf would notice. Spots like his shoulder patches — spots that made him recognizable. "Mother saw me and tried to make me go," he grinned devilishly, "but I only pretended. I hid again and listened."
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His enthusiasm was almost infectious as Cicero listened to the boy's excited words. He said he had seen his mother there and that she was with a white wolf with spots. It did not ring a bell with Cicero, but he nodded as the boy continued to speak. Cicero smiled briefly as Euron said that he pretended to leave and doubled back. Cicero had no clue how the relations between Potema and he brood were now, but he guessed it was not good. He still loved his sister — platonically, like a brother a sister, not like he loved Damien — and felt for her currently, but there was little he could do to change anything now.

"Did you hear anything they said?" asked Cicero, curious if he had found out anything good. He guessed so, since the boy was so energetic about it, but for all he knew it might be something seemingly important to Euron that mattered nothing to Cicero.
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Euron nodded enthusiastically. It had been difficult to hear it all and to hear clearly — but he had heard things.

"Someone is coming for the sun." He said. "I like the dark but I am not thinking I want it to be dark all the time." The boy hummed and thought on that a moment, but then swiped a paw in front of his snout as if to cast that tangent away. "He said something about does and fire..." Euron screwed his eyes shut as he tried to carefully remember what he had heard, and in order. He continued his report with his eyes closed in concentration. "He told mother to leave... err." The pup sighed and felt it necessary to preface the rest of his report with an explanation. "I had some trouble hearing from far away... I heard him say something about shitbags — whatever those are — then I heard him say Vaati's name and tell mother not to die."

Euron opened his eyes then and looked to see if Cicero was taking it all in. "I am not understanding it much," he confessed with a shrug and an expression that was apologetic. "Maybe you do? I heard more..."
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Cicero found it hard to piece together the pieces of Euron's story. He did not know what 'the sun' was; he doubted that someone actually had a ploy to get rid of the sun, unless they were mentally unwell to think they could achieve such an undertaking. Does and fire... After that the story became a bit more coherent as the child said the wolf told Potema to leave. Cicero had heard some stories of war through the grapevine and wondered if this was about that.

A snicker was the only response Cicero gave to Euron mentioning 'shitbags' and Vaati. He wondered if it had been about Vaati or if the shitbags were the wolves that were coming for Blackfeather Woods, maybe. "Hmm," he murmured while he tried to piece things together. "What more?"
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He could see that Cicero was thinking on what he had reported — that Cicero was taking him seriously — and was thus encouraged to continue.

"What's a moonspear? He said that word... um," Euron closed his eyes again, resuming his intense concentration as he replayed the memories. "Mother said there are important things here." His jaw shifted and he hummed. It was difficult to report, he found, when you did not understand what you had heard. "But she said not wolves. But there are wolves here so she is wrong," Euron snorted. What did she think they all were if not wolves? "She said she will not let them... err... something... revenge... it's just her and they hate us and would not fly for him to accept one rank."

Euron exhaled loudly. It was exhausting trying to recall what he heard and trying to understand it all at once. It never made sense then and it was making less sense now. He continued, but not without offering Cicero an uncertain and apologetic glance. He wanted to do good and was not sure he was.

"So then he asked if she was listening. Said things won't be safe and that he does not shit." Euron bit his lip and tried not to grin, but he did, and he tittered a quiet hee hee before he continued. He may not have understood what a shitbag was but he knew what shit itself was. He had one almost every day.

He squeezed his eyes shut again. "He said something about... Drag... head.. hawk-era? Um...The ladder has been hated a long time." Euron paused a moment, sorting through his memory. "He said mother is his friend and he wants her safe and that they accept the daughters. He wants them safe too."
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Euron went on to tell him more and Cicero nodded while he mentally mapped it all. "Moonspear is a mountain," said Cicero and, after brief pause he remembered from his travels: "And a pack." It brought Cicero little to know it was mentioned, for he didn't know whether the wolf himself was from it or if there was another reference in there, such as one of their wolves wanting harm upon Blackfeather Woods. It could go anywhere, still.

He grimaced when Euron disclosed that Potema had said that there were important things here, but that the wolves were not part of it. So cold she had become, and he knew that he was in part to blame.

Euron's garbled explanation went on, though the next bit made little sense, aside from 'not safe'; Cicero knew that there might be a time when wolves would have enough of their practises, but it turned out that there was something brewing. He at first thought Moonspear might be the pack to target them, but then Euron said something about 'Draghead Hawkera'. He recognise Redhawk Caldera in it (the other pack's name he did not know), though 'the latter' suggested that there was more than one pack mentioned. Regardless, it was important information. "Redhawk Caldera," said Cicero. "A pack nearby." Perhaps the pack that Fox had been from, he thought idly.

But the next information was interesting to know. Why would her daughters want to be safekept from this wolf, presumably from Moonspear? Cicero's tongue clicked against the back of his teeth in thought. She had never disclosed the fathers of her children. He did not know if he would ever be able to use this information, but was happy to hoard it nonetheless. "Hmm. Good to know. Well done, Euron." Cicero nodded appreciatively, not only happy for the information but proud of how well Euron grew up, too. It was odd. He had never felt pride for anyone, for anything... Not like this.
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100th post for father! <3

Euron was like his father — he took the new information offered to him (the pack names) and stored it away in some corner of his mind. Though it was likely such knowledge would collect dust long before he ever had a need to recall it (except perhaps to tell @Ramsay of what he heard and what Cicero told him about what it meant).

The pup basked in his father's praise, tail thumping excitedly. There was no doubt now that Euron was on a rogue's path, if there had ever been any doubt before. He had been born to be a sneak and a spy.

"He really wanted to her to leave," Euron murmured afterwards, looking away as he wondered about that exchange. Cicero's praise and explanation of what at least two of the words were distracted Euron from the sequence of events that he had built and had been recalling in his head. To put it another way, he had lost his place. But there were still a couple details that stuck out. "I think he was mad she would not. He yelled. He said 'fine, stay here and die' and then..." The boy shifted his mouth — there was a flash of dark emotion on his face. Resentment. "She let him touch her. I never saw mother let anyone near like that. I never saw her... care."

Euron's hackles raised and icicles formed on his next few words.

"Who is he and why does he matter when we are not mattering at all?"
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yay, congrats :D *throws confetti*

Cicero licked his lips as he took in the information. He really wanted her to leave. Cicero wondered if his sister would know things about everything that was going on — about what was going to happen next. Maybe he should seek her out for it, but she would never tell him anything. "Does your mother tell you anything? He must have told her some things about the angry wolves that wish to attack us," said Cicero. Euron might not know about the war at all yet, he realised, but it was easy enough to stick to 'angry wolves' for now.

Hmm, it was odd that she might have a lover someplace that he did not know of, but then, her pups last year had been from different fathers. Perhaps it was one of the fathers from last year. "Your mother cares for others. Just not for us." He spoke without emotion, for he did not care much for this. He did care for Potema, but not for her hate for him; it was deserved, after all. He clicked his tongue to the back of his teeth and said: "Cicero does not know who this wolf was. But... Your mother had various lovers to create Vaati, Koume, Kotake and Ganondorf. Perhaps he was one of them. Perhaps a friend. Cicero knows little of her life outside of Blackfeather Woods."
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"No," he answered. That one word held a bounty of contempt and it was readable even in his face, worsening as Cicero went on to explain that she did care for others even if she did not care for them. His mother's neglect was a thorn. It had hurt on an instinctual level in the first days of his life and then it had become insignificant — something he hardly noticed. But now it festering, and each new revelation intensified and spread the infection. It seeped into his heart and into his mind.

Euron drew a deep breath. His scorn had made him stiff. He stretched out in a play bow, reaching forward as far as he could and flexing his toes, to relieve himself of the tension. He thoughtfully chewed his cheek as he recalled his last encounter with Potema. Or what of it he could remember.

"She was so mad at me..." he commented. "Last time I saw her." He spoke with unsettling apathy. But then a puzzled expression alighted on his face and he hummed. "Hm. Nevermind." Euron shook his head. "I forgot. I was just dreaming. I saw her in one place but then I woke up in the glen. It seemed real though."
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It did not surprise him that Potema told the boy nothing; they were not exactly on very good terms. She blamed her children for the sins of their father, and it made sense that seeing them hurt her. Yet the children were not to blame. Cicero wondered how this would affect their future relationships, but then, he and his siblings had never known their father well. There was a distinct difference there with his own, he knew, but he felt they were doing well nonetheless.

Head tilted as he said that Potema had been mad at him. He described vaguely about something he had or hadn't experienced, and Cicero wondered what it could be. "Had you been close to the meadow?" he asked, meaning the weeping meadow; he'd taught Maegi about its effects, but not Euron yet. "The weeping willow has poisonous pollen upon it that can mess with your head." Often he had awoken and half-forgotten what'd happened prior.
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"The meadow?" The boy echoed and then shook his head. "No. The meadow had been a place he avoided because — as Cicero went on to explain — it messed with his head.

"I do not like the meadow. The meadow makes me feel like I am going to dream again." He said. "I do not remember where I was though. Dreaming makes me forget things." Euron frowned and searched his father's face for some unknown thing. "I do not like dreaming." Then he hummed. "Perhaps I should not go to sleep any more."

But... he dreamt even when he was awake and the splay of his ears and the strange expression he wore betrayed how uncertain he was that not sleeping was the answer to this most confusing thing.
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So there was a difference between them, then, thought Cicero. He supposed it was a good thing that Euron did not share his desire to experiment upon himself with his poisons, that he enjoyed suffering physical pain so much. He nodded at the statement about the weeping meadow.

It was peculiar but Cicero thought little of it. Children dreamed sometimes, wolves dreamed sometimes. He chuckled when Euron said he would not go to sleep anymore. "That is an impossible task," he reminded Euron; "One's body needs sleep, or one will become weak... And terrible at sneaking." He smirked briefly to emphasise his words -- surely Euron didn't want to become terrible at sneaking, regardless of whether he minded all else.
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Though the boy was not sure about not sleeping anyway, he nonetheless frowned when Cicero informed him that forgoing the ritual would make him terrible at sneaking. His father was correct in believing that that was not a sacrifice he was willing to make.

"Guess I'll keep sleeping," Euron sighed and his exhale flowed into a yawn that split his jaws and curled his tongue between his lower fangs. "I maybe need to do that now." All the mental stimulation had tired him, and now that the rush of excitement had calmed he was feeling it.

Euron wagged his tail. "I will spy more later and tell you that too." He grinned. "Bye!" Tired though he was, Euron remained quick on his feet as he scampered toward the glen for a nap.
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His theory proved to be correct and Euron decided with a sigh typical of a child who learned that the world was not just about getting what one wanted that he would abandon his plan to stop sleeping. It then lead the child to realise that he was actually sleepy at present time as a yawn broke up his sigh. "Rest up well so that you may sneak again," Cicero told the boy with a boop of his nose to Euron's forehead, and then he watched as the child scampered off, before he continued on his own way again through the darkness of the forest.