Redhawk Caldera Where do you keep your virgin lamb blood?

"Raven," Towhee said just after tearing free a strip of meat from the leg of venison clasped between her forelegs, "have you seen Whip around lately?" Her brow furrowed as she peered at the medic, who was working on her own hunk of meat. (They'd enjoyed a successful hunt this morning and already given most of the spoils to @Finley.) Raven paused thoughtfully, then shook her head. "Hm." The Alpha licked the sticky blood from her lips, then bent down for another bite.

When she'd eaten her fill, she stood and stretched. -I'm going to go patrol,- she signed to the caregiver. -See you later.- Before pivoting and moving away, she snatched up the leg bone, which still had bits of meat clinging to it. She playfully swung it like a club at Raven, then trotted downhill, stopping only when she reached the fringes of the territory. She scoured the landscape a moment, then lifted her orange eyes skyward.

"hey!" called tegan, who hadn't bothered towhee in a substantial amount of time. he spotted her a little ways off, and began trotting over to her after he called-- because he remembered towhee likely couldn't hear him. 

but, when he was in view of his sister-cousin-friend, tegan bowed, rump in the air, and wiggled, happy to see her. "whatcha doin?" he asked, raising and moving to join her, "patrollin'? find anything cool?" towhee always found cool thing out and about-- tegan liked to hear about them. he didn't have anything too exciting to tell her... not lately, but maybe he'd bring up easy!

She didn't hear his shout, naturally, but Towhee saw movement and immediately turned to face it. The tension that quickly built in her muscles relaxed just as rapidly when she saw it was only Tegan. She thought about knocking him upside the head with the shinbone, though she decided to clobber him in n different fashion instead.

-Nope,- she signed, -just you.- Her orange eyes danced, wondering if he would spot the insult. She waited a beat before adding, -I was looking for X. This is for him.- She shook the bone playfully in her little brother's direction, wondering if he would take the opportunity to nab the other end and engage in an impromptu game of tug-o'-war.

towhee's statement was open ended enough for him to take it and flip it-- even though he knew she was trying to call him lame. -i guess i am pretty cool, good find, tow- he signed to her with a broad smile, tail waving. wait but-- oh heeeeeelll yeah! towhee was shaken' that bone right in his face, and though tegan really lacked all the coordination and muscle to be any good at fighting (if he'd put in time and effort, maybe, but he always refused), he could probably hold his own in a good ol' childish game of tug of war! 

so he lunged, teeth latching onto one end of the bone. he gave a sharp tug in his direction, brows wiggling as he challenged his sister-- for X? as if, this was tegan's bone now!!

She needn't have wondered. Tegan took to the game like a fly to dung. Towhee grinned around the bone in her mouth as he latched onto the other end and pulled. She dug her toes into the soil, braced her shoulders and stiffened her neck, simply resisting for the moment to feel out her younger brother's strength.

tegan let out a small growl, towhee stiffening where she stood. that was it! he'd take this bone from her if the last thing he did! 

but, easier said than done. tegan was a boy and had all his boyish strength, plus he was a wolf so? duh. but he wasn't really trained in anything strength wise... so towhee certainly had the upper hand when it came to tugging. he jerked his head around, tugging at the bone and maybe pulling towhee in one direction or another-- but only barely, he probably wasn't doing anything impressive.

He wasn't a small pup anymore, so Towhee really had to clench her teeth and plant her feet to avoid being tugged off balance. But she managed to avoid taking more than a steadying half-step forward as Tegan pulled. She growled playfully, her tail flicking behind her to show that she was enjoying the game and hoped he was too.

She gave an experimental yank, just to see if she could get Tegan's feet to move.

tegan thought he was doing pretty damn good! towhee had to brace herself once to stop from falling forward (nice) and he was still going strong with the whole tugging thing. but when she tugged-- whoops! he was less than prepared. probably should've planted his feet a little bit better than he had. he was so focused on pulling towhee away, he forgot she too was capable of pulling him away. oh well.

tegan was jerked forward, fumbling over his feet. but he held his ground, somehow, his teeth still latched onto that bone. he tried to replant his feet and give another big jerk backwards but he was at a weird angle now.

His forward lurch entertained her, causing Towhee's orange eyes to crinkle at the corners. That wasn't the last trick up her sleeve either. She stopped pulling, purportedly to allow her opponent to square his footing and tighten his grip. Just as she expected, Tegan did these things just before he gave a mighty tug. Towhee put in some token resistance for about two seconds before opening her mouth and letting to completely.

towhee gave him time to gather his footing-- which was a m i s t a k e! because just as soon as he did that he unleashed that nasty tug and-- "oh fuck!" tegan exclaimed through a mouthful of bone. he was sent tumbling backward-- that dirty dog, towhee! letting go on purpose. he fell back on his rump, dropping the bone and doing a quick backwards somersault. he sat upright, a little dazed, tongue lolling out and panting. "damn you!" he said, shaking his head, -a low blow, towhee, but i like where your heads at- he respected such a move, for it was cheap! but not overly so.

That worked even better than expected. Towhee's eyes widened as Tegan went tumbling. She paused just long enough to make sure she hadn't actually hurt him, then promptly burst into laughter that sounded something like a braying pneumatic donkey being chopped in half by a malfunctioning garage door.

She didn't catch his spoken words, yet his signing caught her eye. She grinned. -Would you like a rematch? Or maybe,- she suggested, her eyes lifting to the sky only to find it empty. X might very well lose his chance. Gaze dropping earthward again, Towhee continued, -we could go hunt down Whip and smack him upside the head with it. You haven't seen him around, by any chance, have you?-

he tried to ignore the sound she made-- cause it was bad, but really couldn't, his ears splayed. 

"nah nah, you win," tegan said with a roll of his eyes. not fair and square but... fair enough. he realized she probably didn't 'hear' him, her gaze skywards, but when she lowered it he just shook his head, smile on his features still. whip? when was the last time he'd seen that guy? not for a while-- tegan didn't really care to hang out with anyone in the pack besides his siblings parents and towhee-- and hardly even them. he liked being outside! exploring! all the same. towhee made a good proposition though, might be worthwhile. 

-not lately,- he signed with a furrow of his brows, -but maybe he's nearby? oh! while we look i can tell you about the ravine i found.- cause tegan was very excited to tell everyone about the ravine he found.

He hadn't, which didn't surprise her whatsoever. Whip had taken quite the beating in the battle. Towhee couldn't imagine him just wandering off in such bad shape. Perhaps he had left because of Gannet's absence. In any case, the Alpha didn't feel particularly bothered about this particular departure. She couldn't put her finger on it but she sensed something, well, wrong with Whip. Perhaps it was for the best if he'd gone.

But she would't assume him gone until she'd put in some proper effort to locate him. -I'd love to hear all about it,- Towhee replied to Tegan's mention of a ravine, motioning for him to come along as she plucked up the bone and began trotting somewhat parallel to the borders. -But I'm, you know, deaf,- she added the obvious joke, somehow conveying her ptero message despite her preoccupied mouth and moving limbs because magic.

-oh so funny, towhee- tegan teased happily, his tail waving as he began off after his sister. how would he start? he mostly wanted to talk about easy, because she was the one who knew all that stuff, and he wanted to know all that stuff. -you know what a ravine is right? mom knew, and so did this girl, easy was her name, she was at the ravine. and she knew like, all about it towhee. like seriously, told me all about it.- he wanted to see what towhee made of that before he told her he wanted to learn stuff like that. was trying to hold it back a little bit, since he sort of hated admitting that he liked learning about it... but still.

-It's like a canyon, isn't it?- she signed right after dropping the shinbone in a stockpile they passed. She would give X directions to it later. -Where is this ravine? Somewhere outside the territory? And did you say Easy? Like E-A-S-Y?- Rather than start walking again immediately, she paused long enough to say all this to Tegan, her head cocking to the side and her eyes squinting slightly.

tegan wasn't positive he knew what a canyon was, but he thought he remembered it being something like a ravine? so he nodded. "ya but like deeper in the earth, it's... pretty far north of here, actually, i wandered pretty far-- sorry," he said outloud this time-- and with a sheepish smile-- he was thinking too much to immediately revert back to ptero. -yes ma'am e-a-s-y easy. she's from morningside, which is a pack i learned about, seemed nice.- tegan didn't know if towhee knew about that pack but he assumed it was useful information to know. 

-but towhee, she knew everything about it, she said her dad like takes her around and teaches her about outside stuff. like ravines and stuff. i wanna know about all that too, like honestly.-

Her eyes narrowed further when Tegan reported venturing far outside the pack lands. Did his parents know about that? What did they think? Could she, as Alpha, forbid him to wander too far? Of course you could, she immediately answered herself in her head, feeling stupid and powerful at the same time. But would it just be a giant waste of her time? The pups were nearly grownups now.

-Did you go alone? You should take someone with you. Haven't you heard of the buddy system, buddy?- She stretched out a foreleg to give him a sisterly punch to the shoulder. -Easy? Morningside?- Were they talking about wolves or ways to cook eggs here? -Weird,- she concluded about the monikers before seizing on the more important topic (and the one Tegan seemed so excited about), -So? The ravine?- She tipped her head to demonstrate her interest, even as she resumed walking.

tegan rolled his eyes. -don't worry, i'm doing just fine... but maybe i'll ask clover or fiadh to tag along next time- he replied, mostly just trying to put towhee at ease-- though he probably wouldn't ask his siblings to come. mom was mostly okay with it, why shouldn't towhee be? 

-yeah but she's cool, sucks at jumping, but that's besides the point- he added with a wave of his tail-- still basking in his victory. -right ravine-- it's like this giant crack in the earth-- i said it was probably the earth's buttcrack, but mom said she'd seen more than one and nothing has more than one buttcrack so... i doubt that's it- get back on topic, tegan, jesus, -but it goes down super far, and there was like this river than ran through it too. it was too wide to jump across, i probably would've died if i was stupid enough to try, but it gets close and less steep at the edges so you could go down there if you wanted.-  that was maybe a substantial amount of information.

-Roll your eyes at me again and I'll pluck them out of their sockets,- Towhee leered at Tegan (mostly jokingly), -and force feed them to you.- But other than that, she said no more, letting her brother launch into his tale of the ravine. She had to keep her head turned toward him as they walked, though this was something the Alpha did fairly often, and she had near perfected her ability to walk in a perfectly straight line even with her neck rotated 90° in either direction.

She really didn't like how risky it sounded—how casually he joked about dying—but Towhee kept mum until he was finished. Only then did she say, -So... you're telling me you went exploring in the earth's asshole.- She smirked at him, then added a bit more sincerely, -It sounds really neat, Tegan. Just be careful when you get into that kinda thing, okay?- She looked at him pointedly.

After a moment, she lightened up a little and quipped out loud, "You don't want to miss out on your new brothers and sisters, do you? Speaking of which, where the hell did he get off to, seriously?" Towhee halted in her tracks. She was referring to Whip, though she was also curious about X's conspicuous absence as well. She made a thoughtful noise low in her throat, suddenly remembered that she was supposed to be patrolling as well.

-You sound like you're getting into exploring, scouting, that sorta thing,- Towhee observed in the next beat, resorting back to ptero. -How about I give you a task? Try to find Whip. Report back to me by tomorrow night, whether or not you find him. Think you can do that for me? I have to turn around and restart the patrol I never actually got started in the first place. And find that dang bird.-

tegan shot towhee and broad, toothy smile, ears splaying-- she wouldn't dare, but tegan was down to pretend like he was sorry anyway. whoops.

-yea, all up in there- he snorted, laughing a lot at the idea of being inside the earths ass. -no i am, i promise, tow. swear to god.- he followed towhee's gaze as she suddenly got off topic-- well back on topic to whip. he gave a comical shrug, ears angled forward-- he wasn't sure he cared where the guy was. -he'll show up- tegan signed, trying to be reassuring but... probably failing, cause it was probably a complete lie. besides, what did tegan, of all wolves, know?

oh! and then towhee said something interesting. it sounded like a lot of responsibility but... well hell, he was down. it was permission to leave the territory! tegan would gladly do that. towhee sounded salty for a minute about not starting her patrol... but he thought she was overreacting. it wasn't the end of the world, they at least were sort of doing something important. i mean, what's more important than spending time with family and avoiding work? smh. 

"deal!" tegan said out loud. then, without waiting for any more instruction, tegan bumped his sisters shoulder with his nose and sped off into the wild. he'd try to use his nose for serious tracking in a little while... once he realized that wandering aimlessly wouldn't work.