Heron Lake Plateau and when you wanted someone else, i withdrew

@Raleska & @Svalinn but others welcome too

her children were old enough now, that they might taste their first hunt. the sylph would have preferred to teach them the way of the picaroon, or the sea-faring (for she found in many ways the coast was superior - superior cuisine, superior weather, superior landscape, superior opportunities).. yet much of what caiaphas would have preferred had not transpired, and she was forced to face the reality that her children would grow up as inland wolves. and in light of that, needed to learn inland tricks.

in her jaws she carried the squalling form of a beaver, fat with summer's richness. she had not picked an easy quarry for the children's first lesson -- no, they would learn the hard way -- the only way -- that food was to be killed quickly, and tread around carefully.

the beaver struggled against her teeth, its flat tail protesting each stride with hearty thuds against her chest. she ignored it; once she was within the den she flung the hapless creature down and called for her children.

they could come, kill it, and then eat -- or they would go hungry.

At nearly four months old, Svalinn was beginning to develop at a rate faster than previously observed, and with legs too long and feet too wide, he was constantly trying to find a way to expel the surge of boyish hardihood driving him, as well as the ceaseless growing pains he felt wringing him ragged. Caiaphas' cunning way of raising her children didn't seem to be doing him any favors either. She had thoughtfully let her daughter and golden grandson starve -- dieting them to the point of self-preservation and raising a pair of insatiable hellions in the process -- so when she returned to them with a fresh lesson of "kill or die", the overly peckish Eyjolfur responded exactly as a hungry predator should.

His approach was hesitant, halted by the floundering of the still-alive beaver, but the scent of prey accompanied by the tang of its blood-letting injury obliged him to engage the creature in a pellmell attack. He was a graceless young killer: savage and ineffectual to a degree, but his intent was quite clear and he used what he could to his advantage; chiefly, his size and half a mouth full of razor-sharp teeth. He straddled the beaver, trying to suppress its movements with his gold-plated weight as he ravaged the back of its neck with the same kind of vigorous gnawing he often showed his stick-friends.

Instinctively his mouth went for the wound Caiaphas' had already dealt the creature, but he went about it clumsily and without tact.

Elwood flicked an ear, listening to the call of one of his packmates. She was requesting the presence of her children, but he was nearby and without a goal or destination in mind, so he rerouted and headed off for a friendly investigation. Upon his arrival, his interest was quickly piqued; it appeared that Caiaphas planned to conduct a hunting lesson for her charges, and he watched as Svalinn made a valiant if clumsy effort to show the injured beaver who was boss.

He didn't speak out, not wishing to interrupt, and should Caiaphas express a desire for him to go, he would -- but for now he observed with a small smile.

Raleska had been dozing when she heard her mother call. Sleepily she rubbed her eyes and obediently came, though the task the Siren Queen had arranged for her caused her eyes to bug out of her head, and her heart to quail.

Most times her mom brought her harmless toys. This time, she brought her something that might kill them.

Svalinn had no such reservations and he lunged to the task while Raleska was still collecting her scattered wits. It wasn't until Elwood approached that Raleska felt her legs finally moving, albeit clumsily.

Already, Svalinn had straddled the creature and it let loose great cries of insult. Raleska circled worriedly, snapping at it in the manner of a hyena with each pass. While the beaver's attention was on its golden tormenter Raleska lunged for the tail, and with a mighty heave pulled at the tail, which flapped in her jaws with surprising strength. With Svalinn atop it, her tugs were laden - but she was contributing, right?

it was a cruel task she set before her children, but a task they needed to master; soon they would find she was the kindest thing in their lives, and that nature was far crueler. as she flung the beaver towards them it was intercepted by svalinn; his efforts were noticed with an approving smile, but it was raleska the siren queen focused her harsh gaze upon:

raleska, the timid,
the quailing,
the disappointment --

svalinn had straddled the beast while she had stared stupidly; caiaphas watched with a mother's disdain, distanced and remote and offering no encouragement. as elwood came upon the scene she shared with him a silent glance, to acknowledge his presence (and also, to defer to his esteemed status) but caiaphas would not stop the lesson about to be learned, not even for his arrival.

and so the sylph hung back, offering no aid nor punishment for whatever actions her whelps saw fit to execute: they would learn, and she would simply watch.

Even with all its ungainly stoutness -- for surely this thing was a creature far inferior to his kind -- Svalinn found that the beaver they had been tasked with subduing was no injured bird or bug. The swimming rodent was far stronger than it looked, and he was about ready to relinquish the task of strong-arming back to Caiaphas (who certainly wouldn't have helped) when he noticed that Elwood and Raleska had joined the endeavor as cheerleader and collaborator, respectively. The ruffian doubled down on his efforts while his sister took a craftier approach -- creeping in like the night.

Though not chosen out of skill or practice, Svalinn had unwittingly given himself a would-be crippling advantage over his opponent. The beaver could not easily bite or scratch him like this; it opted instead to try and escape from the boy unsure of how to apply his strength, and was stopped only by an additional force at its tail keeping it from gaining any momentum. Svalinn, puckering about the beaver's back like a plecostomus, found its neck wound in that moment and dug in with his vexing teeth, sending the beaver into a thrash that outclassed him.

Svalinn's position was broken, but his spirit was not, and now that he had identified the weak point, he recovered only so he could latch onto the beaver's neck again, tasting a fresh wave of blood as he left himself open to a vicious rebuttal from the injured water-rat. It caught him in the shoulder with its digger's foreclaws, and because he had never been struck with such earnest before, Svalinn barked out a yelp and let go of his and Raleska's fearsome dinner.

As Svalinn continued to wrestle with the beaver, another pup joined the effort. Elwood couldn't remember the girl's name, but he watched all the same as the two youths employed different strategies to try to bring down their prey. While the female cub took the beaver's wide, flat tail in her mouth and began to tug on it, Svalinn continued to straddle its body and eventually began to inflict some damage with his teeth.

This, of course, greatly irritated the beaver, and it swiped at him with its claws. Predictably, Svalinn released it with a cry. Elwood refrained from intervening; instead, he mentally rooted for the two children to rally and keep trying. Were he coaching his own offspring, he might have offered a word of encouragement -- but he would follow Caiaphas' lead in this situation.

Raleska's grip was at first tentative - yet as the beaver's struggles shook her muzzle she gripped down harder. The two of them were doing a poor job subduing this creature. It was far stronger than Raleska had initially suspected, and a few times had nearly escaped from her tight grasp.

In a furious bucking frenzy the beaver managed to unseat her brother. Raleska dove again for the tail, this time with renewed vigor. A yelp caused her to flinch and she looked up to see Svalinn with his mouth empty and a look of pain across his features.

Any other time Raleska might have instinctively gone up to him to reassure him, but not today. There was something awoken in her, a primal focus she had not felt before. It came to life in her heart and it urged her to do its bidding - it was almost as if some other thing controlled her then.

She rallied hard, perhaps unknowingly buoyed by Elwood's silent support. With the tail still trashing in her mouth she started to run, dragging the squalling, struggling beaver as she went. She gave fierce shakes of her head though the strength of them was weighed down by the beaver's portly frame, but each time she shook it seemed to lose a little strength, and so Raleska continued her drag-n-shake, oblivious to all but the beast that fought for its life beneath her.

last from phas <3

for a brief while, the contest of wills looked as if it would be won by the beaver; yet her children were precocious -- inept, and possibly stupid, but precocious. for each time they were roughly flung from the bucking beaver, they rallied and tried again - caiaphas could see the edge worn from the beaver's attempts, and watched as exhaustion insidiously crept in.

it would be over soon.

she licked her lips and gave elwood a passing glance: he had been silent - perhaps he did not approve of the method in which she indoctrinated bloodsport to her children, but he held his tongue. caiaphas was not raising daisies -- she was raising tiny sociopaths -- and feeling her work here was done, (and that they would know what to do once the beaver's energy was wholly sapped from him) the sylph rose and prowled off - leaving her children with the still-fighting creature.

At first, Elwood didn't notice that Caiaphas was leaving; he was intently watching Raleska continue to battle with the beaver. But movement from the corner of his eye drew his attention, and he glanced over long enough to see the mother slinking away. His brows raised, but still he didn't speak out or move to intervene; it appeared that her methods of coaching her children was vastly different from his own, but it wasn't his place to correct her or the pups.

He could have departed afterward, but he remained, a silent, stoic symbol of moral support (and an able body ready to administer assistance should things take a wrong turn).

Svalinn briefly retreated after being struck— watching on impotently as hunger begged that he act while fear of retaliation dictated that he stay back. He looked a little helplessly towards Caiaphas, who appeared suddenly to have inherited an emotionless pair of fish-eyes; dead to the plight of her own children. Elwood's harried expression was slightly more reassuring by comparison, but he did not come rushing to the Eyjolfur children's aid either.

It would be Svalinn's first hard-learned lesson— to either fight on or go hungry— but it wasn't likely to be his last.

Adrenaline and need pressured him forward in staggered steps while Raleska was proactively throwing the beaver completely off-balance, wearing their quarry dangerously thin as she dragged it along by its paddling tail. As it tried to reach her— repeatedly and unsuccessfully craning its rotund tenement towards her, with tittering clacks of its carving fangs— the beaver also exposed its fatal weakness to the second antagonist on scene.

Svalinn surged forward and took firm hold on a side of the beaver's wounded neck, pinning it to the ground. The worn rodent could not retaliate effectively; too exhausted now to overcome the pressures of the gold boy and his raven companion as they pulled him from opposite ends. Svalinn bit down as hard as he could to keep the beaver from either turning its head to bite him, or getting its legs around to scratch him again.

He was so desperate to prevent this from happening again that several seconds into compressing all his weight behind this drilling bite, there was a light, barely audible pop and the beaver went completely limp without losing consciousness.

A few seconds later -- although it seemed like much longer -- the puppies completed their task. It seemed to be Svalinn that delivered the final blow, since he was the one holding the animal by its neck. Abruptly, the beaver went limp, and it was all over.

Elwood glanced around, as though expecting to see Caiaphas lurking somewhere nearby. He hated that she had missed witnessing her children's success, but he was glad he had stuck around. "Nice work," he praised. He wanted to help them disassemble the body and store it in a cache, but wasn't that a lesson they had to learn themselves, too? And he had no idea what Caiaphas wanted them to do with the carcass, anyway, since she had disappeared.

"You earned it all; but if you need a place to put the remains, there's a cache over there," he said, gesturing with his snout. And then he departed.