Ness spent almost as much time out of Moonspear as she did in it, and this just happened to be one of the moments she was caught within the boundaries of her home base. Since she hadn't been doing much except enjoying herself thoroughly in her explorations, the yearling thought it was high time she start showing this turf some of her shining qualities. Like hunting. Ness began tracking rabbits, an easy task surely. And an hour in and she was already one down— with the minimum goal of four— but had chased most of the wild rabbits in the area away. Trotting under a high noon sun covered mostly by grey cumulus, she made her way from the west slopes to the east, her pace slowing as she entered prime small prey territory.
Her nose gave her a large mental image of the area, and she gave the sensitive-eared rabbits a wide girth before closing in on one that was foraging just far enough from the mass tunnels of an underground warren to be caught. Ness gave chase, weaving in and out of the trees with agility worthy of the Olympics. But the threat of death seemed more fueling than some pretty sick moves, and Ness skidded to a stop over the entrance of a burrow, irritatingly empty handed.
The thumping of paws drew Floki's attention and he lifted his chin from his paws, his interest piqued. Any distraction was welcome, especially one that would keep him from dwelling on his friendship with Wildfire -- or lack thereof. In just a few seconds, he found himself in the path of a fleeing rabbit, its oversized feet slapping the earth in a panic as it ran from its pursuer.
He had just enough time to push himself up into a sitting position and then leap back as Ness came barreling through, hot on the hare's heels. Hoping that he hadn't disrupted her hunt, he stood and trotted after her, mentally cheering her on.
Somewhere in the flurry of her breakneck movements, a mistake had been made. But where? Ness remembered that she had to compensate in her rush for the sudden appearance of a stone-grey log... no, logs didn't move. What the...? And as she tried to collect her scattered, frustrated thoughts, she turned around to find Floki trotting after her. Oh! "You!" she addressed him indignantly. "Dude, you owe me the fattest rabbit this mountain has to offer," she complained, dropping into a defeated sit once they had come into conversational range. Sighing heavily, she looked him up and down. What had he been laying there for anyway? "Were you... moping?" she asked of his random and disheveled appearance.
He only followed her for a short distance until it seemed that the rabbit had given her the slip. When she turned back, she seemed surprised to see him. He grinned at her accusation, happy to oblige her and bring her a hare to make up for ruining her hunt. But when she attempted to prod into his personal life -- even just slightly -- he balked.
"What? No," was his quick and vehement reply, coupled with a firm shake of his head. Floki, moping? Never. He hadn't ever seen Charon sulk -- so that meant he couldn't, either. "I was hunting, too. Scoping out the area," he added, attempting to appear much cooler than he really was. Odds were that Ness wouldn't see through his facade -- but he hoped that she at least wouldn't press the subject of his moping any further.
"You should probably, y'know, not let it get away next time," he teased, a smirk pulling at the corner of his lips.
The backlash from Floki's response had
Ness' expression stalled for a moment, and then she recovered with her naturally fast constitution for bouncing back.
"Okay, touchy," she said, unafraid to let him know that she thought he was lying, but she had enough respect for him not to press on the subject. Apparently sulking was a sore topic for him, and she ignored her desire to ask him what kind of hunting he was doing laying around in the underbrush.
He reverted to a jest which was easily the quickest way to distract her, and she made a face at him.
"I might've caught it— log-like obstacles aside," she stated pointedly, sticking her tongue out at him.
"I should've just ran through you. I was a battering ram in my past life, I'll have you know." As if to prove a point, she scraped her paws backwards and lowered her head in a goat's feint; she then charged, aiming a playful headbutt for Floki's shoulder.
Luckily for Floki, Ness was more than willing to respond to his jest with a quip of her own. It was exactly what he had been hoping for -- easy-going banter that would help him get his mind off of other things, at least for the time being. And besides, he enjoyed Ness's company immensely, despite the fact that he didn't know her all that well.
She stuck her tongue out at him and he readied his next retort, only to find himself rapidly backpedaling when she suddenly lowered her head and charged at him. The self-proclaimed battering ram bumped right into his shoulder when he was unable to remove himself from the line of fire.
"Well, that's an interesting talent!" he laughed as he pivoted to face her, reaching up to rub his collarbone with his opposing forepaw.
Ness glanced off the boy's shoulder, jarring her head more than anything— but she forced herself to keep from staggering, so that her point might still stand. She gave herself a shake, trying to realign her vision. "You damn right, man. So... you know," she suggested, giving herself another quick shake between words before turning her darkly bronzed eye in a cheeky wink towards her packmate; "watch your ass."
Though her vision was back to normal, and she could open both eyes without feeling all whirly, there was still a dull throb on top of her head where skull and shoulderbone had met. She angled her face fully towards Floki, and scrunched up her face, ducking her head as she began to swipe gently at the area between her ears; trying to combat a headache. She would probably keep that "talent" of hers underwraps from now on. "How do rams do this crap all the time? Pretty sure your chest cracked my skull."
"Oh, I will," was Floki's playful rejoinder; putting a literal spin on her comment, he twisted to turn his rump away from her, even though it had been his shoulder that she had headbutted. There was a dull ache there, but he knew it would subside in a short while. Ness, however, seemed to be regretting her brief stint as a battering ram, as she rubbed her own head and complained of the pain.
The tan-socked boy puffed out his chest. "I'm stronger than I look, huh," he replied, though he set the bantering to the side for a moment. Taking a step towards Ness, he peered at the top of her head as though attempting to assess the damage. "Really, though, are you okay?" he asked, voice softening slightly. He wouldn't be able to do anything for her headache, but if it was bad enough they could always ask Thistle Cloud for some advice.
"Yeah," she drawled, dropping her paw for the last time and then giving her entire, lanky body a shake. "I'm good. Lumpy, maybe. But good." Giving a huff, she looked at Floki skeptically and then smiled. "Must be that beach bod hidden underneath all that fur," she said, meant in the most platonic way possible (of course). Her tail wagged to show that she was truly alright, even despite the dull throbbing in the corner of her skull that she ignored. This is what happens, Ness. You need to tone it down. She swallowed her secret self-consciousness like bile.
"Now you owe me a meal, a vacation, and medical restitution. You're racking up quite a debt with me, sir."
Ness's platonic comment normally would have slipped through one of Floki's ears and out the other, but things with Wildfire were different now and he felt his cheeks warm. For the first time, he started to realize that there were other wolves out there -- other girls that could catch his attention. He was still so young and had his whole life ahead of him to settle down. It was a surprising revelation that he tucked away for the time being, instead focusing on his current task: teasing Ness.
"Put it on my tab," he drawled with a flick of his tail. Looking in the direction that the rabbit had gone, he asked, "You up for some fast food?" The medical restitution would have to remain unresolved, unless she wanted to visit with his mother, and the previously promised trip to the beach required some planning -- but he could make up for her lost meal quickly, while she rested her head. "You stay here, Lumpy," he added in the next breath, even as he turned and began to trot away from her, nose to the ground as he trailed the hare.
Two-toned eyes narrowed haughtily at the boy, her tail lashing silently at his abating response. How dare he act more chill than I? she thought, tongue swiping across her chops as he posed his question. The reaction of her tongue was purely predatory, but not spurred by his proposal of food; rather, a thought of pouncing on him. She was slacked, however, by his committal to finishing her hunt before she could even verbally respond. She only had time to sniff loudly at the nickname, which then turned into a snort as she revealed herself to be confining a laugh behind his back. Clearing her throat, Ness turned a tight circle and then sat neatly in the center of its imaginary boundary, facing the direction in which Floki had loped off too. She sat like that for a while, with her long tail blanketing her left feet set in the near square her posture had created of her paws.
And though she did wait a respectable amount of time, Ness eventually grew impatient with the utter silence (and being highly aware of a building headache), so she began slowly following Floki's trail.
He couldn't hear any footfalls behind him, so he was satisfied that Ness had followed his directive -- at least for now. Quickly, he picked up on the scent of the missing hare, and it led him right to the mouth of an underground warren. Huffing thoughtfully, Floki inserted his snout experimentally into the hole, breathing deeply as he devised a plan.
Luckily for him, he didn't have to do too much thinking. It seemed that his presence alone was enough to rattle the already shaken up rabbit, because it -- or one of its siblings -- darted out of a clump of short bushes nearby. Springing into action, he raced after it, nearly tripping on the underbrush in his hurry. As he passed by, he noticed a secondary entrance hidden beneath the thick leaves.
The rabbit was swift, and Floki was lacking finesse, but he managed to overpower it with a few thrusts of his hind legs. The end result wasn't pretty -- he bowled it over with his forepaws, likely snapping its neck accidentally in the fall, and somersaulted to the ground. He was pleasantly surprised to find the small animal slumped between his front legs, and just to ensure that its life was over, he sank his teeth into its tender spine. It shuddered, and then went limp. Grinning around its fur, he stood and gave himself a shake, then trundled back towards Ness.
He met her about halfway and gave her a playful scowl. "I 'old 'ou to sthtay put," he scolded, then dropped the still-warm carcass at her feet.
Ness beamed when she saw him. He was all ruffled and such, but triumphant as he came; and not only by the display of his trophy, but also in the gleam of his eyes, shining like sea-glass. "Yeah, well, what's the fun in that?" she remarked casually, attempting to rein in her persistent smile as he deposited the kill before her. She was grateful for a reason to duck her face out of view. Sniffing eagerly at her gift, tail beating, her thoughts fell completely absent of her original task, which had been to collect these rabbits, and she became eager to eat. Ness felt suddenly famished, and the smell of warm flesh was already ebbing her headache.
"Here, share," she said by way of warning him, because not a breath later, she had picked up the rabbit by the back of its shoulders and swung its backend at Floki's face in a playful slap— eager to goad him into a tug-o-war that would rip the catch in half.
Floki stepped back as Ness moved to begin eating the rabbit. Instead of simply taking a bite, however, she made an offer, both verbally and physically. Before he could really process what she had said, she picked up the carcass and Floki found it suddenly swinging towards his face. It smacked him right in the snout, which prompted a round of laughter.
But her goal was clear, so he wasted no time in lunging for the rabbit as it arced through the air. He seized its flailing hindquarters, clamping down securely with his teeth, and then planted his forepaws in the dirt and braced with his shoulders. With a gleam in his eye, he gave a sharp singular tug, gauging Ness's strength before he really put forth his best effort.
As he laughingly caught on, snatching the presented end of the rabbit out of the air, Ness assumed a half-bow, tensing herself against his initial pull. Concealed beneath the misleading and windswept lie of long, spotted fur, was a well conditioned runner's build; and Ness would serve as no pushover, even against Floki's superior musculature. She returned the tug, sparing little effort to dominate their playful battle even if the end result was to share the meal between them. She loosed a coltish growl, snatching her head back and forth as his pull dragged forward the unwilling set of her paws. Jerking backwards, she tried to gain some lost leverage back, but already the rabbit had begun to come undone— the seams of its spine buckling and cracking as their frisky game strained the carcass.
Although Ness was smaller, Floki had underestimated her strength. She gave a fierce yank, then shook the rabbit vigorously as she pulled back and away from him. She very nearly succeeded in sliding the carcass out of Floki's jaws, but he tightened his grasp with a grin.
He went cross-eyed for a brief second as he looked down his nose at the quickly-fraying fur. It wouldn't be much longer before the rabbit split in two. With a growl, he jerked back against Ness's weight, employing the same back-and-forth tactic that she had used only moments before. He could hear tendons snapping and bones creaking with the effort the pair of wolves exerted on the hare's body, and then --
There was a ripping sound, and Floki fell back with the rabbit's rear end still clasped securely in his jaws. Blood dripped down onto his paws and he spat the hindquarters out, licking his lips. "How'd I get stuck this end of the deal?" he griped playfully, nudging at the almost unrecognizable rump.
Faaaaaading <3
Ness collapsed in a cloud of dust, bouncing back up like a Weeble, and whirling her larger portion around in triumphant circles before dropping it at her feet. Floki protested his own piece, and Ness smirked, batting a paw at his muzzle playfully.
"You're just lucky, I guess," she huffed as she dropped to her belly, using her left foreleg to drag her plump half into the crook of her forepaws. She took a great bite, and munched unladylike on her meal. Swallowing thickly, her tail wagged as she peered along Floki's sandy legs, up his gray chest, and into his slate face. Her headache was forgotten, and she found herself in a truly happy state— a warm feeling she only remembered experiencing a few times before.
Her mother holding her close when she was young. Her first run with the pack, and the hour-long symphony they sung at the end of it. Chasing white foxes with her brother... Floki catching her a rabbit to make her feel better. She catalogued this moment away, and eagerly nudged some of her meal his way, as the pair of them shared the spoils in happy silence.