Wolf RPG

A light rain was falling on Blacktail Deer Plateau. It was the sort of day meant for indoor activity, but Pura Virtúte had no concept of 'bad' weather, and the den was quickly becoming much to small for three adults and four lively pups. If anything, rain was the best kind of weather there was - it made the ground soft and squishy, and the smell of earth became overwhelmingly strong.

After hours of whining and complaining, his frustrated guardians had finally agreed to let him experience the drizzle - accompanied, of course, by an unwilling adult. Kisu drew the short straw, and dropped his squealing, over-excited son a foot beyond the mouth of the den whilst he rested with half his body exposed to the element. A hundred footfalls had turned the entrance of the den to mush - Pura took great delight in rolling around in it, and it wasn't long before every inch of him was brown instead of grey.

The more he flailed, the deeper his pit became. It was only a shallow bowl, really, and probably wouldn't make it far beyond that, but to Pura it was the grandest fortress. He rolled onto all fours and began scrabbling at the earth, panting happily as he flung dirt in all directions.

Although Saēna had proven herself to be robust and resilient, taking punches, hits, and stink bombs from her fellow cubs without complaint, she remained the smallest and the most timid of her siblings. Add to that a displeasure with her first experience outdoors, which had resulted in a small, harmless spider bite, and the trio of parents both real and foster had on their hands a child with a severe desire to never go outside again, who had learned to avoid playing too long with the other cubs lest she get injured by their larger bodies.

But when Kisu brought an extremely excited Pura outdoors to play, Hawkeye thought it best to give him company in the form of his smaller biological sister. She grasped Saēna by the ruff and dragged her kicking and screaming out into the rain, plopping her down just shy of the mud puddle that her brother presently played in. Regaining her feet, the pup immediately attempted to skitter back indoors, but was blocked by a paw and a firm growl from her foster mother.

Defeated, young Saēna crouched in the den's doorway, staring fearfully out at the mud that was presently devouring her brother with her tail tucked firmly up against her underside. Soon enough, she would learn that the spider bite had not been caused by the earth or the sun... But, for now, the young and naive cub blamed the world for biting her toe that day, and wanted nothing at all to do with it.

The rain waned and intensified in several cycles, as if attempting to wash the pup clean and promptly giving up when he flung himself into the dirt again. Hawkeye seemed to have the same take on weather as Pura, or perhaps her exasperation with Saēna had reached a peak. The exact details of what had occurred between his sister and Mother Nature were unclear to Pura, but the experience had changed her - the poor girl had gone from premature to vibrant to mousy in three quick strides, and no amount of coaxing or reassurance - from pup or adult - could bring her out of her shell.

But Pura would try, if only because he desperately wanted a playmate. He toddled right at Saēna, every inch of him caked in slick mud save for two big blue eyes. Play with me! he barked, or at least that was what his shaky play bow suggested he had said. The quivering little girl was so clean and white - this would just not do.

All of the changing of moods should have been taken as foreshadowing, but it was likely that the adults were simply perplexed by Saēna as a whole. She never seemed to be the same from one day to the next. Sometimes, she was charmed by adventure and seemed bold and brave, and at other times she was as timid as could be. Mostly, Saēna was incredibly shy and reluctant to repeat things that had caused her to become upset before... But it was nevertheless a confusing cycle, for pups and adults.

Her mud-monster of a brother toddled toward her presently, and Saēna grew stiff and still, fearful that it was actually the mud coming to gobble her up as well. But Pura didn't seem distressed, and in fact lowered himself into a play bow reminiscent of Osprey Jr.'s a few days prior. Though Saēna may have been a reserved, shy, and easily spooked pup, instinct was the strongest feeling she had and she yielded to it easily. His play bow elicited one of her own, which brought her forepaws into the squelchy mud underfoot.

But she hadn't noticed how it coated her small arms and felt disgusting... Yet.

Saēna looked momentarily horrified at the very sight of him, but the play-bow was not an invitation to be ignored. Pups and adults alike were powerless against its magic, and his little sister was no different. She dropped onto her spindly forelimbs with a squelch!, eliciting a yippy bark from Pura Vir-toot.

"Na!" he told her encouragingly, shuffling his own fat little bum backwards. The 'Saē' part of her name belonged to the unintelligible din that surrounded the adults, but Na was something Pura recognized as a noise that was often directed at his sister. His own noise was Poo-a, for more reasons than one, but he wasn't to know that yet.

Forelegs were a good start, but there was at least 200 square miles of pristine white fur that needed a lesson in fun. Pura barked again, whacking his paws against the soupy film of dirt that covered every inch of the rendezvous site.

Her legs slid forward in the mud, bringing her belly ever closer to the dangerous mire, yet still the Virtúte daughter didn't notice. She was enthralled by her brother's play bow, and wrapped up in eagerly tilting her newly awakened ears forward to receive his encouraging barks. It was an instinct much too powerful for Saēna's feeble attempts at ignoring it, and soon she was just as excited as Pura, though it had nothing to do with the rain that steadily fell or the mud underfoot.

She shuffled forward a half-step, her entire body swaying with the effort of crawling forward and demanding all her attention. This left her wide open to attack even though she thought she was pretty damn clever.

Saēna inched forward, but not fast enough. Pura Virtúte barked impatiently and flung himself to the ground, rolling around to refresh his mud suit. His sister just needed to take the plunge, he decided - she would adore being caked in mud once she had given it a go.

Convinced that she would thank him for it, the slimy little boy rolled onto his belly, readied his hind legs, and leaped square on top of his precariously positioned sister with a screech of "WOOOO."

She wriggled on the spot, not yet demonstrating enough foresight to anticipate his next move. The whole of his fluffy body was plastered in mud, and when he launched himself it was with all of his trademark enthusiasm. Having become the lowest in the pecking order, and therefore the most often shoved around, Saēna had grown to anticipate disciplinary action for almost everything she did, and so she could anticipate his pounce.

She couldn't anticipate how it would make her feel.

His pudgy body easily forced hers to slip down into the mud. She hadn't noticed it slopping around her legs, but when her tender belly touched it and the cold nastiness seeped up through her fur, Saēna's whole body grew rigid. Her lower lip trembled as internally she screamed, EW EW EW EW EW EW. Before Pura likely even had a chance to react, the young copper-splotched cub was bawling loudly, squealing in disgust and trying her best to backpedal out of the impossible mire beneath her.

Pura had expected squeals of delight and an invitation to wrestle, but neither were on the agenda. Instead, Saēna squealed like a stuck pig and began to fight the combined foes of her brother's weight and slippery ground with ineffectual flailing. The mud-caked paper-weight that held her down rolled off and onto the ground with a wet squelch, landing on his back.

"Muh?" he asked, confused by her reaction, but Saēna was sprinting backwards at spider speeds now that the weight that pinned her had been lifted. Pura Virtúte rolled awkwardly onto his front and toddled after her, flicking mud in all directions "Nananana?" But before he could shift gears and run after her, two of the adults seized one pup each - the howling Saēna was ferried indoors for calming, and Pura was dragged back outside. "You need a wash, you mucky little turd," said the voice of the wolf that was carrying him by the scruff of the neck, and the boy wriggled and barked enthusiastically in response. By the time they reached a near-by pool of rainwater, Saēna's peculiar reaction to wholesome mud had been forgotten.

Pura babbled after her, but all Saēna could hear was her own howling filling her ears. the cub wailed and wailed and bawled until the adults scooped her up, cleaned her off, and placed her gently amongst the slightly older pups. As much as Saēna disliked being in their company, if only because they picked on her, she disliked the mud much more.