Like a little shadow whose resemblance mirroried her father almost perfectly, Thresher trailed behind Coelacanth, sort of snaking from side to side as she sought to step in the same places her mother's feet stepped. Of course, her mother's stride was much larger than hers, so it was an ambling, hop-step of a gait, but it kept her occupied and she was still able to keep close to her mother as she did so. She wasn't terribly aware of where they were going- her attention was far too captivated by her little game to look up, and she had all of her trust invested in her mother taking her to a safe place. Though Thresher was a homebody, she did not express a great deal of reluctance in going anywhere as long as one of her parents led the way.
As her mother fished, Thresher tried to mimic her mother's movements again, but stayed back where only her front toes touched the water. When her mother drank, she did too, but she was still apprehensive of water that moved, and stayed where she was, watching her mother as she focused on the water. Thresher had just dropped her gaze to the water's surface when her mother lunged, and the girl was lightly startled by the splash as Coelacanth snapped a shining, silvery fish out of the water. Small fright immediately forgotten, the quiet girl uttered a little huff to her mother- absent of voice tone, as always- but still an audible little puff of breath meant to convey some sort of congratulations. Her little, tasseled tail waved from side to side as she then stepped in just up to her ankles, and began to stare at the water's surface, waiting for her fish to surface.
She could tell her mother was watching her, so she stayed put for a moment, before she moved in just a tad deeper, tail waving as though to reassure her mother she wouldn't go any deeper; the water licked playfully at her elbows, and toyed with the long tressed of fur at her belly, but she was still quite safe. Another wolf approached, and Thresher's glance roved from the wolf to her mother, and back again. She gave the female a soft smile, before she turned her attention back to the water, willing another fish- but one more Thresher sized- to show up.
Grayling and his sister were a study in opposites. Not only in appearance -- colored as he was like ice-clad stone whilst she bore the shades of sunshine and honey -- but in personality as well. Thresher was a quiet beauty, thoughtful and considering of every sound she made, every step she took. She was an intelligent girl, perhaps already beyond her tender age, and one could tell with just a glance that she understood more about the world around her than she let on.
Grayling, by contrast, was a metaphorical bull in a china shop. He was loud and boistrous, energetic, fearless, and nosy as hell. He liked finding trouble and getting chest-deep into it, and his parents' chidings rolled off of him like a bead of water off the well-oiled back of a duck. His skull was thicker than concrete, it seemed, and he often acted without any consideration for consequences. The colors of his fur were beginning to develop a depth of hue to them, the greys and blacks becoming more differentiated as he grew larger. His eyes had begun to transition, as well, shards of darker turquoise beginning to freckle the stormwater blue of infancy.
He was learning to talk, and was more than happy to do the talking for all of his siblings. "Mahhhmee!" he trilled with delight at the sight of her head and neck darting, birdlike, into the water's shimmering depths. The prize she dropped on the shore for them gleamed brilliantly and wriggled with vigor and life, and Grayling was excited by it. "A fush!" He sprang toward the creature, completely unaware of the wolf who approached them, and pawed at it playfully. The few forceful slaps he received across the snout from the fish's thrashing tail didn't deter him at all.
Six marched along with his siblings – sometimes forging ahead to the front of the group to almost run into the back of his mother’s legs as she walked, and sometimes falling behind them all as a particularly interesting scent or sight caught his attention.
He is ever so slightly suspicious of the moving water, and though he steps up to the edge of the stream he doesn’t drink right away. Instead he peers down at the water and watches it with great scrutiny before reaching out a cautious paw, dipping it into the stream and watching the way the water flows around it, head tipped to the side in wonder and curiosity.
Coelacanth’s sudden movement to catch the fish and the subsequent flopping of said fish upon the shore quickly proves to be far more interesting and exciting though, and Six is almost as quick as his brother is to pounce after it. The white and cream boy had not quite found his words, but he had certainly found his voice, and he barks loud and sharp at the fish, darting in to try and grab for it and getting a few slaps across the muzzle from it’s tail as well instead. He huffs and paws at it instead, tail curled up over his back in excitement. At the moment, he is too transfixed by the fish and his attempts to help Grayling subdue the thrashing creature that he doesn’t notice they have an audience.
It was a dog thing. The sandstone guardian accepted the Aralez' touch with metaphorically open arms, her body buzzing with unreleased energy. Her front legs beat against the ground as her tail sliced through the air, head thrown back as she punctuated the air with more of those awful barks.
There was a small tension as Coelacanth looked towards her Earthstalker, and it caused 'Io's heart to pound and her movements to stiff. The very tip of her tail continued its excited wagging and her body seemed to tremble beneath the weight of containing all of this energy, and her eyes seemed to be begging them to Please Not Be Doing That, Please.
WC: 575
Despite all the fuss and commotion, Thresher was still relatively capable of keeping her focus placed on the water before her, which she watched with a calm but intent stare that roved from the surface down to the very bottom as she watched for another fish to swim by. Of course, as she was in the shallows, the chances of her catching anything fishlike were incredibly slim. She should have been out a few more feet at least, but she was too short for that and the current of the water too strong for her to try and tempt it. She was aware of her mother’s watchful gaze, and of the fact that she would not be allowed to go in too deep. She did not want to be
bad, after all. Hearing that word upset Thresher quite a bit, so she behaved as much as she possibly could. She knew what boundaries existed, and respected them reverently.
It surprised Thresher to hear a deep voice which did not belong to her father. Her ears turned back as she heard him speak with a curling drawl. But at the same moment, she spotted something in the water- something that was brown, and slipping down along the current just below the surface, so she ignored the male’s voice for a moment and focused instead on the fish in the water that was slowly coming toward her. It didn’t move a great deal, and instead simply went with the current. Thresher’s tail waved, but she stiffened more the closer the fish got, instinct guiding her to hold fast and stay still so that she could ambush it, and kill it. Surely it would swim away if it perceived that it was in danger, and if she moved, she would give herself away. Right now, she was nothing but a statue, mouth hovering just a few inches above the water as she watched the brownish shape move closer and closer…
When it slid before her, she lunged into the water with a splash that was perhaps a bit large for someone so small. She went completely below the surface, so committed was she to catching her prey. She felt her jaws close around something that was slippery and wet- but quite a bit harder between her teeth than she had expected- and nowhere near as wriggly as it should have been. Still, once she had it clutched between her teeth she reeled backwards, pulling her head and shoulders out of the water and her prized catch with her, and she backpedaled swiftly toward the shore where she trotted proudly. Water dripped from her beige coat and from her tail which was held aloft. She didn’t even bother to shake the water from her coat- it was more important in that moment for her to present her gift to her mother.
She gave the friendly male a coy smile as she pranced toward her mother, and with a happy chuff, she lay her prize down on the ground. It wasn’t a fish at all- it was a stick, one which had obviously been in the water long enough for all of its bark to be stripped away so that it was indeed as smoothe and shiny as a fish might be. This didn’t discourage Thresher at all, who still thought that she’d done a marvellous job at killing the stick that had swum too close to her.
The two brothers are far too engrossed in their epic fish battle to notice much of anything else. At first they alternate turns, one darting in to bite and paw at the trout and then bouncing away so the other can make an attempt. But then, perhaps by chance alone, they sync up their attempts, and with one grabbing for the tail and one for the head they finally manage to conquer the flopping fish.
Six is halfway laying on it as he gnaws at the tail, every once in awhile giving a sharp back and forth shake of his head as if the fish might magically come back to life and attempt to get away. He’s not terribly hungry at the moment, but he’s also not willing to give up his half of the prize so he continues to work at it. At some point though, his gaze drifts up to seek out their mother, and he suddenly becomes aware that there are two unfamiliar wolves in their midst.
He cocks his head to the side in an exaggerated manner, mouth still full of fish, and makes a garbled bark-chuff to get his brother’s attention. After a moment he releases the fish from his jaws and sits up – though he does stamp a paw down onto his end of the trout to continue to lay claim to his half – and tips his head to the other side as he watches Seelie’s interactions with the two. He is loathe to abandon his prize, but he is also terribly curious, so finally he rises to all four paws and tromps over to the gathering to investigate.