Wolf RPG - bluegill

teya had brought @Cinna with her. she had showed the girl around the territory, notably the places for fishing and densites. but she had told the young wolf that brecheliant was due to relocate elsewhere.
still she didn't want cinna to be without guidance for now, and so she led the newcomer to a patch of frozen water and scraped its surface. "you fish before?"

Cinna trotted happily alongside @Teya as she was shown around the territory, hoping to retain the information that was given. If not, it wasn't that big of a deal - Teya had also explained the pack was moving soon, so Cinna would make it a point to not get too attached.

When asked whether she'd fished before, Cinna shook her head, saying, "No, is it hard?" She glanced down at the ice, looking doubtful - wasn't the water really cold?

"not hard. but does require patience." teya crouched on the bank. "in winter, easier for fish to see shadows. stay back from ice." she herself used her workhardened paws to puncture a hole near the shoreline, and she backed away to let cinna see the dark water underneath. "they will come to see light. we get them then."

Cinna nodded, her brows knitting together as she frowned in concentration. She watched as the hole was made in the ice, and she winced slightly for Teya - it probably wasn't very comfortable. "Do fish... taste good?" the adolescent asked, skeptic. She supposed fishing was far simpler and less dangerous than regular hunting, but she didn't have the experience to know which one she preferred yet. When Teya backed away, Cinna edged closer, peeking into the hole, then backed away, crouching low, trying to watch both the fishing hole and Teya.

teya nodded. "fish is lot of food we catch in brecheliant," she explained to the yearling. "most taste good. sometimes i catch one that tastes muddy, blech," the raven illustrated.
a medium-sized black shadow moved sluggishly in the cold water, but it was not yet to their fishing hole. teya motioned, excitement beginning to build.

Cinna supposed it made sense - if they lived close enough to water, why not use it for food? Still, the yearling seemed doubtful, although it was more towards her own skills, and not Teya's words. She was about to voice these doubts when a shadow appeared beneath the ice; Cinna watched it intently, and try as she might to remain still, she could not prevent her rump from wiggling ever so slightly. She waited until the fish was closer, and she crept towards the hole. Excitement started to overwhelm her, and she acted without waiting for instruction; Cinna lunged for the hole, maw opening wide as she snapped at the fish. Her teeth closed around a scaly and surprisingly strong body, and she pulled away from the hole before tossing the fish onto the shore. It flopped and flailed, and Cinna hastily placed her paws on it, keeping it rom moving. "I... I did it!" she barked excitedly, turning towards Teya.

teya watched in rapt interest. when it was clear that cinna succeeded, she drummed her paws against the frozen shoreline and woofed out a note of encouragement. "very good job!" she praised, reaching to nudge the girl.
"if you bite spine, just behind head, fish stop moving." and would die soon thereafter. she grinned, guarding the creature as her tail continued to wave. she was happy for cinna, and surprised at her own teaching. maybe she wasn't as bad as she thought.

SUPER sorry for the wait! i was having trouble connecting to the character so my muse was nonexistent for a bit there

Cinna did as instructed; placing her paws firmly on the fish so as to stop it from escaping, she gave a quick bite behind the head of the fish, and it did indeed stop moving. Looking up from the dead fish, to Teya, the young wolf asked, "How do you fish when it's not frozen?" She hoped it wasn't a dumb question, but if the fish came to the light made by the hole in the ice, how was she supposed to get them to shore when there was no ice?

thats totally fine! writing should always be fun <3

"when not frozen, water rush faster. fish swim faster. stand in water to ankles. very still. let water settle. fish come near you then." she smiled. "you fast learner." the raven pulled away from the ice now, headed back onto the steadier snow.
"where you come from before, cinna?" she asked, turning her gaze curiously on the younger woman as she made around the edge of the water.

This will count towards her Hunter trade, right?? <3

Cinna nodded as she pondered the information given to her - she could almost see it now, poised, silent, then striking suddenly. She could do that, though she wondered about other ways of hunting, so she asked, "What else do you hunt besides fish? I like moving. I'm not sure fishing would be best for me." Likewise, she could envision herself royally messing up - what if her leg twitched? Or she had to sneeze?

Cinna went quiet as Teya asked about where she came from - it had been so long now that she didn't even really remember home. She remembered her siblings; she missed some of them. Her parents, not so much. "I don't really know where I'm from. All I remember is that it was far from here." She tried to recall the last time she'd seen her siblings. They'd gotten separated. Paw scuffing the snow, Cinna admitted, "We were travelling together - four of us. There was a really bad storm... winds were downing trees, there was lightning... stuff being thrown everywhere. I looked for them for a while, but I don't really know if they even made it."

absolutely!

teya grinned. "i have hunt boar. but it is not something to do alone. birds are faster but you will learn to be just as swift if you hunt them."
"then there deer and elk and moose. all too large to hunt with only one wolf. but maybe you learn to track and call brecheliant when you find weak animal. then we kill it together."
her humour smoothed into understanding. she reached out to offer cinna a gentle touch. "that very hard. i think if you make it here, they also alive in another place."

Cinna was glad for Teya's belief - that maybe her siblings were out there, somewhere. How she'd managed, she barely even knew anymore. She was glad it was behind her, for now she could look forward to her new life, and learn things along the way. "Yeah... Thanks, Teya." She smiled meekly.

Two things sparked interest within the girl - bird-hunting, and tracking. Both could be done alone, or in pairs. She could almost see it now - she was off with another tracker (and a cute one at that), and they would have grand adventures, or maybe she went off, alone. Either way, at the end of the adventure, there was food for the hungry pack, and a job well done. Cinna, who had gotten lost in her own head, blinked rapidly then shook herself, saying, "Um - birds!" She laughed nervously, "And maybe tracking...?" Birds would take a lot more energy, and that was all she seemed to have at the moment. That, and raging hormones - she was too young to breed, but she was still growing into being a young woman.

"birds and tracking. i teach both." she was happy that cinna was warming so well to the things teya herself liked to do. "i teach you track first." with that she set off at a bobbing step, looking for marks in the snow.
she crouched when she found low ones, curving through the snow with tiny handmarks. "otter. follow them, you find fish and fishing holes, in ice."
she allowed cinna enough time to investigate it herself before pressing on.
"this is deer." a cloven print in the snow.

Cinna's tail wagged joyfully behind her as Teya agreed to teach her. Once she could hunt properly, she'd be able to do her part to the pack; she sighed in relief, then set off with the older female. When they came upon otter tracks, Cinna eyed them carefully. They were interesting, very small and not at all like any print she'd seen before - it made it easy to remember. She nodded then to Teya, and they were off again. When they came to the deer print, Cinna grinned and said, "I've seen lots of these before." Ungulates were so common, it would be hard not to. Then, a question. "How do you know if what you're tracking is healthy or not?"

so sorry on the wait! i would love to have another <3

"lots of animals make them. deer. elk. boar. cloven hooves, two parts," she murmured, gesturing to the track again. "so, prey has unique scent, each of them. smell it. look for anything in fragrance that seems rotten or wrong. look for blood in tracks. also look if prints are even. if they are not, maybe it has limp."
further ahead, the deer had left manure. teya sniffed the old spoor. "this scent, blech, but tell you even more. a female. not pregnant. what else you smell, cinna?"
they would spend some hours hunting, teya teaching the younger the things that she herself had come to know.

Teya was a very good teacher, and Cinna found herself learning excitedly; she did her best to absorb as much knowledge as she could from each track and scent. They would track for several hours, and eventually, Cinna had the good fortune to catch a pheasant, which she would then bring back to Brecheliant's caches.