Wolf RPG

This morning, both Peregrine and Fox were in the mood to get out and stretch their legs, so they summoned Dove to look after the pups for an hour or two. The Alpha male ended up making his way back before his mate. Two of the pups were napping but Wildfire was awake and rather rowdy. Seizing the opportunity to spend some alone time with his middle child, Peregrine plucked her up by her scruff and carried her outside, stopping perhaps five meters from the den and dropping her on the ground.

"Go wild," he said to her, keeping one jade eye on her as Wildfire began to run around the immediate area, keeping herself entertained by sniffing, digging and babbling to herself.

It had been a while since Jaws had spoke to his Alpha, and when the breeze brought Peregrine's fresh scent right to his ever-wary nose he diverted his route to seek him out. He found the dark patriarch just outside his family's den, with his spirited fire-colored pup. "I don't have a gift this time, so you'll just have to settle for me," he winked as he came up on the pair, respectfully dipping his head to Peregrine. Had the coywolf intended to visit he would have brought some fresh kill, or perhaps another play thing for the pups, but this time the visit was impromptu.

Peregrine noticed Jaws's approach long before Wildfire did. When she did see him, the froze where she stood and blinked owlishly at him, then slowly padded over to press herself up against the Alpha male's leg. He blinked too, staring down at the top of her head. She had never behaved shyly before, so he wondered at her hesitation. Was it just because she was getting older (and quieter)? Or did she feel vulnerable out in the open like this? He didn't mind, of course, and found it rather ironic and sweet that she was being so bashful. He bent down to lick between her ears.

"Why does everyone think they need to arrive bearing gifts, else we want nothing to do with you...? Can we put a stop to that expectation?" Peregrine quipped in way of greeting. "Hey, Jaws. We were just hanging out and burning off some energy. Say 'hi,' Wifi," the father coaxed, the nickname springing out of nowhere (possibly only because it rhymed with hi and rolled off his tongue so easily).

Of course, she couldn't understand commands well yet, much less speak, so instead Wildfire looked up at him and asked, "Bow? Bowie?" and then looked at Jaws. She didn't recognize him, though there was something familiar about his scent. "Baba! Owdy!" the red cub said, tone enthusiastic but relatively calm... so different from her piercing screams of yore.

Jaws' gaze was drawn to Wildfire as she blinked up at him before taking shelter against her father's foreleg, but he lifted his head when Peregrine spoke in disdain of how his packmates seemed to feel obliged to bring a gift each time they came by. "It's a respect thing," he offered with a shrug. Neither Alpha had expressed a need for gifts, but it was true that Jaws had felt obliged to do so, mostly because the leading pair were occupied with their new borns and he suspected neither would want to stray too far from the den for food. As a candidate gamekeeper, he saw it as his responsibility to keep the pack fed and so bringing food to the den was a natural extension of that. "But don't worry, I'll wait until your birthday to bring gifts next time." He of course had no idea the Alpha's birthday had come and gone just a few days ago.

As Peregrine encouraged his daughter to say hello, Jaws bowed down to be more on her level, looking at her with a gentle smile as she babbled. "Hello," he said to her, softly.

"I mean," Peregrine said, "it's not that we don't appreciate them. We do, don't we, Wifi?" "Poosha!" "I just don't want you to feel like you're obligated to bring them. Your presence is the only present we need. Do you get it?" He winked, then laughed as Wildfire emitted another, slightly more vehement, "Poosha!"

Peregrine leaned down to nuzzle the girl's cheek, then nudge her bottom toward Jaws. "Don't be shy," he said gently, then lifted his head and said to Jaws, "Speaking of my birthday, I think it was the other day. I'm four now... or maybe five? No, four. Definitely four," he thought out loud.

The hybrid greeted the pup, who was still hanging back nearer her dad. "Poowa?" she said to him, the word causing Peregrine's ears to twitch. It tossed him back into time, when his first litter had been first learning to speak. The girls had called Pura that: Poowa. Before he could contemplate the coincidence much further, she added, "Wababa! Wossy!" She then smiled, black tail beginning to wag, golden eyes fastened on Jaws's teeth.

Jaws' gaze returned to Peregrine and he nodded thoughtfully as his stalwart leader clarified his stance on gifts, grinning slightly at the your presence is the only present we need comment and biting back a vain joke. "I understand," he replied more simply, his eyes flicking to Wildfire again as her father attempted to encourage her by giving her rump a gentle nudge. "Aw, drat, I missed your birthday?" Jaws shook his head slowly, tsking. "Well happy belated birthday, old timer," he teased. "Your memory is going already."

The coywolf settled to his stomach and lowered his chin to the ground between his legs. Behind him, his tail lightly scuffed the earth in a slow wag. He looked to Wildfire, whom he hoped to encourage with his as-nonthreatening-as-possible pose. Jaws could not explain it but the fiery pup had touched a tender part of him that he hadn't even known was there.

"Thanks," Peregrine replied sarcastically, though his eyes laughed. He then fell silent as Jaws lowered himself in an attempt to encourage Wildfire to come closer. The Alpha wondered if his daughter was frightened by those teeth. She did appear to be staring at them. He wondered if she would say something rude to him when she started speaking, like, My, grandma, what large fangs you have! Kids did tend to say the darnedest things and they didn't come with filters until they were older...

"Pruh!" she warbled, altering the pronunciation of the nonsense word some. She then went in an entirely different direction and said, "Beebo, breeeee..." Her lips then pressed together as she blew a raspberry, all while slinking nearer to Jaws. At length, Wildfire stood over him, tail waving slowly, and reached out a paw to bat at his nose.

Jaws was a bit surprised that Wildfire was bold enough to approach him. With his long fangs and wild fur around his neck and tail combined with his towering figure he was not the most approachable-looking wolf around, but perhaps his efforts to appear welcoming had not been in vain. Perhaps even the red cub recognized his scent from the time he brought her a feather. Either way, Jaws was warmed by her, and he remained still as she stood above his muzzle, reaching a paw out to boop his nose. He moved to make a return boop, but his paw dwarfed her little nose so he placed it softly on her head instead. Wildfire was nowhere near as delicate as Jaws perceived her to be, but such was his inexperience around pups.

"She's got a bit of boldness in her, anyway," Jaws commented to Peregrine. "Maybe all that screaming before was her way of challenging the world before she could do so any other way."

"I think she takes her cues from me a little bit," Peregrine said softly, tail swaying as he watched, "though maybe she recognizes your scent. Perhaps, deep down, she knows it was you that brought her that feather." Could that possibly be true? He had no clue. By the time Wildfire could speak properly, she would have forgotten about that feather completely.

"Maybe," the Alpha said, watching as Wildfire shook her head and took a step backward to escape from Jaws's paw. Once it dropped, she laughed and suddenly sprawled on her belly, tiny tongue lolling as she grinned at him, waiting to see what he would do next. "I'm kind of relieved that her screaming didn't evolve into anything worse. She seems to have chilled quite a lot since gaining her senses."

If Wildfire remained this way -- happy, playful but also a touch reserved (perhaps only around those she didn't know) -- Peregrine would be fine with that. He hoped Nightjar and Raven would remain equally easy. They would develop a pecking order among themselves, he knew, as it was only natural. But he hoped there was no dynamic like Osprey's and Saena's of yore. His daughter had been such a strong-willed bully and, looking back, Peregrine would rather not have to go through that again.

"Maybe," he said as Peregrine explained that he thought Wildfire was taking cues from him and might recognize Jaws by scent. He could offer little else in comment because he was fully clueless about pups, having barely foggy ideas about the things they could or could not perceive or what they were even capable of as they grew. He did not feel as awkward around them as he had that first night yet still he did not have that smooth confidence that Peregrine had.

Wildfire moved back and sprawled before him with a cute grin and for a few moments Jaws simply looked at her. He was unsure of how to play with her but found himself reaching forward to poke his cold nose around her ear, speaking to Peregrine as he did so. "Her screaming must have been hard on her ears too," Jaws said. "At least she's not a biter." He paused. "Does she even have teeth?" The coywolf couldn't remember when he got his teeth as a pup.

"What makes you think she isn't a biter?" Peregrine quipped. "She got Finley good the other day. Yes, she definitely has teeth. Just ask Fin's foot or, better yet, Fox's nips." He grimaced with a wry laugh. Fox's teats were being punished by the puppies' developing teeth and he didn't envy her at all. He wished he knew more about medicine -- or that Ashton hadn't left them at such an absurdly terrible time -- so that he could whip up some kind of balm for her sore, chafed boobies.

Even though Wildfire couldn't understand, she grinned rather toothily at Jaws, as if she'd comprehended his question. She tittered when he pressed his cold nose against her ear, leaning into the touch. Her golden eyes lifted to his face, so near to hers, waiting to see what what came next.

"That was a bad guess," Jaws replied, but with a chuckle he could not resist adding a joke to his response. "I'm going to have to ask Fox next time I see her how her nipples are doing." He said it as a joke but it would not be out of character for him to throw in a blunt question like that and he probably would.

Apparently Wildfire was indeed taking cues from her father, because no sooner had Peregrine finished saying she had teeth (and was in fact using them) did the fire-furred cub grin in such a way that Jaws a full view of them when he momentarily pulled away from her. The coywolf grinned back at her and reached for her again, this time using his muzzle to gently attempt to roll her.

The Alpha male smirked, though he said nothing more, instead focusing his attention on watching Jaws interact with his little girl. He grinned at her in return, then pushed her with his slender muzzle, attempting to roll her. She didn't put up a fight, allowing herself to be pushed over and then flipped onto her back. Wildfire giggled, her little black tail jerking back and forth. She was like putty -- or, better yet, a puppet -- in his hands.

As Wildfire rolled onto her back, Jaws found himself nuzzling the soft fur of her belly as she giggled, his tail wagging with hers. Although the coywolf was not an individual that could be described as affectionate it was coming easily to him now, but that is not to say his behavior would be duplicated with an adult next. It was a natural instinct for social mammals to be protective and gentle toward the young. Heck, the little buggers were designed in such a way to make them appealing, to tug at all the right strings and so it was Jaws that was actually the puppet between the two of them. He was bending the way evolution intended him to bend.

"Are you still trying to give her away?" he grinned up at Peregrine. Suddenly, the gray jay, who had been out and about on a solo flight because Kris keeps forgetting about him, came in to land on an overhanging branch. It puffed out its feathers and chattered and chirped at Jaws, clearly agitated. "What do you know," the coywolf commented. "My bird's a jealous ass."

Jaws's question caused Peregrine to smirk and snort. Those first few weeks had been... trying. He hadn't loved her any less for being difficult, though it was definitely easier to love her now that she wasn't screaming her head off every waking moment. "Sorry, man. She's growing on me now," the Alpha male quipped. That was, of course, an understatement. The king loved all his children immensely.

His eyes lifted as the familiar bird appeared on the scene, landing in a branch and puffing out his feathers. Peregrine's jade eyes then cut back to Jaws when he commented on the jay's mood. "Oh?" He found it difficult to read birds, since they lacked facial expressions, even in their eyes. And their body language was absolutely foreign to him, though he supposed the raised feathers were not unlike bristling hackles.

Down below, Wildfire hadn't noticed the bird at all. She did notice Jaws's distraction, however, and yelled, "Emee!" at him, batting at his chest to get him to pay attention to her.

"Well, seems like it anyways." He had a 'pet bird' but the whole thing was still rather new to him too and Jaws could not read birds with any better proficiency than anyone else, except perhaps someone like Peregrine's mother who his Alpha said was something of an expert. But like his swarthy leader, Jaws imagined that puffed feathers were like bristled fur, and by looking at his bird as he would a wolf he arrived to his assumption that it was jealous.

But it was not the only one that was, apparently. Wildfire yelled, effectively pulling his attention back and with a louder chirp than before the gray jay abruptly flew off, certainly adding to the idea that it was indeed jealous. The coywolf chuffed as he watched the bird fly away, then turned back to Wildfire, giving her a couple gentle pokes here and there, not daring to use his teeth to nip or nibble for fear of hurting her. "I think someone else is a bit jealous too," he mused.

The bird took flight and Peregrine imagined it huffing as it went. It certainly chirped loudly, finally drawing Wildfire's attention. The father glanced at his daughter's face as she suddenly sat up straighter, then stood, ignoring Jaws now as she peered after the bird. It quickly vanished into the distance. Peregrine licked his lips, wondering if Wildfire was about to resort to her old ways. He could just imagine she wanted to screech over the fact that the bird had left the instant she'd noticed it.

But instead the puppy made a quiet huffing noise, glanced at Jaws again and then padded over to Peregrine. She slumped at his feet and the Alpha observed, "Ah, someone's finally ready to join her brother and sister for naptime." That's why he'd brought her out here in the first place: to wear off her energy. "Think I'm gonna join her," he added for Jaws's benefit. "We'll see you again soon, I'm sure. You may wanna go chase down that bird and make things right."

He chuckled, then bent down and took Wildfire's rusty red scruff in his teeth. He hoisted her into the air, waved his dark tail at Jaws, then turned and ducked back into the den. He placed the sleepy child beside Raven, then slumped down to join his family for a quick power nap.

Once Wildfire had noticed the fleeing gray jay her attention on Jaws had dropped abruptly, and the coywolf sat up. After it was gone from her view she walked over to Peregrine, to whom Jaws nodded when he had finished speaking. "See you around," he said as the black-furred Alpha gathered his daughter and retreated to the den. Just as Peregrine suggested, Jaws headed off in the same direction as his bird, more curious than concerned about the bird's mood.