Wolf RPG

Redhawk Caldera was a very different place than it was a week ago, but Nightjar didn't feel any differently about it. Arguably, he was still a little too young to truly understand. The entire pack was now undergoing the same pursuit as him, a fact which made him oodles more excited about becoming a fighter. Of course, Nightjar had loved play fighting long before Junior's attack, so the announcement that they all would be fighters only fuelled the fire that had begun burning long ago.

Even Wildfire was training to be a Warrior, which made Nightjar very happy indeed. His protective nature would remain intact even as she learned to defend herself and fight back, though, so even though she was going to be a Warrior as well, he felt it was his sacred duty to be a better one. It was also because he was a boy and therefore naturally competitive. For this reason, Nightjar trained against wolves and items alike, and today, he was lucky enough to have found a goose, which he was snarling at and provoking with his very best Warrior face.

Fox came upon her son provoking a goose, and she watched from afar for a moment. Nightjar had always been more physical and instinctual than his sisters, something that Fox could certainly identify with. Peregrine was more emotional, that was for sure. That didn't mean that Fox loved any of her children more than the others. They were each incredibly unique individuals, and that was part of what their mother loved most about them. She was happy to let them be as they were, so long as they were working hard and making progress in whatever area they wished to pursue.

She stood behind her son, watching him try to pester the goose into some sort of battle. He was a true warrior in the making, and it brought a wide grin to her face. "Get 'em, Jar!" Fox whisper-shouted, not wanting to break his concentration too much from the main objective. Her tail whipped from side to side, eager to see what his tactics would be.

As it turned out, Nightjar had absolutely no tactics except heeding his instincts. Even if he thought about fighting and how to do it, when he actually got to it, his brain turned off anyway. Not that it was an impressive brain by any stretch of the imagination, but all the same, what little sense he did have was whisked away in the heat of battle. So while Fox watched her son with hopes that he would show her something cunning, Nightjar watched the goose with the singular intent of beating the crap out of it.

How he did it didn't matter. Whether he came from the front, sides or back was all the same to Nightjar. The obvious weakness of the goose's backside wasn't so obvious to him, nor was the obvious increased threat of retaliation from the front. One could say Nightjar simply didn't care for tactics; that shit was for losers who weren't strong enough to fend off an attacker with sheer physical prowess.

Well, Nightjar wasn't a loser and he could use brute strength alone, so he did. He launched himself forward in a straight line, engaged the goose head-on, and was able to shove it quite forcefully backward. The goose wasn't silent or still through any of this, but when faced with a rather bulky, rather aggressive wolf pup intent on giving it a piece of his mind, all the hissing and biting in the world did very little. In fact, when the goose bit back, Nightjar internalized the pain so easily and so naturally that he almost, almost, made himself numb to it... something that only he could do, surely, because he was too dumb to relent over something like mild or even moderate pain. It would have to be a good deal of pain, the sort that made a child pull its finger back from a very hot surface, the sort that was instinctual alone and not exaggerated by emotion, to stop Nightjar.

And the goose, after a few fruitless seconds, realized that the wolf was seemingly immune to its sharp bill and gave up its defense by backing off quite quickly. Nightjar stayed where he was, breathing hard and letting instinct keep the pain of the goose's retaliation at the back of his mind, where it didn't matter at all, while he recovered.

Nightjar's tactic was one that Fox had always thought would be more common. Ignore whatever "logic" there was to fighting and just jump right in—head first. She'd used the same method when fighting many of her past enemies, though it was usually reserved for those she liked the least. The goose nipped at him, and Fox thought Nightjar might back off, but he persevered, going at the bird again and again until it finally relented. A smile creased her lips when this happened, and if she'd had the hands to do it, she would have clapped for him. Some mothers might have worried about their children getting hurt, but Fox knew it was all part of growing up. The goose was a pretty fair match, but not so overwhelming as some other creatures he could have picked a fight with.

Fox stepped forward then, surely alerting her ever-observant son to her presence. She strode up beside him, briefly grooming his shoulder. The goose, much more petrified of her than Nightjar, quickly went honking off a safe distance away, though it didn't leave the area completely. "You did a good job," she praised. Even as a youngster, NJ was much more stoic compared to his sisters. Fox wasn't sure if it was because he was a boy or if it was just part of his personality, but it didn't matter too much to her.

He planned to have another go at the goose, and probably earn another bleeding wound or two, when Fox moved in the background. His good ear immediately locked onto her and he turned halfway, only to spot her and relax. There was no one in the pack that frightened or intimidated Nightjar, at least not in a threatening sort of way. The leaders were intimidating because they were leaders, but he certainly wasn't a shy boy, so that was never much of a problem. Still, to hear a sound behind him while he was still recovering was always alarming.

He rumbled affectionately in his throat and pressed up against his mother's side. Nightjar was the last child to be wholly weaned, but he was still a bit of a clingy child in his own way, particularly with Fox. He was excited to know that he was over half her height now, and actually not terribly far from reaching her height. Soon enough, he would tower over her like Peregrine. 

"T'anks, ma!" he said, drumming his forepaws against the ground. If not for that, he might've been able to look like a small adult, but his excitement still leaked out into physical actions. He angled his snout up and lapped at her chin deferentially before asking, "would you do it differen'?"

Nightjar was definitely the largest of the bunch. His size would help him a lot in the coming years. But then again, any size could be used to one's advantage. Fox used her own to flee on occasion, to dip under her larger opponents, and she had nimbleness on her side. Nightjar would, of course, have different strengths. His large size would allow him to tackle opponents, throwing them to the ground, and his muscular jaws would allow him to bite down hard on their flesh.

He asked if she would do it differently, to which she nodded. "I'm bigger, which means the goose would probably run away from me before giving me a chance to attack. I'd have to be stealthy in my approach if I really wanted to have a go at it." Nightjar had not been stealthy in his approach, nor in his attack. Fox imagined this would change over time, although she knew adults who preferred a brazen, head-first, whistle-blowing attack to a quieter one.

"If I was your size, though, I'd probably try and stay away from its head a little more to minimize the damage." Fox licked the bits of drying blood on NJ's muzzle. She was not an overprotective mother, even if she might should (people say this in the south, I swear) have been. Children were bound to get cuts, scrapes, and bruises. They were kids, and it was better they learned with minor injuries now than major ones later on.

Fox's sage advice was heard, but more than likely would go out the other ear. It wasn't that Nightjar didn't think she knew better than him—she absolutely did—but that he would always be more of a bull-rush kind of wolf. He would likely try her tactic only to forget its potential effectiveness later. He was forgetful and not exactly the think-before-you-act sort.

"But then it'd bite my butt!" he protested, misunderstanding what Fox really meant by keeping away from the head. His world existed in polar opposites. If not the head, he would have to go for the rear, and that would leave his sides and behind open to attack. Logic would've told him that this was still better than taking injuries up front but instinct told him to never turn his back, and he had far more of that than of logic.

He giggled when she lapped the blood off his face. It stung, but it wasn't anything unbearable. His tail whapped his sides as he turned to her, assured the goose was too distant to do anything to his butt, and said, "what if it was a wolf and not a honker?"

"That's because you've got a big butt!" she said, nipping lightly at Nightjar's rear. She grinned wide, then, teasing him. Nightjar was big, that much was true, although his butt was pretty much in proportion with the rest of him. And while turning one's back wasn't always the best idea, sometimes it was the best tool in Fox's bag of tricks. Nightjar then asked about fighting wolves, rather than "honkers." That was an interesting question, and one Fox had faced many times now.

"Hopefully, they'd back down once they realized you meant business." Posturing was often sufficient to get others to back down, and (now that she had children) Fox tended to try that as a first tactic to "winning" whatever fight she was currently in. "Wolf teeth are a heck of a lot sharper, but they're also quicker than that honker over there. There's a bunch of different ways to fight wolves, though. You can try and tackle them—er, knock them down—bite them, get yourself on top of them and squish them, duck beneath them and flip them over from there... the possibilities are pretty endless."

Her teasing was literal to him, so he turned his head around as far as he could to examine his rear. It didn't seem to be any bigger than the rest of him, so when he looked back to his mother, his expression was puzzled, but she quickly went on to speak of fighting wolves and his expression smoothed out.

Fighting wolves seemed to be all about flipping them over, or at least that's what he heard. Get them on the ground, you win. So far, Nightjar had done most of his fighting with the aim of making another concede defeat verbally. This was the first time he'd heard of a proper way to win a fight. He liked the power it implied. It surely took a strong wolf to squish or flip another. He would keep it in mind as a reminder of why Warriors had to be powerful. He doubted he'd be snaking his way under anyone to flip them, but he could surely make them buckle with a relentless onslaught.

"Show me!" Nightjar demanded. Fox could play the big bad outsider and Nightjar could flip her over! He didn't realize how unlikely it was that he would win this challenge. As far as he knew, the good wolves always won, so if he was the good wolf, then he would win!

Just as she would do with Wildfire in a few short days, Fox intended to be the victor for this spar. Each and every one of her pups would have to know what it was like to lose, and she would rather that they experienced it at her tooth and claw than an enemies (at least the first time around). Losing wasn't fun—it could be downright terrifying—but it happened to everybody. Yes, even the greatest warriors: Fox and Peregrine. The more fights one lost, the more they could learn from their mistakes. Eventually, losing became less and less frequent (as was the case for Fox), and besting opponents got easier.

So when Nightjar demanded that his mother "show him," how it was done, Fox took it to mean "show me how it feels to be on the losing side." She wasn't rough with him, of course, but she rushed him with little time to maneuver out of the way, intending to pin him down. Perhaps he would learn at least a little something from it (namely: never give your attackers the first move).

Fox rushed him immediately, without a single hesitation or hint. This was enough to cause Nightjar to pause, and she was upon him in an instant. Ordinarily, this was cause for any wolf to instantly submit, but Nightjar himself was bold to the point of stupidity. He was without fear, at least when it came to fighting, because his instincts always took over for him, as they did now.

So when Fox loomed over him, the puppy didn't surrender as his mind should have told him to. He lashed out as his body told him to. He would not hurt his mother intentionally, not even a little, but nothing about what he was doing now was intentional; in fact, it was all instinctual. His brain was no longer engaged, and only his blood was doing the driving, and his blood thrummed hotly with the threat of losing. So as she easily barreled him over, he struck with his teeth, limiting his growing strength just enough that the damage would still be minor, at the chest right in front of him.

At the same time, he scrabbled at her undersides with his hind paws (again, not with the intent to hurt, but likely scraping despite his intentions) looking for a way to trip her up and gain the upper hand, though she was still larger and probably had him solidly pinned no matter what he did. Fox was his mother and Alpha, but she was now also an opponent, meaning he couldn't give up without a fight.

He kicked, scratched, and bit. It wouldn't cause any serious injuries, of course, but Fox was a bit surprised that he hadn't simply melted under her, like she expected. She remained over top of him, seeing as though such squirreling around had little effect on an experienced warrior like herself (ugh, sometimes Fox is on such an ego trip, sorry). Not harshly, she planted a firm right front foot on his upper front leg, then used her muzzle to push into his other armpit to stop his rampant scratching. Well, at least of his front legs.

His back legs still kicked like he was riding a bicycle, so Fox tucked her own bottom in, probably looking quite ridiculous as she did so. She was hunched over, teeth on one of his arms, paw on the other, and sitting directly on his stomach now. There, she waited. He might be able to squirm out of it, but it would be quite a feat if he was able to do so.

For just a moment, Nightjar thought he would be able to break free and win, but then Fox demonstrated her prowess as a Warrior. Her teeth clamped around one wrist while her paw pinned his own foreleg, and she used her entire body to neutralize the threat of his hind legs. Nightjar was effectively squashed into the ground, a trick that still worked like a charm on his half-grown self.

Someday, he might reach the same skill level, and then he could best his mother in combat. It would never be done maliciously, but it was something Nightjar looked forward to, given that his entire world revolved around the physical. Fighting, playful or otherwise, was one of his only passions. But here and now, long before he would ever become so skilled, he knew he had lost, so his struggling ended and he went limp below the Alpha female.

Nightjar continued to struggle for a time, but eventually, he went limp beneath her. "Good," Fox said, releasing her grip on him and giving him all the room he needed to upright himself. "Part of being a warrior and warden is knowing when to quit." Fox didn't always know when to quit, and it had nearly cost her her life on more than one occasion. It would probably be the end of her, though she'd quit earlier and more often now that she had children to care for. Without her, the Firebirds would lack a parent. Without her, Peregrine could not make more Firebirds.

"One day, when you’re bigger, I expect you to beat me," Fox said, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. Peregrine could easily overtake her, so it was not unthinkable that Nightjar would be able to in time. "Come watch me kill the goose," she said, touching his cheek lightly with her nose before stalking the angered piece of poultry. Once she took it down, she would let Nightjar eat first.

Fox relented and let him back up, and Nightjar regained his feet in an instant. He didn't like being on the ground, not with any other wolf nearby. It was too vulnerable a position. His mother explained that knowing when to quit was important and in response, Nightjar bobbed his head, but didn't say anything. For him, the time to quit was when the pain was so bad he couldn't ignore it any longer, or when he couldn't move at all, as had been the case when she pinned him.

I expect you to beat me, and Nightjar promised, "I will beat you!" The idea was intimidating for any wolf, especially an alpha wolf who needed to maintain their position, but Nightjar would never care enough to try to usurp a position of leadership, no matter how strong he became. There was no danger to Fox or Peregrine of their son deciding that he was a fitter ruler. But he would still best his mother in fights, probably most of them by the time he was an adult, since that was his only real skill.

"Okay!" said the tawny cub as he fell in behind his mother to watch her take down his former opponent. He hovered the entire time, almost annoyingly close so he could see every detail of the attack and the kill, and when they ate it, he tucked in without hesitation or thought for its loss of life.