Sawtooth Spire tin cans and string

@Sitamat

The pups were getting older. Their chubby little bodies were starting to balance out with longer limbs. Their soft puppy coats were starting to look a little scruffy due to the adult hair that began to creep out from underneath. Their eyes were starting to change colors too. The soft blue of puppyhood was beginning to shift towards the color they'd be for the rest of their lives. Physically, all of these changes were something of a thrill to notice, but their mental development was changing too.

They could speak more words. They were starting to understand more things. Object permanence. Their likes. Their dislikes. Personalities were forming. Iqniq took great strides to make sure he checked in with each of his children and see where they were at. From group activities to one on one adventures, he truly enjoyed every moment he spent with them.

Today? Today he decided to spend a little one on one time with Sitamat. Their youngest had certainly started out shy, but now that their world was bigger and he'd met a few of the other wolves of the pack, Iqniq was curious to see where he was at and if there was anything that caught his interest that he wanted to learn or pursue. Iqniq neared the densite, looking for him. "Sita?" he called, poking his nose into the darkness of the den to see if he couldn't find that bundle of dark fur.

Thanks for starting <3

It came as no surprise that the youngest was asleep when Iqniq called to him. An ear twitched, and the dark form unfurled and grumbled as he was roused awake. He was reluctant to finally open his eyes — the blue of puppyhood finally gaining a burst of gold around the pupil — but when he did, the boy shot straight up. "AT-TAK," he responded drowsily, not quite getting the word for father right just yet. At least he was able to put a name to a face.

Having Iqniq around so often now, Sitamat was no longer wary of the man. In fact, he was excited he had called to him specifically. He rose onto all fours, stumbling over one of his brothers (or himself, who knew), and ungainly made his way towards the entrance of the den where his father waited.

Upon reaching him, the youngest bumped his nose with his own with a wiggle of his tail and an excited, "at-tah-k!"

No problem! Thanks for joining!

He was met with no reply for a moment. Was Sitamat not in there? Iqniq pulled his nose out of the den and glanced around the immediate area. Had he wandered off? He was about to go look for the boy when he heard the lone word come out of the den. "Attack," as he'd mistaken it for, which caused the father to tense as he braced himself to be tackled by the children. No wait. That was his name in Inuit. Or close enough to it. Atatak... as butchered by pup speak. He was out of harms way from those still sharp puppy teeth. Phew.

Realizing the actual intended word, Iqniq visibly relaxed. Sitamat wandered out of the den and into the light of day where they bumped noses. Dad gave him a quick lick as he sat down and placed a large paw on his son's head. "Rise and shine, kid. What will it be today? Exploring? Pine cone chasing? Hunting vole?" He rambled off a list of options. Any would do, but he wanted Sitamat to make a decision for himself. "What would you like to do?"

Sitamat blinked against the light of the day, his eyes having been used to the darkness of the den. His slight discomfort was relieved by the brush of his father's tongue over his head, and the boy was quick to try to return a lick of his own. He missed — just — and instead his tongue was left poking out of his teeth as Iqniq used him as a foot rest.

The youngest accepted his father's antics, not shaking his paw off and instead letting it balance on his head and sitting up straight as he listened to his words. He understood a few of them, his vocabulary currently a work in progress, but a certain word caught the boy's interest. He glanced up at his father, awkwardly turning his head to peer out from underneath the man's large paw. "Ff...fvvole?" Vole. That was a new one.

His paw didn't stay on his son's head for long. As soon as Sita peeked out from beneath it with a question about vole, Iqniq realized he'd jumped ahead without filling in any of the gaps. His paw lowered, setting down on the ground as he lowered his head to put it closer to the same level as Sita. As the hunching over was uncomfortable, he shifted to more of a sphinx-like lay as he regarded the boy who looked more and more like a miniature version of his mother every day.

"A vole is something you can eat. Like a mouse. It's small. Round. Has big ears. Dark eyes and a long, hairless tail." Of course, saying these things out loud he realized his son might not actually know what any of those things were. Maybe they needed to start with the basics of hunting. Oh dear. Where to start?

"Smell anything funny on the ground? Any strange scents?" This area was mostly filled with family and the occasional scent of a pack member who drifted by, but it was a decent place to start.

When he removed his paw and settled onto the ground, Sitamat spun to face his father, falling into a play bow. He was ready to play, not realising he was in for a day of learning. As Iqniq explained what a vole was, the boy reclined into a sit, listening interestedly. "Oh," he huffed, half-understanding. He found the creature hard to visualise — like a mouse? But not? — but he perked up when the man prompted him check for any strange smells.

"Yes!" he answered in Intuit, not because he had found any scents but simply announcing his excitement to do as his father asked of him. He immediately leapt up and began to wander in circles, nose to the ground as he searched. He trailed away, cautious not to stray too far, until he found something. There were many smells, but all were familiar to him. Well, almost. One stood out from the rest, a thick musty scent that made a beeline for the forest. Sitamat stopped when he picked it up, unsurely turning to Iqniq. Unknowingly, he had found one of the more common trails of a rabbit.

He lounged casually as he explained and was pleased to find Sitamat made for an astute student. Unlike some of his children (-cough- Ata -cough-), he felt as though this one was working overtime to try to make heads or tails of what had been said. No matter. They'd put this lesson to practice and work on the basics of what it meant to track down prey. It was never too early to learn how to hunt. This was a valuable skill set. His children were strong. He'd do everything in his power to help them survive.

Tracking it was. Sita seemed eager to test out his nose and promptly began to sniff at the ground. Iqniq pulled himself to his paws and sniffed with him. The scents of his family were everywhere... but here and there was the daring creature who'd passed this way when they were all tucked away in the den. "Find anything?" he asked when Sita paused to look at him. He moved to join the pup and put his nose to the ground. Rabbit. It might be a little large for him to hunt, but to track? It was the perfect size.

His eyes widened in his excitement. "I think you found something!" He nudged his son encouragingly and prompted him to sniff at the scent again. "Where does it go?" The trick now was to follow it in the right direction. The fresher direction. Not the fainter one. They wanted to figure out where it went. Not where it came from. Tracking 101.

The scent was definitely different from the one of his family and was not distinctly wolf, and that was all he needed to decide that he would follow this trail. He nodded eagerly as his father asked if he had found anything, indicating with his nose at the spot he was standing on, letting his focused gaze linger on the ground as Iqniq made his way over to him.

The Alpha male's excitement was contagious, and the boy's tail wiggled happily as he was encouraged to double-check the trail. He would soon learn that finding a prey's scent was the easy part — tracking it was where things got difficult.

With a flick of his tail, he pressed his nose to the ground again, following the trail in a haphazard line before circling back. It was criss-crossed with other scents, the one he originally found easy to miss amongst them. Sitting back where he originally started, for he hadn't wandered far, the boy picked it up again and frowned. Okay, start over. "Smell," he said quietly, as if an order to himself, before retracing his steps, following the trail a little further into the forest. He paused every so often to check over his shoulder, making sure his father was watching and following.

Sitamat was doing well. Scents were all still new. Tracking was also new. Figuring out how to merge the two into a useful activity was one that would take a bit of practice and finessing. Even he wasn't perfect at it from time to time. Some trails were more complex than others and required a little bit more time. This particular trail that Sita was following wasn't terribly difficult, but it wasn't the easiest either. All the same, he was doing well.

Iqniq trailed along behind him. Here and there he'd check the ground just to make sure his son was still on the right track. At some point, Sita'd lost it and ended up right back where they started. Iqniq nudged his shoulder with his. Try again.

The pup began again from step one. This time he got further. Iqniq continued to follow him and double check for himself here and there, but it seemed as though this time, Sita was on the right track. Whenever the boy would turn back to look, he'd give him a little nod. Keep going. You've got this.

The reassuring nod from his father pushed him onwards, eager to catch whatever thing had left the scent trail. He wasn't sure how long it actually took to track prey, and would come to learn that not every tracking endeavour was successful. Today's however, was proving promising. The trail the rabbit had left led the boy and his fiery-furred companion further into the woods and towards a small burrow dug into the side of a tree.

Sitamat frowned at another peculiar scent that lingered in the area. It was stronger than the rabbit's, almost overwhelmingly so the closer they got to the den. A metallic, rotting scent mixed with it, which the pup recoiled at and stopped a short distance away from the entrance of the burrow, nose wrinkled. He looked up at Iqniq with the same look of distaste, silently questioning him what on earth was that horrid smell?

Unbeknownst to Sitamat, the rabbit he had been tracking had met it's end at the claws of a wolverine who lurked in the burrow now. From the carcass of it's meal, it lifted it's head, letting out a warning snarl at the wolves outside it's temporary shelter.

Sitamat tracked. For a first timer, he was doing a pretty darn good job of it. Iqniq followed along, pleased at his son's progress as they worked their way through the woods while following a rabbit trail.

It was near the end of the trail that the scent went sour. Iqniq followed a little more closely now, turning his own nose more solidly towards the scent so he might try to identify it properly. It wasn't rabbit anymore it was. Oh shit.

The snarl sounded. Iqniq immediately placed himself between the den and his son. That was not a creature they were going to get involved with on this outing not this time. Iqniq nosed Sita, nipping him away from the area. Iqniq would come back to take care of that beast later, but for now his son's safety was of utmost importance. Time to leave.