Redhawk Caldera Saving people, hunting things: the family business.

The adults had begun taking the pups out on walks around the territory, mostly in groups but occasionally individually. Raven caught Towhee's attention after lunch and motioned for the Pi to walk with her. She gladly bounced toward her older sister, falling into step as the caregiver led the way away from the rendezvous site. As they walked, the medic kept her face turned toward Towhee; she couldn't sign but she could speak and the deaf youngster was getting very good at reading lips. She followed most of what Raven said as she talked about guardians and border patrols.

Speaking of which, they walked much further today than usual and in fact approached the caldera's outer fringes. "I don't usually do these," Raven was saying, "but I think mercenary might suit you. Towhee, are you paying attention?" She signed the last few words, which did indeed capture the pup's attention. She had been so busy eyeballing her unfamiliar surroundings, she'd missed her sister's remarks. "We're going to walk," the black she-wolf continued, motioning as she talked, "and keep an eye out for outsiders."

Towhee knew that word quite well. -Outsiders? Why?- she signed. She wanted nothing to do with anyone outside her close inner circle, that much she had made clear lately. Her brow furrowed disapprovingly.

Raven smiled knowingly. "So we can chase them away." She knew Towhee would like the sound of that (deafness not withstanding). "What do you think?" she asked with an amused twinkle in her eye. She already knew the answer.

-Oh!- Towhee signed, face lighting up. -Yes, let's chase away some outsiders!- To indicate her readiness, she bounced on the balls of her feet and began to walk parallel with the invisible boundary lines. -Can we kill them?- she added eagerly, pausing to await an answer and let Raven catch up to her.

She knew there were several packs in the vicinity of the territories she haunted, but Owl was a wraith that wove her way in the shadows of the neutral zone; she was careful not to be seen, nor caught by her territorial brethren. But their nearness was a comfort, even as she feared them, for it meant they did not fear the monsters that had hunted— were hunting?— her for so long. The conversation she held with Finley, as short and terrifying as it had been, had awoken a curiosity within her— a hunger to be with her kind, to no longer be alone.

That was terrifying, too.

She caught a scent that reminded her of Finley and followed it, not realizing how dangerously close she was to trespassing, freezing in her tracks when the silhouettes of two wolves made their appearance.

"No," came Raven's reply, her face simultaneously amused and stern. "We don't kill outsiders unless they trespass. You remember what that means, don't you?"

Although Towhee pouted at being barred from killing outsiders, she nodded quickly. She might not be able to hear like the others, yet she was still sharp as a tack. As soon as the caregiver (or someone else) introduced a new word or concept, she absorbed it like a sponge. She was learning to sign new terms every day, picking up and embellishing the homegrown language her family had developed quite rapidly. Her language skills were on par with and possibly surpassing her siblings', even if she had yet to actually speak a word out loud.

That was something the medic and makeshift speech therapist intended to approach soon; she wanted to make sure Towhee began learning pronunciation at an early age, so that it would be easier for her to pick up on and hone the skill. For now, though, there was another lesson at hand. And, in a serendipitous turn of events, Raven spotted a pale wolf close to the borders. She almost pointed the stranger out to Towhee but instead waited for the youngster to notice.

-OUTSIDER!- the Pi exclaimed, signing so emphatically that it could only be called a shout. Her body stiffened and she raised her tail, then bared her teeth and began slinking toward the stranger. She was stopped by a sound tap to the hip.

"Let me approach first. I'm older, bigger and more experienced." Although Towhee couldn't hear Raven's tone, her expression brooked no arguments. She gave the pup a look, then faced the wolf in the distance and shouted, "Hello!"

Towhee braced herself and squinted, subtly miming, -Ugh,- behind her sister's back.

My other threads are slow enough... so maybe I can keep up with one more. <_<

Never one to let his sister go off on her own for more than five minutes, Phox had slipped away from the rest of the group and tailed Raven and Towhee. He was stalking them, really. He wanted to see how long it was before they noticed him, and he was pretty sure he was doing a good job. Really, though, Raven was completely aware of him. He was horrible at keeping quiet, partly because he didn't need to with Towhee, his closest sibling.

When he spotted the outsider, however, he bristled and sped to Towhee's side, chest puffed out and lip curled. Raven was already talking with the stranger, but that didn't mean Fidget wouldn't do everything within his power to protect his deaf sister.

Thanks for rescuing! I'm just gonna nudge @Owl and Raven off to the side... :D

She paid close attention as Raven interacted with the stranger, exchanging introductions and information. The conversation quickly grew boring, so she began to fidget. Speaking of which, a wild Phox suddenly galloped onto the scene. Towhee couldn't hear him coming, yet something prompted her to turn anyway, a smile crawling over her face as her brother made a mad dash toward her. Her eyes glimmered in amusement as she observed his prickly demeanor.

Poking at his puffed-up chest, Towhee signed, -Rave's talking to this outsider.- Although there was no tone to sign language (naturally), it was clear how she felt about the encounter as she shrugged her shoulders and rolled her eyes, complete with a tiny sneer. -She won't let me kill her,- Towhee added with a playful pout.

-She won't let me kill her,- Towhee signed, and Phox pouted right along with her, squinting his eyes furiously at the intruder. -When we're bigger, we can kill whoever we want,- Phox said, certain that this would be true. But actually, unlike his sister (and late mother), Phox had no intention of killing anybody. At heart, he was kind, and he didn't mind strangers so long as Towhee was at peace with them. Which certainly wasn't the case right now.

He tilted his ears forward to listen to the conversation the adults were having, but it turned out to be really, really boring. So boring, in fact, that he quickly lost interest and turned back to Towhee. -Wanna go look for prey?- he asked. Like his father, Phox had taken a liking to hunting. Not that he was any good, but he liked to track things down and scare them out of their homes.

Her expression brightened at her brother's reassurance that they could freely kill any- and everyone once they were a little older. -How much bigger?- she wondered, as if Phox was an authority on the matter. But before he could make a reply, they both peered in the adults' direction, watching as Raven continued to converse with the stranger. She might not have been able to hear or even read lips from this distance, yet her sister was chatting in a fashion that was altogether too friendly for Towhee's tastes.

With a little sneer curving her lips, she turned back to Phox. -I should probably stay with Raven...- she admitted. Although she was silent as she signed, her movements telegraphed her indecisive hesitation. -Can we pretend our prey is outsiders?- she added, hoping her litter mate would make it worth her while if she was to give up on the joint patrol with Raven.

Phox shrugged, not exactly sure how much bigger they would need to be before they could eliminate whomever they wanted. When she said she should stay with Raven, he huffed. Thankfully, she offered up a decent compromise, and he beamed. "Yeah!" he blurted, causing Owl to look over at them briefly. Thankfully, her attention was redirected toward Raven a second later.

-Intruder this way,- he signed, pretty sure that they could track something down over in this direction. At least they could try to, anyway! He lumbered along, eventually picking out the scent of a—wait for it—fox. He bristled, then gave Towhee a mischievous look. -Intruder,- he signaled, and began to follow the trail.

He humored her and Towhee shrugged mentally after sending one last glance at Raven's backside. The medic glanced at the two pups and Towhee took the opportunity to sign, -I'm going with him!- and pointing emphatically at Phox. A slightly exasperated look passed over the medic's face before she made a shooing motion and turned back to face Owl.

-You're ugly and stupid,- Towhee signed behind her sister's back, the insult intended for the outsider, who naturally wouldn't understand it. That was pretty rude, even for her, but she only felt slightly guilty as she turned from the scene and began bounding after her brother.

It wasn't long before the miniature hunter struck a scent trail. Towhee's nose was perhaps a smidgen more sensitive than most wolves', on account of her four senses making up for the missing fifth. It wrinkled in distaste when they came across the pungent odor of a fox, not that she immediately recognized it. -Smells horrible!- she signed to Phox, then added, -Let's kill it!-

Phox wasn't sure if they'd be able to kill it or not, but he was certainly game for the idea. His tail bounced giddily behind him as his nose remained glued to the ground, stepping carefully and excitedly toward the intruder. He bristled when a grasshopper surprised him by popping up just in front of him, but he went right back to the task at hand: tracking down the menacing creature that was their target.

When he finally spotted the bright red creature, he stilled, knowing it was far enough away that it wouldn't immediately be alerted to them. He kept his gaze focused on the smaller animal that shared his name (phonetically, at least). It appeared to be sunbathing, taking it easy, and generally lazy-looking. -It'll be easy,- Phox signed with confidence.

Phox led her toward a supine figure in the distance. Towhee's hackles prickled as she eyeballed it. The smell definitely wasn't canine, though the fox didn't look very different from a small, sharp-featured wolf—perhaps even a fellow wolf pup. Intruder, she thought darkly, squaring her shoulder blades and bunching her haunches beneath her, coiled and ready to spring.

She bobbed her head at Phox's casual comment. -Yeah,- she agreed, then looked at him with her eyebrows slightly raised, impatiently waiting for his signal.

I was debating whether or not I wanted this to be a success or a failure...

Phox's eyes narrowed in on the red creature, and he glanced back at Towhee. Like most siblings, they were keenly aware of each other's actions, usually before they even happened. Unlike most siblings, they were glued to each other almost non-stop since birth, and hadn't been out of each other's sight for more than a few hours at a time. They were more in tune with one another than most, and it was to their advantage when hunting things.

A quick, subtle gesture was all that was needed to queue Towhee. In a mad dash, the two wolf pups rushed the fox (really hard not to capitalize that word). It had been in a deep sleep, and it didn't have the time to slip from Phox's jaws. He clamped down hard onto the creature's body, feeling the skin puncture and the blood flow. In a frenzy, he continued to rip at it, the crazy cries of the vulpine echoing through the trees.

Fidget would not be unscathed, of course, as the fox was literally fighting for its life, but he had a feeling that he and Towhee would come out on top with this one. Slowly, the cries died down, and they had at their feet a bloody mess of a creature, which Phox promptly began eating.

They moved like a pair of synchronized swimmers, swiftly closing in on the unsuspecting fox. While Phox went for the killing blow, Towhee did her part by hopping on the creature's hindquarters to pin it to the ground. Although it screamed and struggled, it could not fight off two overeager wolf pups and soon succumbed in a bloody heap at their feet.

She glanced at her brother, who had flecks of blood splattered all over him. It's the fox's blood, she told herself, even though it wasn't likely the entire truth. In any case, Phox seemed largely unhurt and began to eat. Towhee grinned at him, proud of his (their) feat, then turned her own attention upon the kill.

-Take that, you dirty, stinky OUTSIDER!- she declared emphatically at the dead body before vigorously tearing off its tail. While Phox filled his belly, she ran around with her head in the air, shaking the tail and growling savagely in celebration of their victory.