Heron Lake Plateau Fylgija futhorck.

She found solace in @Raven's company. Somehow, her older sister's presence helped soothe all the aches and pains afflicting Towhee lately, from her fears about the Redhawks disbanding to Bat's sudden and tragic death. She hadn't been particularly close to the girl, yet she'd liked her well enough. And she was close to @Tegan. Seeing him suffer that sort of loss was sort of devastating.

At length, she left to take care of business—primarily, she needed to patrol—but Towhee didn't head to the borders either directly or swiftly. She loitered aimlessly across the plateau, wishing for company but unsure where to turn. @Niamh was away on some trip, @Phox had found @Camilla; her People were otherwise preoccupied.

Heaving a sigh, Towhee rolled to a stop and peered upward, combing the dull white sky for any sign of the hawk. But she didn't see X and soon her head dropped again, listlessly, as Towhee fought against the empty feeling welling inside her.

Vasa, on the other hand, wasn't nearly so glum.  Mostly because given tags, she didn't really know Bat all that well and maybe didn't entirely have a complete understanding or emotional maturity to realize how awful her disappearance was for some members of the pack.  At a certain point, she was basically back to normal, but with a much sterner warning to not go on ice.

That wasn't in her adventures for today, though, as she was up to other nonsense.  It was one thing for her to practice skills that would serve her her entire life, but practicing sneaking around by "hunting" Towhee was probably kind of cheating.  If she stayed out of sight and downwind, that made her basically unnoticeable since Towhee couldn't hear Vasa's slightly-clumsy skittering about in the snow.  The main problem she was having that Towhee wasn't taking a particularly logical route, so she kept having to relocate so that she'd stay in the metaphorical blind spot.  Okay, maybe that made it a bit better practice than it otherwise would have been.

When Towhee paused, Vasa took a guess at where she'd next be turning, moving along to another patch of snow to duck down and look innocent more like a border collie herding sheep than a wolf looking to pounce.  Except, well, she honestly wasn't expecting Towhee to look down when she did and so Vasa was kind of in the wrong spot, probably near the edge of her peripheral vision.  She crouched, but given she was a large black blot in a pretty snowy landscape, chances were the jig was up.

She picked up her feet to begin moving again, her head lifting to face forward. Towhee stopped short when she saw Vasa crouched a few yards away, looking as if she'd been preparing to pounce her aunt. Normally, this sight would've won a smile out of the Beta. She attempted to coax her cheek muscles into one now, though there was nothing for it.

But she was gladdened by the sight of her niece. Raven and the pups weren't going anywhere, right? "Hey, Vasa. Using me for target practice?"

Yeah, maybe it was kind of a bad idea.  It didn't seem like Towhee was really in the mood for her shenanigans.  The lack of outward amusement translated to something along the lines of, "Oh, that kid is up to nonsense again, sigh," so she was highly considering just bailing right out and going to find someone else to stalk.

Still, she was kind of trapped, wasn't she?  She put on her best "wow, yeah I am totally not awkward right now" big ol'' smile and responded with quite a lot of uncertainty, Ma-aybe?  For all her troublemaking, she still didn't like getting caught.  She sat up, looked around briefly, then back to her aunt.  But I could go bug someone else I guess?  The fact that Towhee often looked kind of stern probably didn't help her misreading the issue at hand, here.

Vasa was perceptive, picking up on Towhee's malcontent. The Beta was quick to say, "Nah," and then, "you're not bugging me. Why don't you show me what you've got? I'll turn around again and we'll see if you can sneak up on me."

Forcing her uncooperative facial muscles into a quick smile was like trying to open a rusty door that had been underwater for a century. But Towhee managed one, for all of two seconds, before swiveling around so that her back was to Vasa.

Somehow her knowing just made it sort of... Weird.  Maybe because Vasa just liked the idea of being kind of a ninja.  She still seemed kind of uncertain about it before Towhee turned around, not giving her time to think up some reason why not to do it.  There really wasn't one other than her otherwise silly discomfort.

Vasa scuttled backwards a few yards, wiggled her butt in the air, and tried to regain her previous composure.  Clear your mind, focus on the goal and all that nonsense.  At least Towhee couldn't hear her taking a nice deep breath and loudly sighing it out.  She crouched down again, studying how Towhee was standing in case she started moving again.  The youth started creeping forward, trying to keep her steps light on the snow to minimize noise (ha) and just be able to remain mobile.  She should be in a pretty good position at least.  She just wasn't gonna expect that she was going to be let win so easy.

It was tempting, of course, to thwart Vasa's attempt to sneak up on her. Towhee was a master for a reason and no youth would get the drop on her, excepting very specific circumstances. And it was difficult to overcome her own instincts and allow an attack to happen. But she did just that: she relaxed her defenses. Although she couldn't quite coax the stiffness from her muscles—she didn't want Vasa to clobber her, after all—she only braced herself and made no other effort to truly evade the youth's pending strike.

Feel free to PP!

Slink, slink.  Vasa crept forward, pausing again when she was at proper distance.  Yeah, this seemed good.  If she got this close to something edible, she could totally take it down.  A quick thought entered her mind -- after this pounce, she should totally be ready in case Towhee had something up her sleeve...   She shifted her weight back, then sprang forward at Towhee's rear.

It was probably more like a lion pouncing than a wolf -- a little too much with her paws that made it more like play than proper hunting.  So was her bite, which was sort of off to one side of Towhee's spine, which didn't really get a good grip on anything but fur, not that she was trying any harder to hurt her than she would in a play-fight.  If Towhee was a deer, she could probably run off no prob, but since she had longer fur, she might get a bald spot if she tried.  Vasa had no idea what her aunt was going to do now, but somehow she totally thought she was going to win despite feeling awkward about the whole thing.  Win what? Who knew!  Let's be real, though, she was still just an oversized kid and would be pretty easy to pwn.

Part of the kind of confused attack was that actually pouncing on another wolf was a little bit confusing for how she should actually do that -- like she wouldn't actually sink her teeth into Towhee, but just play wasn't quite right either... Ugh, could someone get a deer that wouldn't move?

This one fell off my radar, sorry! Also, yikes, it's old. Could we fade it?

Between the fact that Towhee had invited the attack and her own experience with combat, it wasn't as if she didn't know it was coming. Nonetheless, she resisted every urge to glance over her shoulder and even told herself not to deflect. She was curious about Vasa's style, which turned out to be quite heavy-handed, as she discovered in the next moment.

She felt something jab near her spine as the youth's weight made impact. Finally, the Beta allowed herself to react. She dropped to the ground, then rolled, trying to shake off her niece. The girl clung tenaciously for a moment but Towhee managed to pull away from her grip, whether because Vasa loosened it or Towhee tore it from her.

"If you were bigger and heavier, that attack style might serve you well. But if you're hoping to catch prey that way, you're gonna get your ass trampled... unless it's a bunny," the mercenary observed, wishing she could punctuate that with a good-natured laugh, though one simply wouldn't come to her right now. "If you're hoping to hunt larger prey, we need to work on your... finesse, I guess. I can show you if you'd like."

Yep no prob!

Oof.  Dislodged and now on her belly, she scrambled to her feet as quick as she was able.  The fact Towhee did seem so srs business about it all did cause her to be a little bit defensive in her quick reply, Nothing wrong with bunnies -- they're edible!  She shook herself off and with a wag of her tail, continued Yeah!  That'd be good I think.  There was still plenty of stuff to learn, and this would be certainly less boring than some of the other stuff.  Off to Towhee's school of not being failsauce at pouncing things!