Dragoncrest Cliffs With no more words to fill these borders

The second of Drageda's children that reminded Ephraim of his siblings was a strange specimen. Ephraim laid in the shadow of a rock formation propped against the cavern's wall, inconspicuously watching her, as he had for the past little while. When she slept she did so upside down and she seemed about as motivated as he was to do things. He was more active than he had been for a while, switching positions and moving about the cavern as if a storm was right on his heels, whereas @Bat's general vibe from what he'd witnessed was very relaxed. He remembered what that felt like, but it was a vague memory from a time before bears and storms.

He found his feet at some point and slunk along the cavern's edge, close to the wall like a furtive little shade, and found a sizable clump of moss in the sunniest part of Hougeda. This he gently lifted into his jaws and carried toward the cavern's center. Hoping to catch the attention of Bat or even one of her siblings, the little coywolf sat back on his haunches, flung his head up and sent the moss ball flying into the air.

Bat found it pretty wearisome that Wildfire wouldn't come into Hougeda, forcing the Goufa to make several trips a day as she rotated between hanging out with her mother and mingling with the rest of the pack. She preferred the relative peace of their makeshift shelter outside, though even the lazy pup must admit that the busy goings-on inside the great cavern interested her enough to get her off her butt now and then.

There weren't many wolves gathered in Hougeda right now, so Bat took some time to explore before sinking onto her belly and then flopping onto her back with a loud, contented sigh. Her eyes drifted closed and she breathed deeply, though she didn't quite fall asleep. Her big ears twitched at the various noises that echoed around the grotto, her eyes slowly reopening when she heard the unmistakable sound of dripping water.

She rolled right side up and found herself practically nose to nose with that new pup who had magically appeared the other day. There was something in his mouth. Bat propped herself up on her elbows as she peered at it, silverish eyes widening a little as he suddenly tossed the green bunch into the air. Bat, of course, made no move to catch it, though she blinked as it landed harmlessly nearby.

She peered at the other pup again. "What'd you do dat for?"

He did catch the attention of the strangely marked pup, but not in the way he'd been hoping. He lacked socialization skills and didn't know how to properly start or carry a conversation, and hoped that by tossing moss around, she would simply jump up and join him. Instead, Bat propped herself up and asked why he was doing it. Immediately bashful about it, Ephraim made no move to reclaim the fallen moss ball. She hadn't made fun of him at all, but he felt the heat in his face as though she had, poor boy.

"Playin'," he answered quietly with a soft tap-tap of his tail on the thick floor. It was obvious by now that he didn't really know how to be a pup in this place. There hadn't been any rules in Grimnismal, no expectations; play had ruled his days there. And then they had fled and there hadn't been time for play, lessons or direction. They'd been busy doing everything they could to get by. Ephraim was about as well adjusted as a fish in a desert when it came to what was expected of him here in Drageda, and his development was a little behind, so Bat's serious nature threw him off guard. He didn't realize it was, well, just who she was.

"You play?" he asked, tentative, with ears swiveling hopefully forward.

He explained with a simple and familiar word: "play." Bat nodded so emphatically that her large ears flopped a little bit. It surprised her at first and she froze. She then repeated the movement and laughed at the silliness of it. Suddenly she was on her feet, showing a rare bout of energy as she shook her head up, down and side to side, slapping herself in the face with her own ears.

Eventually, she remembered the other pup. She'd forgotten he'd asked a question, though nonetheless answered it by hopping toward him and shaking her head, causing her over-sized ears to slap against his shoulder. The Goufa laughed again, then took a step back. It was a fun discovery, although she suddenly felt like her brain had rattled around her skull a bit too much. She sat down as she fought against a sudden dizzy spell, followed thereafter by a mild headache.

"Oof," she remarked to the other pup, "I hurted my head." She reached up a paw to rub at her temple, as if that might soothe it.

Okay, so the lackadaisical Bat knew how to play. That gave Ephraim at least a starting point for a connection, and he moved as though to collect the moss ball and engage her in a game of catch, but then he paused and arched his brows at her. The nod was enthusiastic at first, but she wasn't stopping. Bat was giggling instead, seemingly enjoying herself as her over-large ears flapped around.

Thinking that this was some sort of game, Ephraim gave his own head a couple of shakes, but though his ears outstripped the average wolf pup's in size thanks to hybridization, they weren't quite large enough to hit him like hers were. It didn't matter in the end; she pranced over and slapped him, causing him to stutter-step backward and work his itching nose from where the tip of an ear had stung, and then she fell back and lamented her hurting head.

"Sorry," said Ephraim automatically, though he didn't know what he was sorry for. "Play somethin' else maybe?"

Fortunately, the headache faded as quickly as it had appeared. Meanwhile, Ephraim apologized, which caused Bat to slowly put her paw back on the ground and grow still, squinting uncertainly. But then her fellow pup quickly distracted her with another prompt to play. "Sure," she agreed readily. He hadn't proposed anything specific, so Bat looked around as if an idea would pop up out of the cave floor or walls.

Actually, she spotted something in the shadows several yards away, where the wall met the floor, and thrust out a paw. "Look!" Bat blinked at Ephraim to make sure he'd looked, then casually loped in that direction. She took a seat in front of the object, peering down at it, fascinated by the strange white blobs on thin, winding tendrils that appeared to be growing directly out of the damp stone.

"Is it a flower?" she guessed, head canting as she peered over at her young companion.

Immediately after suggesting playing something else, Ephraim realized he didn't have any good ideas. Oh, what it must be like to be a creative soul, capable of dreaming up any game imaginable. He was too rooted in the real world to even think of something. The first thought that drifted into his head was the game of chase Tux had called "tag", and he opened his mouth to offer that suggestion, but Bat was already distracted with something else. His small teeth clacked together as he turned his head quickly to see what she was pointing at.

There, along the edge of the wall where the cave was musty and moist, was a cluster of little white growths. Ephraim let his eyes pan along the wall and realized there were many such clusters, far too many mushrooms for any one pup to examine in an hour or two. They were all the same, it seemed, and as Bat approached, the more cautious coywolf followed slowly behind. Is it a flower? she asked, and he frowned and replied, "what's a flower?"

Beaches and underground caves, it turns out, are not great places to find flowers, and he somehow had never noticed the flowers blooming while he traveled across the mainland with his family prior to the storm. He didn't know what they were, but Bat was probably right: this bulbous white thing on the end of a stringy stalk was a flower. He liked it, and leaned forward to sniff at its earthy cap, then sneezed, causing the cluster to bob in place.

Ephraim answered her question with a question of his own, which earned a loud blink from Bat. It surprised her that he didn't know about flowers. Furthermore, how would she go about describing them to him? She could point out that they were like these objects springing up from the walls, but upon closer inspection, they weren't very similar at all.

"Um, it's like a grass but with a flower on it," the Goufa replied, shrugging apologetically at the useless description. Her eyes followed her fellow pup's movements as he bent down to take a whiff. Her ears shifted backward at the explosive sound of his sneeze, which echoed through the cave.

"You're 'lergic to it!" Bat exclaimed with unusual vehemence. "I'm 'lergic to porky pines," she shared, realizing it as she said it that she was using Wildfire's slang term for pine cones. "Pine cones," Bat explained.

He rocked back a couple steps and sneezed once more, then turned his watery eyes on Bat, who passionately diagnosed him with 'lergics'. "Wha's lergic," he asked, blinking away the tears, and then followed up with, "wha's porky pines?" She corrected herself moments later and though Ephraim also didn't know what a pine cone was—he'd seen plenty during the flight from Grimnismal but didn't know the name of them—he merely nodded, feeling self-conscious about all the things he didn't know.

Was there anything he did know that Bat didn't? It felt sort of doubtful. Lergics in particular were well beyond his knowing. "Porky pines makes you sneezy?" he asked, attempting to clarify for himself what it meant to be lergic to something. "If you sniff 'em?" he added, because prior to sniffing the 'flower', he hadn't known he was lergic.

He wanted to know what the term meant, though before Bat could explain, he made a couple of guesses. Bat nodded eagerly (setting her ears a-bouncing) and answered, "Ya, it makes sneezes and boogs and sometimes you can't breafe good." She paused, then glanced down at the white "flowers" and back to Ephraim. "I'll protecc you," she said, then sidled closer to him and pressed her shoulder against him, urging him away from the mysterious growths.

Although they were allergic to different things, Bat couldn't help but feel as if this made them kindred spirits (not that she was familiar with that term). After gently pushing Ephraim out of danger's way, Bat stepped back and regarded him a bit more brightly now and asked, "You still wanna play?"

Sneezes and boogs and bad breathing all sounded horrific to Ephraim, who didn't need much urging to back away from the mushrooms on the wall. He appreciated Bat's offer to protect him, though, and fixed her with a shy smile as they backed away from the bulbous flowers. It was weird to be around a pup who wanted to help him rather than disadvantage him; he and his siblings had been competitive, and to say that they liked one another was a stretch. It was a pleasure to find he actually enjoyed Bat's company.

"Yeah!" Ephraim readily agreed, now with much less timidity than before. He wracked his brain, drawing up the game that Tux had tried to play with him not long before: "tag?" And then, just the way the tuxedo pup had done, Ephraim reached out and poked Bat's shoulder.

"Tag?" he suggested and Bat felt an inner resistance. That particular game required so much energy. She licked her lips, peering at Ephraim, and decided to agree despite herself. They were buddies now, pals, and she didn't want to let him down by rejecting his game. Besides, she'd been the one to bring up playing again.

"Yer it!" Bat said simply in way of answer, thrusting out a blotched foreleg to bump his shoulder. Another pup might have spun on a heel and darted away, giggling and squealing. Bat did pivot, though her movement would be better described as a loose lope. Ephraim would probably catch up to her, easily, and then it would be her turn and she'd already accepted her fate as being "it" for the rest of the game after that.

He waited too long to start the game and Bat reached right out to tag him with little effort required. The coywolf blinked, torn between yelling "no fair!" and simply tagging her back to get his revenge for outsmarting him. In the end he decided to surge after her, compelled by her fleeing figure and the connection they'd made by both being lergic. He could have let her clever move sour his mood, sending him into a pout, but for once he didn't.

Bat moved slowly for a fleeing wolf, and Ephraim caught up easily. He reached up, hopped the last step on three legs and tapped his paw down on her rump. "You're it!" he declared, triumphant, and this time he spun around and bolted instantly, cackling as he went because he was just so much faster (read: she was just lazier than him right now).

Could probably fade here or continue, either works for me!

Since we have a more current one, I'll go ahead and fade. :)

He surged forward and tapped her rump within seconds. Bat gave an entirely unconvincing, "Oh no," before coming to a stop and slowly turning. Ephraim had already fled the scene, his figure disappearing into the shadows on the far side of Hougeda. Bat bit back a sigh as she dithered a moment, trying to muster up the energy for a proper chase. Finally, she began moving in his direction, calling out, "I'm gonna get'chu!" even though she totally wasn't. Truth be told, she would probably give up and slump over for a nap somewhere, maybe even with his abandoned lump of moss for a pillow.