Nova Peak Long way home

This takes place at Nova Peak. :)

It took Relonikiv a while to recover from the wearisome trek north. He never claimed to be strong and the trip took its physical and even mental tolls on him. Emotionally, though, he was doing quite well. Even though it was hard leaving behind all he knew, it was wonderful to have his mother and sister back in his life. His family felt complete once more, save for that little hole Trajan had left behind when he'd followed Shadow.

He spent the entire first week or so resting at the new rendezvous site in the mountain's shadow. Relonikiv wanted to explore but it could wait. Besides, Paarthurnax and Durnehviir stayed there most of the time too. If he was tired, they were exhausted from what had transpired. He enjoyed the opportunity to just relax and spend time with them, as well as Julius, Scimitar and Bazi, of course.

At long last, he woke feeling rested and ready to take a look around their new home. After breakfast with his family, he walked to the edge of the clearing and began to roam the surrounding pine forest. He was nearly three months old but didn't want to stray too far on his own in this strange new land.

Relonikiv found himself at the mountain's foot, where the trees thinned and the sparse forest floor gave way to open, rocky ground. He made no attempt to climb the behemoth. It intimidated him. He would have to fetch Julius and come back sometime for that particular adventure. In the meantime, he contented himself with sniffing along through the foothills, enjoying the plethora of strange new sights and smells.

Bazi, meanwhile, had spent as much time as she possibly could on the mountain, scaling the vast rock several times a day and with increasing speed and dexterity. She was not about to let someone else claim the honour of Most Accomplished Mountaineer.

Bazi had eaten relatively little at the family's routine breakfast, departing for the foothills before everyone else had finished. They weren't exactly feeding on brand new species, but the change of proportions in her diet was enough to cause upset - there was less fish, and the water was almost too filtered. Until the queasiness subsided, she would simply eat less.

It was on her way down from a record-breaking climb that she spotted Relonikiv on his first true outing since they had arrived at Nova Peak a week earlier. He was already starting to take on the lanky appearance of a pre-teen, and she mourned the loss of the roly-poly runt that he had been. "Hey buddy," she called, picking her way down through the sparsely wooded landscape. "Found anything interesting?"

The growing pup had just come across the frail skeleton of some bird or another when he heard footfalls. He looked up to see Bazi trotting toward him. Relonikiv naturally bowed his head, his tail dropping to wiggle low against his hind legs. When she came within reach, he bumped and licked the underside of her snout, then dropped his pale silver eyes to the tiny skeleton.

"Thith," he said, pointing a sandy toe at it. "It wath a birdie, right?" he guessed. He was fairly certain he was correct, considering the bones included a prominent beak among them. As a predator, even a young one, he was already quite familiar with internal anatomy. "Who eated it?" he wondered, gazing up at her curiously as if to ask, Was it you?

Bazi touched her nose to the crown of the young wolf's head before lowering her own to sniff at the remains he had found. Worry blossomed in her chest, but she made no mention of it to Relonikiv. "Definitely a birdie," she confirmed, even though it was obvious. As for the perpetrator of its demise.. Bazi was not certain. She and Scimitar and scoured the land for any sign of competing predators and found none; but perhaps that'd been too good to be true.

"Maybe it was Scimitar, or Kaskara. Do you see any clues?" she asked, looking away from the carcass - the sight of it made her stomach roil uncomfortably. It was unlikely that they would find anything, but there was no harm in trying.

He smiled when she confirmed his guess, then blinked and looked at the skeleton again when Bazi suggested he look for clues. His lips pursed. Slowly and deliberately, Relonikiv lowered his head and sniffed at the bleached remains. He then trailed his nose over the surrounding dirt. Much to his surprise, he quickly struck a scent. He also noticed a pattern in the dust.

Looking up sharply at Bazi, the youth said, "It'th a, uh..." He searched for the word but came up at a loss. "Furry thnake? It look like a wiener." Because by now, Relonikiv was quite familiar with that term (what little boy wasn't?). The assonance triggered his memory and he exclaimed, "A weathel!"

Bazi watched him sniff around, too distracted by worry to assist. Only when he announced the culprit did she re-focus her attention on the pup. "A weasel?" she echoed, stepping around the carcass to sniff at the same patch of dirt that had given Relonikiv an answer. Lo and behold - it smelled of weasel. Bazi exhaled with such force that her bladder nearly let go. Thank the stars. "Who taught you to be such a good tracker, hey?" she praised, daring to wag her tail once she had confirmed that no pee was likely to escape. "At this rate you'll be chief tracker in a couple of months."

He beamed when he proved once again to be correct. Bazi's praise made his insides feel warm, although he felt something gnaw at his belly when she suggested he might become chief tracker. It was anxiety. A chief was synonymous to a leader. His mouth felt dry at the thought of leading anyone or anything, even if the compliments quietly pleased him.

"No chief," he replied lightly. Relonikiv was very much a follower, with no interest or desire to lead. "I have good nothe," he added to answer her prior question. He couldn't recall anyone specifically teaching him to track, it was just a skill he had acquired naturally through growth and play.

"Bathi," the youngster spoke up after a beat, turning away from the skeleton and squinting into the nearby trees before shyly dragging his silver eyes back to the woman he still considered a mother of sorts, despite Paarthurnax's return. "Why," he began slowly, "do I thound different?" He couldn't quite put his finger on it, just that he was becoming increasingly aware of his own speech impediment.

"No chief," Relonikiv told her firmly. Bazi raised a brow at his request - she had expected a child to sink both teeth into whatever honour was bestowed on them without really thinking of the associated responsibilities, but Relonikiv wasn't most children. She offered him a shrug and a nod to confirm that he had been heard, and sat down amongst the rocks.

She was grooming the inside of her left knee when he summoned her with a quietly delivered Bathi, and only ceased her nibbling when the question came out in full. The Alpha blinked a few times, wondering what to respond. She had thought his voice peculiar not that long ago - now it was just part of who he was. "I'm not sure. Your mouth is just different for some reason." No child-friendly frills in sight, though she did add "I think your voice is charming."

He trailed closer when Bazi reposed nearby and set about grooming herself. The pup firmly planted his bottom to face her and the mountainside above and beyond her curiously bent form. He tucked his forepaws close together and nibbled at his lip when she answered him. That word—"different"—made the anxiety start chewing at his insides again.

"I don't wanna be different," he said lowly, though the silver look in his eye asked an unspoken, uncertain addendum: Do I? Relonikiv shifted, wrapping his tail around himself, eyes fastened on her as he waited for a response.

"I don't wanna be different," Relonikiv complained quietly. Bazi stopped her nibbling a second time, not having counted on the pup rubbishing her answer. "Well.." she began, looking pensive as she shifted her weight onto one foreleg and then the other. What could she say? Unless he underwent some form of speech therapy that Bazi had no idea how to conduct, Relonikiv was stuck with the voice he had. "I don't think anyone even notices. Does it really matter?" she inquired, equalling the intensity of the pup's stare.

Her words were meant to be reassuring but Relonikiv didn't quite feel that way. Had he been older, he might have said he felt trivialized, yet that word was far beyond his youthful vocabulary. He swallowed, then sighed, deciding to simply accept Bazi's response. She was an authority figure, so she was probably right. No, she was definitely right.

He reached up a hind paw to scratch idly at the side of his neck, then made a sniffing sound and looked up at the mountain. "Did you climbed it?" he inquired, changing the subject, albeit not on purpose. "Do you hafta be a adult?" he wondered, cinnamon ears flattening slightly.

Bazi took his lack of response at face value - that he accepted what she was saying without question. The advice was sound, after all; as long as he was able to catch food and flee danger, there was absolutely nothing wrong with Relonikiv. Perhaps she should have spelled that out for him rather than dismiss his worries, but Bazi was not as intuitive in these matters as perhaps the boy's true biological mother.

She was glad when he moved on. "I did," she grinned, opening her mouth to recount one of the more daring voyages to the top. But it involved Scimitar and copious amounts of boinking, and Relonikiv tacked on a second question before she could say anything else. "Um... no, I suppose you should get used to it, but you should take someone with you. An adult someone," she clarified gently. Julius didn't count.

She told him he didn't need to be an adult, though he should take one with him if he wanted to climb it. Relonikiv bit at his lip as he craned his neck to look up at the looming peak. One day, he would want to conquer it. Today wasn't that day, though. Even with Bazi here and likely willing to escort him, Relonikiv just wasn't ready. He looked down at his big feet, sure that they weren't capable of the coordination required of scaling mountains.

"Okay," he breathed to acknowledge her response, then slowly climbed to his feet... and made a point to turn from the mountain. "Wanna eckthplore with me?" he asked, motioning toward the deep woods. "Ith there a creek here?" he wanted to know, thinking of his former home's lovely, winding namesake.

She was glad that he didn't suggest a second outing up the mountain. She wasn't in the right frame of mind to support an unskilled climber, and much preferred his suggestion that they explore the woods. "There is!" she told him brightly. "I called it Bitcurrent.. because it's a little bit of Swiftcurrent." Get it? Bazi smoothed down the hairs on the inside of her knee with a final swipe and moving in the direction of the wood. Her stomach protested the sudden movement, but she somehow managed to disguise the fact that she had just been sick in her own mouth when she turned to see if Relonikiv would follow.

Whatever uncertainties had plagued him over the course of their conversation fell away when Bazi reported that there was most certainly a creek here. It was even named after their old home. Relonikiv smiled his characteristic smile, his fawn tail waving in the air as he made to follow his aunt/foster mother back into the treeline.

"Can we go thwimming?!" he asked politely but excitedly. He hadn't gotten the chance to do much of it at their old home but it just sounded like so much fun. "Can we get Juliuth?" he added, not wanting to leave his brother out of it. He thought of his sister too, though after everything that had happened, Relonikiv and Julius were (to use a tired old cliché) two peas in a pod.

"Yes - immediately," Bazi agreed with equal enthusiasm after swallowing her scant breakfast back down again for a second try at digestion. A swim in the cool, sun-dappled creek would do the three of them a world of good - and she could finally teach Julius how to keep whites white. At times he more closely resembled a dirtier variant of Paarthurnax than his pristine aunt.

The mere thought of a nice, cool bath was enough to coax Bazi into a run, though she was good enough to maintain a child-safe speed.

This seems like a good place to fade! :)

He half expected her to say "no" because it was still rather cold and he was still rather young—two things that had held him back from swimming experience in the past. However, Bazi seemed just as excited about the notion of swimming as he did. When she skipped ahead into a run, he giggled loudly and galloped after her, his pace uneven and ungainly. But he managed to keep up with her and soon he spotted the rest of their family up ahead through the thinning trees.