Redhawk Caldera the felled giant

The ordeal with the storm had gone by surprisingly quiet for the pup, who had by now deciphered he had a variety of names to be called. The pup did not know that this wasn't a normal thing, that one had one real name and the others were all just nick names; he thought he had many names. When his mother was in a jolly mood, she would refer to him as 'little twig' at times. His father most often called him 'Eljay', and yet others named him 'baby Elwood', 'little Elwood', and other such names.

The tornado had blown right past them, and little Elwood had not seen it, for he had been underground, huddled with the rest of the pack. This huddling was exciting for little Elwood, but he remained silent as usually, letting it all just happen.

Now the most of the storm was gone. Little Elwood sat outside of the den today, and he stared at the still-grey skies. With interest, little Elwood watched everything around him. Things looked different than before. The pup's motorics were not as great as those of his age -- seven weeks to date -- were normally. He should be able to run and bound and play perfectly fine, but the pup still had some trouble with his balance. Perhaps it was because he was born early, or perhaps there were other reasons. The pup himself did not notice this much: he had no one to compare to, and so he did not think that he was slow or different at all.

Little Elwood waddled forward in a clumsy trot -- a couple of times it looked like he would fall over -- towards a fallen tree. With curiosity, the little pup stared wide-eyed upon the felled giant. Tiny, flopped over ears were pressed forward in curiosity and in caution as he waited, standing still. The pup waited to see if the tree would do anything, and was not entirely convinced it was safe yet, for now.

The Blackthorn family was lucky that their den hadn't been destroyed by the strong winds and heavy rain; there were so many things that could have happened to it. A tree could have fallen and blocked the entrance, or it could have flooded -- but somehow, none of those things had taken place, and they had been able to return to their home after the storm. There were quite a bit of debris scattered around the outside, like limbs and leaves, and Elwood had busied himself cleaning it up.

He had a cluster of small, broken branches in his mouth and had turned back towards the burrow when he noticed that Elwood Jr was exploring. His son's ability to walk was still fairly new, and it showed in his wobbly, unsteady gait. With brows raised in amusement, he watched as Eljay ambled towards a tree trunk that was sprawled across the dry grass nearby.

Dropping his collection, Elwood moved towards the boy, who had stopped and was staring at the mighty fallen tree. "Whatcha doing?" he asked amiably, curious to see how Eljay would reply.

The pup stared at the tree a while longer, and startled when he heard his father's voice. Eljay calmed as soon as he identified the voice and stared at his father for a moment, almost forgetting about the tree that he had found, and didn't respond to the posed question. He tried to think: he was expected to answer in some way, but Eljay didn't have a clue just how he could nor should. He couldn't find the word he was looking for -- looking -- and since he wasn't sure how to say it, he just said nothing.

Eljay's attention was drawn back to the tree and, since it had done nothing strange as of yet, Eljay approached it on clumsy paws, wobbling over to it and sniffing it. "Wee," Eljay concluded, unfortunately mispronouncing the word 'tree' into a different word, and he looked back at his father for confirmation. The thing that interested it most about this tree was not that it was a tree, though, nor that it was laying down. The thing that interested him most about it was that it didn't smell like a tree any longer, just as the rest of the world smelled different after the storm.

The boy took his time in answering, padding closer to the tree first before uttering a single syllable. Elwood was glad to see his son's cognitive and communication skills improving, albeit slowly, and he nodded at the mispronunciation of the word "tree." Without context clues, he might've thought that Eljay had to pee -- but because he was very focused on the fallen trunk, it was easy for Elwood to interpret what he really meant.

"Yep, it's a tree," Elwood confirmed, coming to a halt next to his son. He patted the log with a forepaw. "It fell down during the storm," he said, speaking a little slower than usual so that Eljay could make sense of what he was saying.

His father approached, and Eljay looked up at him as he spoke. As his father put a paw upon the tree, Eljay hid behind his father's other front paw, looking upon his father from his safe spot. Only when he was certain that everything was safe and nothing was going to come out and attack him, Eljay gingerly stepped out from behind his father's paw.

Since nothing had happened when his father touched the tree log, Eljay waddled up to it and put his own paw on top of the side of the log.

When a couple of beatles flew from a hole inside of the log, right at Eljay's face, the pup wordlessly ducked back behind his father's leg. Not even a scream or a yelp escaped his mouth, although his face was painted with terror. When Eljay was safely underneath his father he looked up from behind his father's leg with a questioning gaze. What was that?

Although Eljay had been growing more adventurous with each passing day, it was still clear that he was, at heart, a timid and cautious boy. Perhaps as he grew, the opposing traits would level out. But for now, Elwood wasn't surprised when Eljay ducked behind his leg as though waiting for the log to poke him.

"It won't hurt you," he said, patting the trunk again as the pup decided to give it a try himself. Elwood took a single step back so that he could better observe, watching as Eljay reached out and tapped the tree. Nature apparently wanted to surprise the young Blackthorn, and even the bigger wolf was surprised when a couple of beetles buzzed out of the bark. They flew harmlessly past Eljay's cheeks, but he still went tumbling backwards and disappeared back into his hiding spot beneath his dad.

"Whoops!" Elwood said, maneuvering so that Eljay was out from under him once more. He lowered himself so that he could look his son in the face. "It's okay, pal. Those were just some bugs. I guess they live in the tree, but they won't hurt you," he explained.

Eljay looked up at his father's 'whoops', but remained firmly behind his father's leg. Fear raged through his body, although his father seemed to remain fairly calm, which was a somewhat calming factor to Eljay. His father said some things that Eljay didn't really understand, and he remained rooted in place.

"hmm scuwwid!" Eljay muttered under his breath, so quiet his father would only hear it if he would be intently listening. Eljay didn't move, staying in place and waiting for more confirmation that everything'd be okay.

Elwood didn't hear Eljay's muttering, but it became clear after a few long seconds that the boy wasn't willing to re-approach the log just yet. It had apparently shaken him up quite a bit. The father wouldn't push his son into doing anything he didn't want to do; instead, he would be patient and let Eljay call the shots.

"That was pretty surprising, wasn't it?" he said, looking down at his mini-me. Maybe if he talked enough, he could convince Elwood Jr that the tree wasn't dangerous -- he knew it wouldn't be his words that reassured him, but his tone of voice. "But they flew away now. We'll look to make sure there aren't more bugs before we start exploring again," he said, now feeling a bit like he was rambling but hoping that his technique would be effective.

Eljay remained firmly rooted in place, with no intentions of leaving his father's safe side. Ever. Meanwhile, his father continued to speak as though nothing bad had really happened, but it wasn't very convincing to Eljay. Perhaps it was because he was still feeling frightened, or perhaps it was because he was still just a little kid, but Eljay started to sniffle, snorting his nose noisily as the tears started to brim up in his eyes.

And just like that, the usually quiet, seemingly stoic buy erupted into a loud wailing "waaaaaaaaah!" to indicate that he was thoroughly unhappy with the unfair adversity that life had thrown in his face. He never wanted to see a fallen tree log again, ever!

Unfortunately, Elwood's tactic would soon prove to be ineffective. He was startled by the loud sound that suddenly came from behind his leg -- having missed the soft sniffling that indicated that tears were on their way -- and looked down with wide eyes. Elwood Jr was bawling, exploring the full capacity of his lung as he wailed. This was so different from the boy's usual behavior that Elwood had no clue what to do.

"What -- what?" he stuttered, stepping back and lowering himself onto his stomach so that he could look at Eljay. He cradled his sobbing son between his forelegs, brows knitting together with concern as he began the task of trying to comfort him and figure out what was wrong. "It's okay! It's okay! We don't have to play here anymore," he said desperately, reaching out to lick between Eljay's ears in an effort to calm him.

When his father moved away, Eljay's first instinct was to move with him, but before he knew it his father was already laying on the ground facing him. Eljay continued to sob uncontrollably, like a little kid that fell and scraped their knee (except there were no scrapes involved). He had kept his emotions neatly locked inside of his little head, but now it had come to a breaking point where they refused to be tamed any longer, for the moment.

When his father spoke to him in soothing tones, Eljay stopped wailing and looked at his father with big, teary eyes. He sniffled softly while he looked up at his father. For the moment, it looked like the Eljay-bomb had un-bursted, although Eljay still looked pretty unhappy with his situation.

After a few seconds -- a few long seconds -- Eljay's sobbing subsided into quiet hiccups. His eyes were still rimmed with tears as he looked up at his father, but Elwood took the opportunity to grin broadly in an attempt to cheer him up. He found himself wishing that Finley was there -- she would know what to do, he was sure of it -- but he was on his own.

"There you are. You're so brave, Eljay," he said, his tail stirring gently behind him. He reached out with a paw to brush his son's tear-streaked cheek.

Eljay looked at his father's face and wiggled his nose as he sniffled. His father said he was brave and brushed his cheek with a paw, but Eljay didn't feel much better, still shocked and frightened by all that had happened. Still, at least his father was here -- that was something positive about today.

The pup burrowed his face in his father's neck while he continued to sniffle, and he let out a muffled "Ho.", indicating that he wanted to go home now and be safe again.

You can post once more if you want, or I can go ahead and archive it! :)

"Ho," Eljay requested, and had his son not been so upset, Elwood might've grinned at the boy's dropped consonants. But he knew that Eljay wanted to go home, and he would oblige. Perhaps he would be up for another round of exploring on a different day, but it was clear that little Elwood was done for this afternoon.

"Okay, let's go home," he said, rising to his feet and taking a step away from Eljay. He beckoned him to follow, encouraging him to walk on his own alongside his father. This would make their travel particularly slow, but they didn't have far to go. Elwood wanted Eljay to feel successful even though he had been badly frightened by the beetles.

"Yuh," Eljay agreed when his father suggested going home, glad that his not-so-subtle hints had been picked up. He sniffled again and stuck close to his father while they got up. Eljay cast one last glance at the scary tree as they moved along towards the den. Eljay kept himself glued to his father's side as he waddled along, feeling safer with his dad there.

Once there, Eljay snuggled up to Finley in the den and let out an exhausted sigh while he closed his eyes and put a paw over his nose.