Hideaway Strath that is the thing that calls to all of my kind

backdated before kahlil's disappearance. for @Mallaidh! ♥

The morning sun has begun it’s rise into the sky like a hero of the story brought to fight the dark throes of night. At the moment, it served little more than annoyance to Roarke who squinted against it’s unobscured beams with little more than offense to his expression. Typically, he rises shortly after Arturo to take, swift of foot, to his own adventures despite the trouble he has found himself in for them previously. He does not listen and is not aware of the consequences that are about to find and bind him. His belly is blissfully full of fresh rabbit brought to them by …someone. Specifics fall short of his gratitude which he shows in his plight to devour his breakfast. The weight of a full and content belly is heavy upon him and gives him a sudden air of sloth. He plops down in the shade of the nearest underbrush and stretches lavishly among the grasses, letting out a small noise of pleasure as his muscles expand and contract pleasantly with the motion of stretching. The blissful, luxurious life of any young prince, surely. His eyes close giving him the appearance of being asleep though he is merely resting his eyes, stretched lavishly and unconcerned for propriety as such things yet encumber mind too young. He should be practicing, sparring with a sibling or Sirius or …in some cases an adult if he can manage to charm them into it but currently he is content to be lazy and allow his breakfast to settle, enjoying the warmth of the sun and a privileged life.

Mallaidh had an unusually late day from the beginning. She didn’t get up right away and she even skipped breakfast, for some reason. Her eyes are heavy and even when the others stirred around her, she didn’t bother to lift her head more than a few inches to see where they were going. It isn’t until Roarke has been settled in the sun for some time that she finally picks herself up off the ground and stretches her limbs. With a lazy yawn and smack of her lips, she trots across the short distance until she lets her legs collapse beneath her and haphazardly crashes into her brother.

Roarke draws in a deep breath and lets it out, resting his eyes against the pleasant warmth of the sun. Slowly, his head lowers until his chin is resting upon his front paws. Feeling lazy and with a belly content and full of breakfast suddenly makes the typically active boy incredibly sleepy. He does not have many days like this, partially of his parents designs as their lives are full of lessons now, but also of his own design because he likes moving and training and sparring. Despite these things, Roarke begins to doze off. It is a light sleep, keeping him alert enough to be aware of approach …at first. It is not long before he enters a deeper stage of sleep as he naps and he does not hear Mallaidh’s approach. Until she careens and crashes against him. Startled, Roarke is suddenly jostled from his unintentional nap, horribly disoriented as his heart pounds in his chest as he struggles to understand what has crashed against him. No, not what. Who. “Mol?” He asks, voice thick with the stubborn vestiges of sleep that refused to leave, just like his confusion. He squeezes his eyes shut and takes a deep breath as, slowly, he becomes much more aware of his surroundings and increasingly aware that it is, indeed, Mallaidh whom has crashed into him.

“Das me,” she says as she makes herself comfortable. She doesn’t realize the panic she’d given her little brother but she does feel his heart beat a little harder from his chest as she lounges against him. “Why aren’t cha with papa on tha borders?” she asks, sleepy slurred speech and the position she’s laying in keeps her from enunciating properly. Not that she cares how she sounds in the presence of her brother. She turns a little to peer at his face from the awkward position, wondering if he’d be interested in a little exploration without the watchful eye of their parents. “C'mon, get up,” she says and gives him a nudge then latches onto the back of his scruff where she then scrambles and tries to pull him up from the ground.

Roarke lets out a low, throaty chuckle when Molly announces that she is, indeed, “Mol” and lounges against him as if he is a luxurious chaise lounge but the winter’s bane hardly minds. “Could be an imposer.” He teases her with a smirk, using the wrong word when he means “imposter” but this slips out of his notice because he knows what he means and there are no adults present to correct him on which word he means. He assumes that Molly will be able to understand what he means. A yawn escapes him, splitting his jaws wide so that when he he lets out the final breath of his yawn his teeth snap together. “I don’t wanna patrol. I wanna fight.” There is too much safety in border patrolling, he believes. Thus far, every time he has joined Arturo on patrols the only action he sees is when Molly tags along and entices him to spar as to which he happily consents to. He is a beast built for war not sentry duty. Roarke understands it is a necessary evil but that doesn’t mean he has to like it (he doesn’t).

The promise of adventure glints in the depths of his sister’s gaze but he makes her work for it; and she does not disappoint as she scrambles off of him and tries to pull him up. A snort and eruption of laughter leaves his lips, irrationally, because there is something humorous to him about her trying to tug him to his paws. “Ok, ok.” He concedes between giggles and pushes himself to his paws with a stretch, freeing and stiffness that might have resulted from his little nap.

Mallaidh snorts when he speaks, speaking that she’d be a fake. “Ha.” Yeah, sure. Who could impersonate her?
 
His whining, however, causes her eyes to nearly roll right out of her head. “Wha’tif some’n is out there righ’ now tryna get in and we ain’t there to stop ‘em!” she starts with a mouthful of fur, letting go near the end and staring at him defiantly. As he straightens himself out, finally getting going so they can do something, he bounces forward a few steps and then spins ‘round on her heels.
 
“Last one there is a big turd!” She doesn’t give him a change to retort before she spins back and leaves him in her dust.

Roarke offers her a lofty shrug of his shoulders when she lets out a ha! at his talk of her being an imposter. It’s a bit of a stretch, admittedly, but as it’s his story he intends to stick with it, although it has long since been proved that she’s, indeed, Mallaidh. She tries to goad him by offering the alternative that there could be someone at the borders at the moment trying to get in and they weren’t there to stop them, and it is his turn to roll his eyes but grins afterwords, but gives her the benefit of doubt. Even in his effort to avoid border patrols it seems Molly had artfully manipulated him into doing it anyway. Dang it. Roarke lets out a heavy, dramatic sigh that would make any thespian jealous with it’s exaggeration. “Hey!” He barks as she takes off, claiming that the last one to the borders is a turd. He takes off after her, fairly confident that she will win as his bulk (puppy pudge) will no doubt slow him down. Roarke wasn’t built to win any races, after all, and that was extremely unfortunate because he did not want to bear the title of big turd.

Mallaidh does not slow down when she hears her brother call after her. If anything, she speeds up. She may be built thin and agile but the last thing she knows is how to use it properly. Her legs are too long for the rest of her body and she has a sloppy gait through the woods that she occasionally scrambles from purchase when she makes turns. Once or twice she wipes out but nothing ever causes any harm and she’s far enough in front of her brother to get behind. Eventually, she finds herself flung through a barrier of trees into a clearing. It is something she’s never seen before, though she isn’t entirely sure it’s in their territory or not. Mallaidh turns around, searching through the foliage for her brother, not quite realizing how far ahead of him she’d really gotten.

Roarke falls behind. Man, he needs to work on his cardio stamina so he can, at least, keep himself paced when chasing Molly, he thinks as he huffs out a pant and draws in a deep breath to soothe the ache in his lungs, trotting along having long since given up sprinting after her. It is easy enough to follow her trail: by scent or the skid marks she leaves on the floor of the Strath when she’s turned too hard. “Mol!” He calls for her though he is certain he remains on her trail. She has gotten ahead of him. For a second he feels like cursing the tundra for making him so fat but then that would be cursing his mother and such a thing was utterly unthinkable so he did not. He hurries when her scent grows stronger and flings himself through the foliage with a soft ‘rah’ and only just resists the urge to flop down dramatically in the clearing. “Mol, where are we?” Were they even still in the Strath? Roarke didn’t know and suddenly …didn’t really care. It was an adventure they were looking for, wasn’t it? He huffs out a few more pants, draws in a last deep breath and saunters up to his sibling bearing the title of “big turd” with as much dignity as he can muster. She had won fair and square, after all and Roarke was man enough to admit and praise her victory over him. “C’mon! Lets keep going.” So long as she didn’t fancy a second race and leave him in her dust again Roarke has no intention of leaving her side on this adventure whether it takes them to the borders, as it was meant to or beyond them.

It is a few more seconds before she hears Roarke barreling through and a few more after that that he’s actually in the clearing. She yips in a mix of surprise and excitement, looking around with uncertainty of their surroundings. She hasn’t traveled this far from her family before and she feels a tickle in her chest she doesn’t know how to interpret. While she’s gone to the borders, it has been on the tail of her father or mother or someone much older. This time, she just has her brother to rely on and she knows they are both little and squishy and… well, not a threat. When he encourages her to keep going, she looks at him for a long moment before she decides, too, that it’s a good idea! “Let’s go,” she says, and trots out of the clearing with a slower speed so her new Turd Brother can keep up.