Redhawk Caldera have you tried flushing the cache?

Caches! Phox had begun to learn where they were. More importantly, he had begun to check in on them. Today, he was doing just that. Digging up the ground a little bit, eyeballing the amounts, and he'd report his findings back to the adults like the good little hunter he was. Both he and Towhee had managed to be officially recognized for two trades, and they weren't even half a year old yet! What a couple of over-achieving butt-kissers.

Whatever, Phox was proud of himself for accomplishing so much in a short amount of time. And sure, maybe Towhee had progressed a little bit further than him in her skills, but he didn't mind. She was doing great. He was doing great. They made an awesome team, Phox thought to himself as he moved on to the next cache.

Outside of resting and his time spent with Towhee, Nightjar had been on the move almost from the moment he was welcomed back to the Caldera. His time in the wilds had unlocked a variety of new skills he never would have employed had he remained at home. Nightjar had always been a little dim-witted as a child and more concerned with fighting and patrolling, but no one could knock his instincts, and his latent intelligence revealed itself in an ability to memorize paths and create elaborate mental maps.

So from the moment he arrived home, he had been following game trails, pacing the perimeter of the rendezvous site, tracing the borders, and familiarizing himself with every inch of Redhawk territory. He already knew it from growing up in it, of course, but he paid special attention on these home bound excursions. He noted areas of heavy traffic and areas where prey droppings were more abundant. He noted the location of the caches, the location of all waterways, and their nearness to any given den. Within a few days, Nightjar could give directions to almost anywhere in the packland.

He was following a well-used game trail, heavily tamped by pack wolf paws, when he stumbled on Phox unearthing a cache. Tail waving jovially, the Redhawk padded toward his eager younger brother and sought to nip playfully at his rump while he wasn't looking.

The nip on his rump startled Phox, and he whipped around ready to face his enemy. Immediately, he realized who it was and his demeanor changed in a flash. "Nightjar!" he beamed, tail wagging and ears pulling back in a show of pure delight. Tracking his brother down had been on his to-do list, but not that much time had passed since it had been added and it seemed like Nightjar would probably want to get settled in before he started hanging out with his favorite (hah!) little brother.

"I was just checkin' on the food," he explained without being prompted. "You wanna help? Are you a hunter like Peregrine was?" From what he could remember, Peregrine had been a hunter and Fox had been a warrior of some kind. In fact, she sounded a lot like Towhee in that regard (or was it the other way around?). Phox really wanted to be a hunter just like his dad.

His tail beat at his hocks when the silvery black phase boy turned and greeted him. Wordlessly, he leaned forward and planted a fond lick across what he could reach of Phox's face. After all, it was this boy who had pleaded for him to stay. Nightjar would have anyway but he wouldn't forget the feeling that welled up in his breast to know he was wanted in that way. It was a sensation he hadn't enjoyed in a long time.

"No," he replied truthfully when asked if he was a hunter. "Dad tried to teach me once, but I'm not very good at it. Too slow." That, and his bum ear got in the way a little. Even with full use of the other one, he lacked one-half of his sense of hearing, which played a major role in hunting. He couldn't tell when there was a pack mate or a prey animal running to his left. He simply wasn't equipped to be a hunter, even if he had ever taken an interest in it. He hadn't.

Speaking of dad, this was the second time one of the pups had referred to their father by his name rather than his familial title. Nightjar found that profoundly sad, but didn't comment on it. Instead, he said, "but I don't gotta be a hunter to help you if you like. I'm actually trying to map out where all the caches are, myself. What do you need me to do?"

"Towhee's not good at it because she can't hear anything," Phox pointed out casually, "But I'm extra good and make up for it. She's better at fighting, though. Are you a warrior like Fox was?" That was about the extent of Phox's knowledge on his parents' skills. Peregrine hunted and Fox fought. If they had other talents, Phox hadn't really bothered to figure out what they were.

Nightjar had offered to help, though, so Phox gestured for him to follow. "We gotta go to each one," he explained, "and check to see how much food is there. Hey, you don't even have to be fast for that! Then, um, we go tell Finley and Elwood how much we have. Usually I'll tell them what I'm planning to refill so we don't overdo it." It wasn't a foolproof system by any means, but it tended to keep most of their food stores stocked. "We also gotta make sure the older stuff gets eaten, otherwise it'll go bad." He stopped blabbering for a minute to allow Nightjar some room to chime in if he wanted to.

Phox pointed out a fact about Towhee that was obvious to most wolves, but Nightjar nodded pensively, as if it hadn't occurred to him before. Of course! If he struggled with only one working ear then it stood to reason that his deaf sister would be incapable of hunting at all. Eyesight was a boon but could only do so much in a dark, gloomy forest where the pitter-patter of animal paws on leaf litter was sometimes the only signal that there was anything there.

He listened as best he could while Phox outlined the plan, but much like the original Fox, his attention span was fleeting. By the time Fox 2 concluded his lesson on manning the caches, Nightjar's focus had drifted to whether or not it would be fair to spar with a deaf wolf. He snapped out of it and smiled faintly at his brother, though he hadn't heard a word about telling Elwood and Finley what was in the caches.

"Dad just dropped things wherever, I think," he supplied unhelpfully. Peregrine probably hadn't done that and he probably had a strategy, but Nightjar didn't know of it. "I'll follow your lead," he offered, falling in line with the younger wolf ahead. This was a subject he'd never taken any interest in, but for Phox, he would try to be an engaged and willing student.

Nightjar didn't answer his question about being a warrior, and Phox squinted at his brother in return. He did vaguely comprehend that the older siblings seemed to tune-out midway through his explanation, so he made a mental note to break things into smaller pieces next time. Unlike his mother, Phox was talkative and loved to go on-and-on about whatever his mind was on.

"Sorry, sometimes I talk too much," he said with a sheepish shrug. Phox headed toward the next cache at an easy trot, flicking an ear back and asked, "What were they like? Mom and dad?" It was rare for him to refer to his parents as such, considering he had never met them, but he knew Nightjar must have known something about them he hadn't already heard.

Truthfully, he hadn't heard the question, either. Nightjar was very good at very few things, and almost all of those involved action rather than talking. He wasn't an ideal strategist because thinking through problems took too long for him. He wasn't an ideal hunter because he only had half his sense of hearing and, if he was honest with himself, the effort to make up for that was too great. He couldn't advise anyone to save his life. And he was a terrible listener, just like his mother before him.

So he went on blissfully unaware that he hadn't answered Phox's question, though he was tuned back into the conversation when it turned back to their parents. "It's okay," he offered, "dad talked too much too." In fact, almost everyone talked too much for what he preferred, but it was Wildfire and Peregrine who did the most talking. Both were gone now and while he missed them both, he didn't really miss their flapping lips. "You're kinda like him but not too much," he pointed out, but left it at that. Phox didn't seem to have Peregrine's crude sense of humor, and Nightjar was thankful for that, because he'd never understood it anyway.

"Towhee's like mom," he said, "only mom wasn't deaf, but she could be really mean." That wasn't to say that Towhee was really mean, just that she wasn't nearly as forgiving or accepting as Peregrine was. Nightjar was even more like Fox, but he lacked some of her traits, too. Really, he was more like a rock than anything. A rock that thought weak wolves were better off dead. "She punished dad a lot," he reflected, "but dad kind of deserved it. He wasn't very smart."

That was rich, coming from one of their stupidest offspring, but he meant in the natural sense moreso than the intelligence department.

Oooo... another way in which he was like Peregrine! Not that it was a particularly great quality to have. But it did make him feel closer to the father that he'd never met. Nightjar went on to say that Towhee was more like their mother. Phox soaked it all up, trying to memorize every little detail about their parents. He wished so much that he could meet them. They had built such a cool thing here, and it sucked that he would never really know them. Stories were nice, but he didn't think they could compare to the real thing.

"Deserved it? What did he do?" Phox asked, wondering what on earth their mom would punish their dad for. "I thought mates were supposed to be nice to each other!" He couldn't imagine ever punishing Towhee for anything at all. Or any family member, for that matter. Again, this was a place where he and their mother differed. The part about not being smart was conveniently ignored, as Phox believed his parents to be the bee's knees.

"Made bad choices, I guess," replied Nightjar, searching Phox's face for any sign that he was familiar with Peregrine's history of doing exactly that. The patriarch of the Redhawk clan had made a lot of good choices, too. In fact, he hadn't made any more bad ones than the average wolf, but the publicity of them and the way Fox handled them was enough to exaggerate their severity. There was the tricky matter of one such decision nearly costing Wildfire's life; briefly, the male wondered what would have happened to Peregrine had his sister actually been killed rather than just injured.

"He let an outsider into the pack that almost killed Wildfire, once," he offered by way of example, and only then did he realize that that was the only real example he had to share. Fox had seemed miffed at Peregrine more often than just that from what he could recall, but what Nightjar didn't know was that it was a result of old Pops' health problems more often than not. While he might have abandoned a weak mate if he had one, he failed to know that he was exactly like Fox in that regard, having never been close enough with her to see it.

"Mates are," he answered, but his brows furrowed as he considered the truth of that. They were supposed to be, but they were also supposed to be partners. Equals. If one was weaker than the other, in strength or mental capability, and didn't make up for it in other ways, then they couldn't be equals... and if they weren't equals, then one was the leader, and dominated the other. But such a wolf could have their pick of any subordinate in the pack if that was the case. Why keep a weak mate around at all? It was a question for his mother, but he could no longer pose it to her, and he stared pensively ahead as he realized for perhaps the first time that they were well and truly gone.

Phox twisted his face up at Nightjar when he mentioned "bad choices." He was pretty sure Peregrine and Fox only ever made good choices. Isn't that why they were the alphas for so long? He was about to ask something along these lines, but Nightjar spoke again, much to Phox's surprise. He didn't really seem like the talkative type. This was a story that Phox had probably heard, but he had also conveniently forgotten it. "He would never do that!" the boy muttered under his breath.

"Who's your mate?" Phox asked, as if this weren't an intrusive or inappropriate question in the least. And for Nightjar, maybe it wasn't either of those things. He seemed decidedly different from the other wolves Phox had met. He never balked at a question, never seemed to be nervous about answering anything that other adults danced around.

Phox moved on to the next cache, digging around until he found a single leg of elk. It still smelled fresh, so he covered it back up. He mentally counted how much food he'd found while listening to Nightjar.

Nightjar didn't catch Phox's mumbling, so focused wholly on the question that came his way quite out of the blue. "Don't have one," he admitted, and if he felt remotely sad about that, he gave no indication. The pair bond between two wolves was undeniably strong but it wasn't an urge he had felt yet. The call to claim was the closest he had ever come, but Nightjar had yet to find a suitable woman for the strong kids he thought he would produce.

"When the season comes I will claim the strongest," he elaborated as Phox began to dig, though the Caldera held very few wolves who could possibly live up to those expectations. Fox was no longer an option and Finley had never been one, leaving little in the way of options. Towhee was too young, though she was perhaps the best possibility for the future given her disdain for outsiders and loyalty to the bloodline. There was Raven, too. That was always an option, though Nightjar had never known where his darker sister's mind really was. Unlike Towhee, she came with a host of unknown factors. But she was of age.

When his brother began to cover the elk leg back up, he moved to offer assistance.

Nightjar said he didn't have one, though Phox didn't think that was terribly strange. Lagan didn't appear to have a mate. There were other wolves in the pack who didn't have a mate, too. And it seemed like Sebastian's mate wasn't around anymore. Maybe that was what had happened to Nightjar. But before he could ask his brother to elaborate, Nightjar was already explaining that he would claim the strongest when the season came.

"When's that?" Phox asked, taking strides toward the next cache. It would be the last one, and then he could report back to Elwood and Finley on what they had in store. Little did he know these stores would quickly run dry as their source of food began to dwindle. "Do I get one, too?"

"After the cold season," Nightjar vaguely supplied. He didn't know if there was a set time that it happened, but he guessed Phox had never experienced it if he had to ask about it. Any man who had experienced it would never forget it. "The bitches will get restless," he added, remembering some of his most vicious encounters with female wolves occurring during the late winter and early spring, "and you'll know when it's time." If not by the smell, then by the fact he would be rock hard almost all the time. Nightjar had been last season, anyway.

To the boy's second question, Nightjar rolled his shoulders upward in an awkward walking shrug, though his silver eyes glinted dangerously. "If you can beat me," he said ominously, and left it at that. He didn't intend to threaten his younger brother after all, and his lip turned up at the corner to show he didn't mean anything by it now. However, Nightjar was as wild as they came at his core, and when it came down to it, he would attempt to beat the shit out of any male wolf who came between him and his desire to produce strong offspring to continue the Redleaf-DiSarinno legacy. That would include Phox if necessary.