Redhawk Caldera on a cloudy day

Clover sniffed around the rendezvous area, straying a little further than typical. Her parents were no doubt nearby and keeping a watchful eye, and Clover had no designs to stray any further. There was just a very interesting scent that had caught her attention... but she zig-zagged around, unable to keep to it. Her tail waved behind her as she thought she was close, though it would still when she recognized she had hit another dead end. 

Pouting, the twelve week old squinted at the earth. Whatever this weird-but-good smell was, she would find it. Mommy! Daddy!!! she summoned, her voice holding the urgency of any child who thought what they were doing was important as she called to @Finley and @Elwood. There was no thread of fear in it and so no need for them to worry, and Clover dashed back in their direction with her oversized paws.

He was no stranger to Clover's requests; it seemed like the inquisitive little girl always had something to show to her parents, and they were (almost) always happy to oblige. Having recently returned to the rendezvous site after a patrol -- during which he looked for any sign of Nightjar, but found none -- Elwood was reclining in the sunlight, enjoying the last warm rays before the temperature dipped with winter's arrival. His ears perked up at the sound of Clover's voice and, while there was no alarm in her tone, he still stood and went to go find her promptly.

"What is it?" he asked when he spotted her bounding towards him, grinning at the sight of her spry gallop.

It was dad who answered her call, and her tail waved wildly at the sight of his approach. Grinning broadly in turn at him, Clover darted around him and went to lap at his chin affectionately before she remembered what it was she wanted after he asked. Oh! she chirped, Follow me!!! and then she darted back from whence she came, arriving to one of the very spots she had found that smelly smell. Once she arrived, Clover lowered her nose, sniffed, and then looked to him. 

What's that smells? She inquired with a tilt of her head. She was still learning not to attach "s" to everything, and for the most part her speech was developed it was not yet totally perfect. Clover had no impediment, though, and spoke as any would at her age—sometimes with errors, sometimes without.

Just as quickly as she greeted him with a kiss, Clover was off again and Elwood moved to follow her. She led him a short distance across the rendezvous site, and when she stopped, he looked around as though expecting to see something. But he didn't notice anything out of place, and when he returned his gaze to Clover, he found that she had lowered her head and was sniffing heartily at the grass.

She turned her bright eyes up at her father, asking about the scent, and he closed the gap between them and stretched out his neck to smell the indicated area. Rather than just give her an answer, however, he looked at her inquisitively. "What do you think it is?" he asked, raising his brows thoughtfully.

His question for her brought a comical, scrutinous look to her childish face. What did she think it was? Well, she knew this wasn't a field mouse—she knew that scent due to her obsession with the teeny critters, and her mother always telling her—but she did not know many other scents by name, yet. Uhhhhm, she said, looking to her toes, ...deer??? Wait, no, uhm, squirrel???? She looked back up to him, wondering if she was in any way, shape, or form correct. WELL?!?! AM I RIGHT?[/i]

If you had something else in mind for the smell, let me know! :P

Elwood stifled a laugh at Clover's attempts to guess the identity of the smell. The two prey animals she named couldn't have been more different in size, and while she hadn't been right, he still took her interest as an indication that she could potentially follow in his footsteps as a hunter some day. "Good guesses," he prasied, then gently corrected her.

"It smells like a rabbit to me. Want to track it down?" he asked with a wave of his tail.

Clover hated to hear she was wrong, even if they were good guesses, and pouted for a brief second, before he corrected her and her interest was grasped firmly by his offer. YES! RABBIT! Let's goooo!!! she hollered, beginning to bounce away and sniff for things that were like rabbit. She was able to follow some of its trail before inevitably veering off course and following something else. Clover paused to squint at her father, before darting backward, putting her snout on the ground, and then she squinted at the earth. Many animals had passed this intersection, and Clover was confused as to which way it had gone. She wheeled around the spot and sniffed loudly at it, letting out a hmmmmm, before she looked to her father, the expert on all things tracking.

The girl's enthusiasm was contagious, and Elwood grinned as he began to trot after her. There was no way they would actually lay eyes on the rabbit -- surely when it heard Clover's hollering, it would duck underground to hide if it had any sense. But even so, it would be fun to practice tracking with his daughter.

She paused a few feet ahead and Elwood came up alongside her, watching as she sniffed the ground carefully. She veered this way and that, and he interpreted that the rabbit's scent trail had gotten mixed up with other smells. Sure enough, when he inhaled, he detected a variety of other small animals that had passed by recently, as well as Orca and @Lagan -- who must have also been in the vicinity not too long ago.

"Which way should we go?" he asked, curious to see if Clover would eventually be able to sort out the rabbit's odor from the others.

This way, Clover decided, having confused scents quite thoroughly. Though rabbit had been the scent that initially intrigued her, now it was a field mouse—a big rival of hers, actually—that she had gotten confused with. They were different, but Clover had confused her focus in the myriad of scents. 

She started in that direction, but then came the scent of Lagan, and the trail she had followed seemed to actually abruptly end—truly this time, which meant Lagan probably had himself a very small snack. Clover didn't think that far ahead, though. What??!? Asked Clover, confounded, head whipping to look at her father.

Elwood nodded, taking Clover's decision at face value. Only after they began to stride forward again did he double check her answer and found that they had mistakenly veered away from the path of the rabbit. It didn't really matter, so he didn't bother to set her right.

They didn't travel very far, though, before she stopped again, this time turning to look at her father with a new exclamation of confusion. "What's wrong?" Elwood asked, tilting his head slightly to one side.

He asked what was wrong, and Clover gestured toward the spot. It's gones! She exclaimed, perplexed. Where could it have gone? Clover took a couple steps back to reinspect... and the scent was there... but again, the scent abruptly ended. Where go? She queried, blinking upward at him.

She confirmed what he suspected; the scent trail had seemingly vanished, right out from under her nose. There were plenty of reasons this could have happened, but combined with Lagan's scent, Elwood thought that perhaps Clover's older brother had dispatched the rabbit. She asked him where it had gone, and he shrugged his shoulders truthfully. He could guess, but he wasn't really sure.

"I don't know," he said. "Sometimes that happens -- even the best hunters lose the trail. Do you want to look for something else?" he asked, tilting his head as he regarded his daughter. When she said yes, he dutifully followed her toward the next adventure.