Heron Lake Plateau playtime

i'mma say this takes place during @Finley finding out about the leadership change, so Eljay doesn't know anything yet :) hoping for a baby sibling thread! but all welc!

Mommy had gone off to do something important while Eljay was left with @Cinder and @Tywyll. They were growing each day and were getting to be a bit of a handful. More and more words they learned each day and Eljay thought it quite magical to see them grow up, just like he had seen Lagan and Liffey (and partly Lucy) grow up as well as some of his nieces and nephews. It was wonderful to be home again and to be able to help mommy and daddy raise the pups. Hopefully once everything was settled in this new place they would have some more time to catch up on a personal level -- though Eljay spent a lot of time with mommy and daddy @Elwood he felt like he could use some more, well, one-on-one personal talk time.

"Do you want to play a game?" he asked his baby siblings, who'd been rather quiet throughout this moment of introspection and he looked over to see if they were awake at all.

He had spent half the day annoying Cinder, finding he loved teasing him just as much as he did comforting and playing with him. Now the two were settled down a bit and sleep was beginning to take hold of Tywyll. His eyes grew heavy and began to close.....right up until Eljay mentioned a game.


Sleep disappeared in an instant and his ears shot up, eyes growing bright and alert as he pushed himself up. "Yeah! What kind of game? Tag? Hide and seek?" he asked curiously, body humming with excitement as he threw suggestions.

Despite spending the day with an irritating older sibling at his side, he was quite content. The boy scowled at Tywyll, but of course he could not stay grouchy for long - just as they were beginning to settle, the idea of a game was mentioned. Cinder perked up just as his brother did, eyeing Eljay with a curious stare. "Game? What game?" He mumbled, beginning to shuffle forward on little legs. He had no suggestions himself, but Tywyll began to throw possibilities around and simply because he'd said them, Cin decided to give them his full support, tail wagging furiously. 

Yeah, he'd already forgotten about being annoyed.

The boys seemed excited enough about the idea of playing a game. Eljay hadn't really considered what sort of game yet, but there were always plenty of things to do. Tywyll suggested hide and seek or tag and Eljay figured that it would be a good honing of their instincts to do some searching. "Hide and seek..?" he asked, then: "I'll start with the seeking then, you two can hide. I'll count to ten." Eljay gave them some time to say 'no, we want a different game', but if no objection came then he would close his eyes and start counting.

Tywyll turned to Cinder with a grin and then toddled off as quickly as he could toward the outside of the den. He searched around and spotted a hollow log, going for it and squeezing himself inside of it. He made himself small and steadied his breathing though his tail qas going a mile a minute, poking outside of the log unbeknownst to him.

Hide and seek!

Cinder felt a rush of excitement, turning to grin at his brother as the gesture was returned to him. The two boys quickly left the den, and they wasted no time in attempting to search for good hiding places. Where could he go? The boy furrowed his brows, eyes hurriedly scanning the area in hopes of somewhere good. Somewhere... hidden.

The little Blackthorn saw the hollowed log, but it was too late for him to go there! A certain lump was already occupying it. Tywyll had stolen his spot - because yeah, it was his spot! He'd... he'd seen it first! Totally. Resorting to plan B, Cinder rushed around until he found a patch where the grass was almost taller than himself - he grinned, crouching so that he was mostly concealed. This spot is better than that one anyway.

"One..." The sound of scrambling paws showed they were off to find a good hiding spot. "Two..." The moving paws vanished from hearing, but he remembered the direction they'd gone off to, both the same way. "Three..." He heard some sounds in the not far off distance, but couldn't place them entirely. "Four... Five... Six... Seven... Eight... Nine... Ten! Ready or not, here I come!" Eljay turned to look around and saw nothing at first glance. He moved in the direction of the sounds eagerly, deciding not to use his nose just yet because it'd be much more fun to try and find them on sight alone first.

He noticed the whirring tail sticking out from the log pretty much immediately, but didn't want to blow Tywyll's confidence. "Hmm, where could they be," Eljay wondered out loud as he walked past the log. He glanced back at the log as he moved past to make sure Tywyll thought he hadn't seen him. What he didn't notice though was the lump of Cinder laying in the tall grasses just before him. As Eljay was still looking backwards at the log he tumbled over Cinder and landed flat on his face on the other side with a loud "oomph".

The counting began and Tywyll wiggled eagerly, liistening closely. He heard Cinder go by and grinned, wondering where he hid but not wanting to risk being caught to peek out and see. When he heard Eljay come out of the den, he quited up only to giggle in a hushed way when he got passed by. He knew he had a good spot! 

Then he heard the fall and the curiosity got to him. He wriggled out and peeked around, seeing Eljay fallen on the ground. He burst out laughing and with a wild shriek, ran and jumped on the older wolf. He began to nip and bite at Eljay wherever he could grab him. "C'mon Cin! Get him!" he squealed.

Before Eljay could look over his shoulder to see what had happened he was being smothered by his two baby siblings who were nipping and biting at him. "Oh no, the hunter becomes the hunted!" he said and he giggled at their ticklish nipping. For a little while longer they played until eventually the pups grew tired and Eljay brought them back to the den for a nap.