Lost Creek Hollow Everyone has

AW for reals! Backdated a few days.  Tags can be for ref, I can PP you tiny nerds.

One of the problems with Terance being gone was that she was left on her own to do both leadership things and pup care but she'd relied on a few of the others to help out for short periods, not really wanting to inflict them on anyone in particular for an extended period.  So today she'd try something different and decided to herd the trio along with her for a small chunk of the borders just to make sure they knew how it worked.  It was kind of a gloomy day, and hopefully an unexciting one, as the three would probably keep things interesting enough for her. 

Arbiter's pace slowed, and she woofed to make sure to get their attention.  Up ahead is the borders. You can smell them pretty easily.  It's the edge of the pack, and you need to make sure to stay inside the scent line.  Wolves who live outside need to stay outside it.  She thought that was pretty obvious, and refrained from mentioning "until you're older" just in case it encouraged @Jet to or Pike (@Thief) to overestimate their abilities.  Yet again, Spook wasn't particularly interested, he seemed quite happy to stick to Arbiter's or his siblings' shadows.

Oh yeah, the rest of the ground rules. If you're playing alone and end up near the borders, don't come any closer to it than we are now.  It's up by that tree. She pointed with her nose to a particular tree that stood off by itself.  It was a dozen yards up or so.  If you see anyone on the other side, you should call for an adult to come meet them.  Then you're being a great junior guardian -- and the best guardians get rewards.  Arbiter had started building a small collection of cool things that she could give them besides food.  Assuming nobody else came through and nabbed it...

But if you're here with me or your father, you can go right up to the borders with us and help make sure the pack is safe.  You can come patrol with us whenever you want if you don't want to stay back at the den.  And saying it was boring?  Probably not necessary, they'd find out.  But hey, sometimes the den was more boring.  Come along, we can investigate.  If she was lucky, a few deer maybe came through here.  That'd be a good thing to point out.

Sarah had begun her day early, by heading East and spending the best part of her morning, hunting in the plains and finishing the quest with a swim in the river and a nap in a little hollow near the banks. There was nothing she could bring back home for the kids or anyone else, but she considered that doing mousing along the borders and then visitting Arbiter to see, if the children were in need of any food, would be the best thing to do.

However, the plans were in need of change, when she arrived at the borders and saw that Terance's mate was out with the trio and from what she could hear, they were introduced to the guardian trade. She waited Arbiter to finish, before making her presence known with a quiet bark and approaching the little family.

I know @Jet was contemplating invading, so had waited.  And retagging @Thief just to remind that this thread exists so LMK if I screw something up, heh. Both are still free to join in or thou shalt be PPed! :P

More than one set of eyes and ears turned in Sarah's direction.  Though Arbiter was of course cool and collected, and even wagged her tail once or twice, the pups were a whole different array of emotions.  Pike stood attentively, uttering a properly pup-sized boof staring Sarah down since he was totally into the whole guardian thing, regardless of what side of the borders people came from.  Unlike Spook who was feeling quite ill at ease with the whole idea and so was watching over his brother's shoulder.  She was glad that at least Pike seemed to be taking it all seriously, though she wasn't sure what to do about Spook.  He just still seemed, well, far to tentative about everything.  Was there a way to implant a bit of courage into him?

Meanwhile Arbiter's daughter had veered off into the underbrush after something interesting that had caught her attention a few moments before. You could hear some not-too-distant crashing about from her, but given the barks.. Well.  Let's just say she was gonna be back here in about 3.2 seconds once she got her way out of the foliage maze if she was being anything like herself, and her reaction would probably be the loudest.  Couldn't have something happen without her!

So, Arbiter had a few seconds.  She reached down to touch her nose and ruffle the fur of each of the boys before speaking, Sarah.  Happened to find anything that way that might interest this trio?

It was ironic that, while Sarah had felt no sympathy or attachment to Rannoch and Liffey's kids, she was slightly more cordial towards Terance's offspring. Not that it changed the fact of her dislike for little children in general, but here this personal preference was tempered by the fact that they were related to her. Thus imporant and valuable as opposed to the rest. 

"No, not really," Sarah shook her head, looking down at the almost three-month olds and thinking to herself that they were still in the age, where the percentage of them being nuisances and burdens far outweighed their capacity of usefulness. But you do not tell a proud mother that their babies are good for nothing... for now. She therefore chose a wiser approach by meetingi Arbiter's gaze and asking: "What do you want them to be? What is the potential?"

As Arbiter opened her mouth to reply, she was promptly interrupted.  "We're gonna fight all the bad guys!" was Pike's response.  She uttered a slight pleased laugh, Yes you will, when you're older. He looked pretty smug about that.  Arbiter directed her next sentence to both him and Sarah, as she was answering her question as well, Dokugas are very good warriors, so I'm sure you'll be excellent at it.  And skilled hunters that will make the three of you invaluable.  Then solely to Sarah, Beyond that is up to them.  But it was a good base education, was it not?  Ensuring survival and usefulness, so that even if Rannoch and Liffey's departure spelled the end of this pack eventually (Arbiter was still pretty salty about that), the family could always find a place in another.

The next little voice that piped up was Spook, who had been holding back but now moved forward, question begging for his mother's attention, "When d'we get to hunt?" Soon, but you have to show me you're ready like your brother and sister.  AKA be brave.  Even though she said that with patience, it was obviously not the answer he wanted to hear.  Why don't both of you go tell me what's been down that trail, a point with her nose towards the rough path that cut from one side of the border to the other, well within sight, while we wait for your sister to get back.  From whatever had distracted her.  The boys, though, were happy to do as told.  It would also give the adults a minute or three to talk.

The distant yell and sudden crashing back their way sounded like yeah, it wouldn't be long.  One day she'd probably stumble face first into a porcupine or something if she kept wandering away from her mother's lessons.  Arbiter would feel no pity.

Sarah watched and listened to Arbiter in solemn silence. Warriors and hunters were the only professions that she truly valued, understood and placed above everything else. And it appealed to her that Terance's mate was just as practical to child-rearing as everything else she approached. She could see a room, where she could help the proud mother to achieve the goals made for her schildren. 

"That's doable," she nodded in approval. "Come autumn the deer herds will be on the move, it will be a good practice for the young ones," she referred to the time, when she alongside Wraen and Terance had had the first lesson of, how difficult it was to herd a group of deer, where you wanted them to be, how it was no easy task to separate one animal from the whole, how you could never focus on just the hunt, but had to be aware of your surroundings in order not to get hurt. 

"I was a guardian once myself too," she added. "I can help."

Gerrronimooooooo! With Mother in full-blown Lecture Mode again, it hadn't taken Jet very long to peel off on her own. She scooted under a low-hanging woody vine with a few well-placed thorns that snagged a tuft or three of black fur as she thought to herself somewhat smugly that this obstacle was likely to make it all the more difficult to extract her for any reprimands or further talkiness. She surged forward deep into the thickets, careless of how they tried to snag and drag upon her and impede her progress, already scheming feigned deafness in her mind for when Mother inevitably tried to call her back. The thick underbrush really did muffle noises from behind somewhat, mind you: Mother's voice was fading into an indistinct murmur rather quickly. It didn't conceal the sudden sharp bark very well, however, at which Jet stopped, turned half-about with some difficulty, and cocked her head in interest. Who was that? Certainly not any of her brothers, and it didn't sound like Mother... She began to wriggle her way back posthaste to check the noise out, but now found her clever plans to twart the movement of others was instead holding her back. Jet gave a little yarrowling noise of frustration as she shoved at the uncooperative brushwood, followed by a small, sharper yip as one especially large thorn pricked her tender nose right good.

This injury was pushed aside and then quickly dismissed entirely as she burst back onto the scene however, her eyes eagerly homing in on the big wolf who was not Mother. Jet's little pink tongue darted out to instinctively grab the small drop of blood tickling her noseleather just before she opened her jaws to greet Sarah cheerily. Harro! she said, prancing up to the big willowy female, her gaze riveting to the wolf's bald scars for one long moment of fascination. Then the very last bit of what the wolf had said that Jet's ears had actually caught clicked into place in her mind. Help with what? she demanded eagerly.

She nodded, A variety of teachers would be good for them.  For now I'm at least making sure they can track, even if they don't have the brawn yet.  And she didn't get to say much more because Brou finally graced them with her presence.  The presence of a different wolf was too much of a lure for her to pass up -- but had she learned not to go face-first into thorn bushes?  Well, there had been the one at the den, so the answer seemed to be "no," still.  At least she seemed to be picking up a few manners, but then again it was also harder for her to try and bowl over adults like she might with siblings.  More testing needed.

Your aunt Sarah is offering to help teach the three of you.  Which was probably something that Brou really didn't want to hear.  But Arbiter didn't always force her daughter to stick around for lessons -- mostly because she knew that if she kept up the habit, it as gonna come back to bite her, and there was still plenty of time for her to play catch up when that happened. But if you keep wandering off, you're going to lose more and more of your games to your brothers when they learn things you don't... she warned.  And given that Jet was quite keen on being up in everyone's face, Arbiter was pretty sure Brou wouldn't like the decrease in attention as even Spook took the limelight.  But right now boys were off being good, and seemed to be sort of arguing over what they found in the distance.

Right after Sarah had offered her assistance in teaching Terance's children, one of them bounded out of the bushes and came in the spotlight of the two adults. She regarded the girl calmly, seeking any resemblance between her and father's side of the family. For a wolf, who did not care much about appearances, this was very unusual. And, when she caught herself staring, she pulled herself right out of it and turned her gaze away. A memory of her youngest siblings being the same age as Jet was now had resurfaced and Sarah did her best to suppress it. Now was not the time to reminisce about the past.

Treason's dialogue with her offspring was a welcome distraction, however, and Sarah remained unhelpfully silent, curious to see, how the exchange would unfold.

Brou's eyes widened with interest, a glint of curiosity entering them as she cocked her head at her aunt and gave her the once-over once again with this new information in mind. Her mind eagerly leapt immediately to the tracking lessons that had been her favorite schooling thus far: was that the kind of thing this Sarah had in mind for the teachifying?

She's gonna teach us all three? Brou demanded, and then pulled a face as Mother warned her against her continued wandering off, and raised the ominous specter of her brothers learning more and faster than her. What?! Nuh uh! Well, that definitely couldn't be allowed. With barely the flicker of a black ear in the boys' direction, Brou lowered her voice a little and stepped closer to Sarah to confide to her in what the pup probably thought was a conspiratorial whisper, but which would likely carry very well to Mother's ears and beyond: My brothers're dumb. You sure you really wanna teach 'em?!

Then, as it crossed her mind that maybe she was allowing herself to be tricked into further endless, yawntastically boring lectures, here... Whatcha gonna wanna teach anyway Aunserrah? A skeptical note flavored her expression as Brouhaha cocked her head the other way to regard Sarah more critically. It did dawn on her however that Sarah had been pretty quiet thus far, though. That was surely a good sign, a sign that somewolf was not so likely to drone on and on for the sake of somepups' "educational benefit," right? A pup could only hope!

Yes, all of you.  If you don't need special help to keep up, you should all be taught together.  Or do you?  And of course, it wasn't like she was deaf.  As Brou continued, there was a slight eyeroll from Arbiter.  Brou deserved a bit of a walloping at the paws of the boys so she'd maybe respect them a bit more.  A bit of chomping from Pike's teeth, most likely.  It was part of the reason she was letting Brou run off in the first place -- she'd reap the rewards of her own choices, but given the way she behaved, Arbiter was fairly confident that should it happen, she'd play catch up so she wouldn't be left behind.  It all made sense to her, at least.

Arbiter was apparently letting Sarah pick up the discussion from here, taking a moment to look over at the boys, who were quietly arguing about something.  Probably just bickering about what exactly it was that was there -- like deer vs moose kind of thing or something similar.

Sarah cracked a grin, when Brou addressed her, reminded of her own younger siblings and their antics, when they had been the same age. She had not particularly liked them in the useless toddler stage, but once you could have a solid argument with them and they had outgrown the stage, where you could grab them by the scruff or the midden and just carry off, she could see a point at taking interest in them.

"Guarding, hunting, being useful most of all," she was not very descriptive, when she listed all the things, but emhpasized each word. Implying that there was more to it than the name itself suggested. "Your mother has been teaching you to track?"

She made another face briefly as Mother jibed her about only those in need of special help needing lessons all to themselves. Obviously Arbiter had never had to cope with the likes of those two brothers of Brou's interfering and obfuscating what this girl was convinced really oughta be much better puppy lessons otherwise!

Meantime, Brou's skeptically-furrowed brow smoothed out as the magical words guarding and hunting were uttered. Now, surely these were the sorts of things that couldn't be taught just by yapping at a pup! These sounded very promising indeed. ...Although the quite vague addendum of being useful still made her a bit suspicious, her expression opened up and her tail began to fan the air optimistically as her eyes glued themselves attentively to Sarah's face. She returned her aunt's smile with an eager toothy grin of her own. Unlike Mother, perhaps this other wolf might be more sympathetic and open to excluding those boys that had been such a thorn in Brou's side for as long as she could remember. (Perhaps more literally in the case of toothsome Pike, but Spook was an annoying lodestone in his own right more often than not if you asked Brou, here. Especially when it came to lessons requiring bravery and initiative, which Brou instantly decided must surely be the case with these oh-so-promising tantalizing offers from Aunt Sarah.) Yeah, Mother's been teachin' us to track, said an electrified Brou, though she hastened to add: though I'm bestest at it of course. Wasn't like Pike or Spook was near enough to contradict her, after all. ...And besides, she didn't think Arbiter would meanly quash her admittedly-somewhat-exaggerated dreams of greatness, either, but she couldn't stop the smallest flicker of her eyes in Mother's direction trying to be sure. Just how much could she get away with, here? It seemed like an excellent opportunity with her brothers so thoroughly distracted over there, but Brouhaha would have to see how all this went over. She thought perhaps she'd hit upon a solution when she ventured with further braggadoccio: I don' need no extra-special help, and Mother knows that! If anything it's my brothers 'oo need it, Aunserrah... maybe they should have their own lessons separate, extra-special! Just to help 'em catch up, she added quickly with the most winning smile and jaunty wag of a tail that she could muster. I wouldn' wanna deprive 'em or anything, after all...

Would it be enough for Auntie Sarah here to buy it, though? And would Arbiter let her get away with it? Her mother had frequently given her a rather long leash to hang herself with in many ways, but in some ways Brou still was testing the waters, here. She batted her eyes at Sarah in a fashion she hoped made her look more innocent before pinning the lady with a more-fixed beseeching look.

The boys, at least, paid attention to their lessons -- or did so more regularly than Brou, at least.  Kids were easily distracted, sure, but they still had to learn at some point.  At Brou's boasting, Arbiter gave her a sort of over-the-glasses kind of look. The trio of them were novices and had a lot to figure out.

Speaking of!  Pike ran back over, yelling, "Deer!  There's deer!  An' you and Dad an' other stuff!"

Behind him came Spook, who looked pretty upset, "No, waaaaaait--!  Wait for meee--!'  It was pretty likely he'd been sort of thumped by his brother, who wanted to get back first to report because Spook looked like he was pretty unhappy about it all. "We're supposed to go together!"

Pike bounced up to Arbiter, seeking praise as he continued to talk over Spook, "When d'we get to go hunt the deer?  I wanna hunt!"

Arbiter nuzzled the top of Pike's head, then Spook's a moment after once he bumbled over, When you're bigger.  Sarah can help teach all three of you, too.  First you're going to have to start with something smaller.  But since you're getting so good at tracking, next will be trying to figure out which of the deer we should hunt. Hopefully they caught on as quickly as they had with tracking -- it was far more important for them to be able to pick a good target than to just run at things.  It would keep them alive.

Of course, note that since the boys did what she asked, they were the ones that had been more directly told they were doing well.

Sarah listened to Brou patiently, enjoying her boldness, but not feeling convinced that the kid was as skilled as she claimed herself to be. At this age they usually weren't. Anything that she had wanted to say was cut short, when the two boys darted out from the bushes, telling them that there was deer in the vicinity. She tested the air first and the ground second for a bit, to be sure that they had not made a mistake. 

They were not, though the animal itself was a long way off from the assembled company of wolves here. "Should we go and investigate further?" she asked Arbiter. Perhaps this would be useful for later, even if the group of loud kids would scare any animal in the closest range miles away.

Mom was giving her A Look, but didn't say anything, at least, so Brou continued to look beseechingly at Sarah instead, attempting to butter-up the adult who was presumably less wise to the manipulative ways of pups.

If Mom didn't interrupt and distract her overmuch, however, here came the cavalry more inclined to do so more directly. Brou had to tear her eyes away for a tempted glance over at her brothers as they came suddenly rocketing over, yelling about a deer and hunting and, well, interesting-enough sounding of stuff that although Brou wanted to be mad at them for interfering, she couldn't quite manage it. She adroitly avoided their cannonball rush to join the rest of the wolves, but was bouncing excitedly around on her toes as she looked earnestly back to their aunt. She was a little put out to hear Mother saying outright that their new aunt was definitely going to teach all three of them, but, well, it was probably only to be expected. Sarah was already sticking her nose in the air and investigating, a motion Brou threw her head back exaggeratedly and tried to imitate before dancing her way closer and trying to confide conspiratorially with the elder in a last-ditch probably-overoptimistic attempt: Are ya sure my brothers don' need their own special catch-up lessons elsewhere Aunserrah?

Seemingly unable to stay still for more than a few microseconds, Brou's paws pattered eagerly in place all over the ground and trampled the unlucky weeds caught there flat into the dust. I'm ready t'go! she announced chirpily to the company at large. I'm gonna sniff out the bestest one, just watch! She threw back her head again and loudly inhaled several more deep breaths by way of demonstration, her glittering eyes wide and wild with excitement. Come ooonnnnn...!

There were always times when her children did get on her nerves, but usually Arbiter was able to find ways for them to accidentally pop their own egos and reduce them back to normal size.  After all, kids didn't know everything, and though sometimes they'd get lucky and make the right choice, another question with a different, more complicated answer was always right around the bend.  Brou's overabundance of confidence was certainly her greatest weakness, at least from her mother's perspective.  It was too easy to use against her.

And so, she nodded at Sarah's question, Yes, let's go see.  She started to turn and herd the boys, who were also starting to wind up and think of snarky things to say back to their sister so Arbiter countered over their conspiratorial jabbering, Then show us.  Pike and Spook will make their own opinions, quietly --, side-eye at the boys, and you will tell us why you're picking the one you are, Brou.  Fine, if her daughter thought she was the best, then she was gonna have to put her money where her mouth was.

Sarah smiled at Brou's inquiry, but said nothing. She let the children go ahead and do their own investigation, while she hung in the background, picking up the leftover scent trail, which had not yet been trampled by twelve too excited paws. Now and then she checked in with Arbiter to see, what her sister-in-law had found, sometimes she veered of the track and ran paralell to the group of kids, watching them and looking ahead for the deer. 

They had an eventful day, even if they did not hunt down anything that day.