Redhawk Caldera Recharge

Just a little non-mandatory challenge for the Nestlings :) @Chickadee @Jay @Aiden @Sorana @Shenanigans and anyone else who wants to show up :) 

It'd be fun to do a dice roll to determine race placements >:) 

It'd taken Bronco a few days of working here and there to complete the course. With the children nearing their first winter, he thought it might be both fun and wise to start having them hone their coordination. He'd stolen fallen branches to make obstacles, and used natural obstacles like trees and boulders to enhance the course as well. Painstakingly, he'd clawed up the ground to make a visible path, and had run it a few times himself to see how it felt. A few sharp turns here, a few obstacles to go over and under, and a mad dash across the rolling hills of the meadow at the end and he'd created what he thought was a fairly impressive obstacle course. 

He called out for the Nestlings, his breath shimmering on the cool, morning air. There was a light frost on the grass still, perfect to challenge their traction. He called out for @Bridget as well- figuring it couldn't hurt to have a medic handy in case one of the kids biffed and twisted an ankle, plus she'd probably get a kick out of seeing the kids run anyway. 

The prize was a fat turkey he'd caught just that morning. He'd already taken it upon himself to pluck it, so it would be a ready meal for whoever won. Now, he just had to wait, and hope the kids were interested enough to show up.

Aiden was always up for a challenge — it helped him hone his skills. Besides, he was pretty confident that he would be the best anyway, so he showed up feeling confident and fresh to Bronco's call. Though he didn't know yet what was happening precisely, it was usually something exciting when it pertained Bronco (Aiden still remembered when they went hunting for jackalopes!) and it was easy to see that there was some sort of game they were going to do (at least there was some stuff laid out it seemed and there was a yummy-looking turkey laying there!) so Aiden waited patiently and excitedly for Bronco to explain what today's fun would be.

tossing Bridget as lurking, I'll add her in if it ends up being necessary <3 otherwise this keeps the order simple

Jay was down!!  To clown!!  All around this town.  Or, well, whatever Bronco wanted to do.

No way he was turning down an invite from good buddy Bronco even if it was a group invite.  The large group told him this was a bigger game than they usually played.  Aiden was already there, distracting Jay into an immediate play stance so that they could maybe wrestle a bit before anyone else popped in.  He didn't know what was happening but he was stoked!

Bridget wasn't sure if it was a good sign or a bad one that she'd been summoned (precautionarily) as well, but she was in the area.  She slipped in behind to watch, but wasn't about to steal Bronco's thunder on whatever he had in store.  Kids were pretty strong (and had pretty thick heads) so as long as it wasn't too risky, she doubted she'd be needed for much outside of the extra eyes.

Additional joiners welcome! Would you folks be cool if I did a roll to see the outcome of the race?

This was going to be fun. And as he expected, the fun arrived in the form of both Aiden and Jay, which was about what he'd expected. Sorana would've been a big surprise- the girl had been avoidant lately- and the other kids were often off doing their own things. Aiden and Jay seemed always ready for a game. 

"Hey Aiden! Hey Jay!" He said, and laughed. "Team Jay-den for the win, I knew I could count on you guys to show up. Oh hey, Bridget!" He called out, when he caught sight of the medic. He shrugged. "Just figured I'd have you on deck just in case. This race could get pretty intense!" He said, though there was a good-natured tone to his voice. He didn't expect any injuries at all- it wasn't like he was having the boys do anything too dangerous, but a mis-step was easy enough and he wasn't about to risk hurting the leaders' children. 

"So! I got an obstacle course all planned for you guys here. It should help test you for your strengths and weaknesses, and can be used whenever you want while you work on whatever it is you need more practice doing. Gonna be great for buffing up those hunting skills!" he said. Yeah, he was getting the kids into cross-fit, essentially. But strong kids meant a strong pack, right? Some day, he'd be counting on the young ones to help feed him when he was old, achey and arthritic. May as well start now. "We'll go for a walkthrough first, how's that sound?" He asked.

Surprising though it was, Sorana did make an appearance.

She arrived later than the boys and with much less fanfare, slipping in beside her friends without so much as glancing in Bronco's direction. She did shoot Bridget a furtive little smile, hesitant and unsure, but certain her aunt would be proud of her for turning up despite her inner turmoil. Like it or not, Bronco was part of the pack, and she wasn't about to let him ruin her friendships on top of her family.

That was the energy she clung to since her talk with Bridget: defiance. She would kick this obstacle course's ass and show everyone she was still here and couldn't be messed with. Especially Bronco.

She pricked her ears to listen to Bronco's instructions and followed along, but remained pointedly disinterested in the man himself, instead jostling roughly with Jay and Aiden to burn off the anticipation that began singing within her bones.

Jay arrived not much later than Aiden. Aiden turned around towards Jay to greet him with a shoulderbump, but when his brother bowed down to a play bow, the thought was forgotten. Aiden immediately jumped onto Jay, accepting the invitation to wrestle while Bronco greeted them. Aiden barely listened to a word Bronco said, but one particular word caught his interest and he looked up to Bronco mid-wrestle. Race? he asked, stopping his attempts to get the upper hand onto his brother with piqued interest. He got to his feet again and shook the dirt out of his fur.

Only then did Aiden notice Bridget, from whom he looked away quickly and awkwardly. He hadn't realised that she was summoned as well, much less that she actually showed up! Aiden looked back to Bronco quickly, instead listening to him explain about the obstacle course. Woooow, Aiden said, already impressed as the obstacle course was announced. Sorana hopped on last minute. When Bronco suggested the walkthrough, Aiden nodded. He felt the anticipation of the race burning in his gut, and he would do his very best to win!

i'm down with deciding via roll :)

Jay was THRILLED, all caps, when Sorana showed up!!  He'd tried to play with her a few times over the last while and she always seemed a little off, but that didn't matter if she was down to play now!!  This was going to be EPIC!

Jay was so excited, pouncing over at her and then bouncing between her and his brother like an over-excited pinball, that he missed half of what Bronco said.  Hold up!

A race??  COOL!  He was so going to win!  Or not!  But he was going to be amazing either way, because with the three of them there, this was going to be a blast.

cameo <3 I'll pop her in as needed

No problem. She wasn't busy, and really didn't mind being invited to watch either way. Bridget smiled as she watched Aiden and Bluejay enthusiastically prepare themselves, and then was surprised (and extremely proud) to see Sorana roll in.

You show him, Bridget thought, catching her look and nodding with a smile. No need to hide.

YEEE! So I rolled in the tabletop for placements :) tagged ya there
I think for this to go smoothest...Maybe we do three rounds of posting to keep the race in segments. Feel free within those rounds to IC play out who takes the lead, falls behind, etc. :)
1. Dizzy trees and narrow path through the woods
2. Race across the meadow, around the boulder and back
3. Across the stones and back to the starting post 

Ok, now he had to keep things cool, because his ladyfriend's hard-to-find daughter just showed up. He looked surprised, but also incredibly pleased that she'd decided to show up and participate, even though she avoided eye contact with him. That was fine. She wasn't terribly comfortable with him, but she was here. And even being willing to participate in a group game was progress, he thought. "Well there we are! Now we're in for a great race!" He said. He didn't want to draw too much attention to her, after all. He had to be the cool guy. 

He gestured, so they could move along at a trot. He knew they'd be eager to get running, but a bit of a warm-up couldn't hurt, plus they'd need to know the route in order to race fairly. "To start off with, well, we'll start back there, at a line, and you'll make a dash for these trees, here. You each pick a tree, and I wanna see you go around it three full times, okay?" He said. "And one wolf per tree. No concussions allowed," He said. There were four trees, evenly spaced and he'd pulled the brushes away from each of them so their base was clear. "I got Bridget on standby just in case one of you wrecks yourself, but I'd rather we didn't have that happen. Plus she's gonna keep an eye an' make sure none of you cheats, Jay" He picked on the kid closest to him, who was obviously super enthusiastic about the whole process, not because he was the likeliest to cheat. But the toothy grin he gave the boy was to assure him he was only trying to rile him up, because he clearly needed to be wound up even more. If he was worried about the kids actually getting hurt, he probably wouldn't have made them get dizzy running circles around trees at the beginning of the race- but they'd have to learn how to keep their balance in the dizzying chase of a hunt. 

"After that, there's this path here, through the brush, where ya gotta go over each obstacle- except for one, that you should probably go under. The path only widens every couple of jumps, so if you wanna pass someone...Well, you'll have to do it on the fly. If one of the boys is hogging the path...Give 'em a bit of a shove." He said, leaving the last part quiet and directed toward Sorana. He continued leading them on to where the brush thickened, and a slim path had been cut- they would be in close quarters with one another, and would have to pass only when the space permitted. He'd clawed up the ground to make the path visible, but there were several sections where he'd piled branches up that they would need to jump over. They were modest in height, and could be bounded over, but they would have to pace their strides. He'd made a lot of jumps, intending for this section to be a steeplechase. It would wear their legs out a bit for sure. A couple naturally fallen trees also made for fitting obstacles- which he led them over, at a slow pace. "Watch yer head on this one. Go over it if you want, but...You can go under it if you want, just don't smack yer head off it when you're going full tilt, Aiden, lookin at you, bud," He clucked, ducking his head so that he could pass beneath the leaning body of a fallen tree. 

"After that section, we get to the field here- we don't need to go over it, you can see where the treeline is there. I wanna see you go clear across the meadow, around the big boulder at the end, and then come back this way. This is when you're gonna wanna pace yourselves. If you're ahead, maybe you save your speed a bit. If you're behind, maybe this is where you try an' overtake someone. But you've got one more section after this, and it's tougher. You're gonna come an' enter the forest here," He said, leading the group toward the part of the forest where the view was open, but there were boulders scattered everywhere between the trees. 

"Here, you can't touch the ground. You gotta go from boulder to boulder. If I see so much as yer paw touchin' the ground, you go back to the meadow's edge and start from there." He said. This would challenge their precision, and would give them all a chance at losing or gaining the lead, depending on who was the surest of foot. "After this, it's a mad dash back to where we began." He said, leading them across the plains. "I'll be followin' after ya, to make sure nobody CHEATS," He barked, to summon their attention once again. "But first back here to Bridget wins. Alright- line up!" He wasn't taking questions- he'd shout guidance to them if they needed it, but this would be a lesson in learning quickly, and retaining information. 

"Ready....Set....GO!"

Wow, sorry, I totally missed that it was my turn! I didn't want to do too many actions in one post, so I wrote up to the start of the race only, feel free to PP Sora in your posts!

While they did a quick walkthrough of the course, Sora listened, but tried to keep her attention anywhere but Teya's beau. That was easy once Jay started slobbering on her. If she gave him half a chance, she would like Bronco well enough, his light-hearted teasing, his careful consideration for others; the problem was that her inclusion in his relationship with Teya had come far too late for Sora to think of him as anything but a replacement for her dad, so she disliked him on principle.

It was bitch eating crackers syndrome, so rather than finding his hint to shove the boys on the obstacle course helpful, she decided it was belittling. Did he think she was some kind of wuss who didn't know how to get her paws dirty and knock elbows with the best of them? Well, to be fair, he couldn't possibly know much about her at all. Sora didn't give him a chance to learn.

She ducked under the log and seized the opportunity to snicker in Aiden's ear on the way when he was singled out next. It's 'cause you're so buff, she teased him. Trees don't stand a chance.

She looked out across the meadow, identifying the boulder they were to reach, then scanned the forest where Bronco wanted them to hop from rock to rock without touching the ground. She felt most confident about that part. For a girl who had almost drowned as a pup, she spent an awful lot of time on river rocks, and for someone with little self-confidence, she sure was confident about her balance. The boys were bigger, with bigger paws, and surely clumsier than she. This would be a piece of elk steak.

All she had to do was get here and she'd win, easy.

When told to line up, Sora dipped into a sleek bow, flexing her forepaws on the ground and giving one hind leg a quick shake as though to ward off pins and needles. Her tongue swept over her lips. It was easy to forget this was Bronco's game and she wasn't supposed to show any kind of joy around Bronco when anticipation and natural competitiveness began mounting.

Go!

Sorana sprang forward at a dead gallop, eyes locked on the tree ahead. Get an early lead. That was the way. She didn't think about how quickly it would tire her out to do so, or how much dizzier she would get going that fast.

likewise for me, feel free to progress and pp Aiden <3

They followed Bronco as he started to lead them through the course. Aiden would've been happy enough to have done it blindly with only the instruction, because it seemed just a little too easy to get an explanation like this. He did not remark on it, however, and silently followed, nodding every time Bronco explained something. Go around the tree... Check. Aiden already tried to find the best tree — slimmest, he thought, would be best — and he mentally mapped it for later, when he'd get there in the course. Aiden was almost too caught up in his planning to notice Jay getting teased by Bronco, but it landed a few seconds later and Aiden shoulder-shoved his brother with a teasing grin.

Aiden followed to the obstacle course and again he nodded. Bronco teased him this time, but rather than feeling teased, Aiden easily picked it up as a sort-of-compliment with Sorana's added words. He looked at her with a grin on his face and said, Don't wanna make it too easy for those behind me by clearing the trees off the path.

Bronco showed them the rest of the course and then finally it was time to start! Aiden felt energy brimming and his muscles were tense as he made his way to the start of the course. He frowned with concentration, making him look rather glum and dangerous (a thing he himself was totally unaware of).

As the GO! sounded, Aiden came into motion. He, too, actually tried to go as fast as he could so that he could reach the tree he had chosen fast enough. However, Sorana was a bit faster than him so Aiden wasn't first to reach the trees. By the time that he did reach the trees, "his" tree was thankfully still clear. He quickly started to circle, but he was a bit slower than the others; the tree might be slim, but Aiden himself was broad and so moving around the tree was a clunky process. Besides, Bridget was there which made him fumble a little and made his concentration waver!

By the time they reached the obstacle course, Aiden was the last one, but at least he had his concentration back now that Bridget was out of the picture and Aiden intended to overtake Sorana and Jay quickly in the in-between-obstacles so that he would be up front by the time that they reached the field. Or if that didn't work, well, he'd just run and catch up on the field. He knew that he would be good at the not-touching-the-ground-bit, even if he wasn't the best at all this agility stuff. Aiden totally banked on Jay not having the concentration to pull that off, so he saw Sorana as his biggest adversary in the race.

Bluejay was destined to lose this race so it was a good thing he was overall just stoked for the game!  When Bronco called ‘Go!’ he had gotten side tracked by Sorana’s comment about his brother.  Trees are buff?.  But they were already gone!  It left him scrambling to start, already in last place, but grinning madly regardless.  Buff or not, no tree was gonna beat him!

He bumped shoulders with the tree on every spin, trying to catch up, but he was still a few lengths behind when they got to the second leg.  Wow, they were fast!  He hadn’t gotten enough speed around the tree (without pausing) to actually get dizzy, so on the flat he at least was able to run straight.  He was also laughing, which took a few notches out of the whole breath control aspect.

Better run faster!  A few more, but definitely worth it!  He felt like he was on a hunt back here, trying to catch his prey, and it was actually pretty cool.  It was lucky for him he’d started in the back and wasn’t likely to gain the lead anytime soon - because he’d also absolutely forgotten just about every instruction Bronco gave beyond the tree circles.

He'd primed them to run- and when he sent them off, they all scattered away from him, temporarily out-striding Jay who looked a bit confused before he sprinted off as well, leaving Bronco laughing in their wake. Until, that is, they hit the edge of the forest. "Shit." He'd lose sight of them if he wasn't with them, so he bolted after the trio of youths, dashing into the wooded section of the race, barely able to keep an eye on them as they raced ahead. 

"Spin spin spin!" He called out as a reminder, laughing wildly as the kids began to circle the trees. They certainly slowed their pace- save for Sorana, who had definitely entered the race at full tilt. "Then through the path- look out for obstacles!" He'd warned them earlier, but he fully expected a couple of them to forget, and if they didn't quickly shake off the dizziness, they'd either miss a jump or forget to duck under a low-hanging branch. 

He moved on- content to leave them to scramble while he made it to the field. Once they appeared, he (out of breath by now) shouted. "Across the meadow'n back! Once around the rock at the end- go go go!"

So much for teaching them stamina. Now it was just entertainment, for him.

Unlike her competitors, who were either slower by design or slower because they weren't dumb like her, Sorana whipped around the tree like a tetherball wildly swinging in a playground game. By the time she finished, the whole world was teetering. She tried to make the obstacle course in good time, but weaving like a drunken pony made it rather difficult.

She stumbled over the first set of branches and nearly crashed into the adjacent foliage, which prompted her to plant her feet and give her head a quick shake as Aiden and Jay passed her by. No you don't! she said, snapping playfully for Jay's tail as he streaked by.

She danced through the rest of the obstacles easily enough once the dizziness wore off, and on the flat ground of the meadow, she was able to weasel up next to Jay. Aiden, however, was well out of reach by now. God, he was fast for how big he was! She was begrudgingly grateful that Bronco was running alongside them and shouting out instructions; like Jay, she had forgotten what came next, but fixed her eyes on the boulder when prompted.

By now she was beginning to really flag. Her leg muscles were screaming and her lungs burned. Maybe that early burst of speed wasn't such a good idea after all. It was pure competitive energy that kept her going to the boulder and around it; she was not willing to come in last place here. Not a chance in hell.

since Aiden is npc, seems good to wrap this?

Jay laughed like crazy as Sorana reached for his tail, flicking it back at her playfully as he put on the speed to try and get ahead.  His little burst didn’t last long, though, and his brother was definitely outpacing him.  He’d also forgotten the rules completely now, so when they got to the part with the jumping, he didn’t watch to recall that he wasn’t supposed to run straight through.

Ay!! Jay!!  Back to the trunk, you have to hop the stones, remember!

He jumped as Bridget called out at him and spun around to stare for a moment, trying to figure out what she meant.

OH!!  YEAH!!  He didn’t go fully back like she told him, but instead scrambled onto the nearest rock and began to hop across, teetering wildly.  The referee considered yelling again, but since he was seated well in last place, she figured it was better to just let him finish it out.

When it was done he would cross the finish squarely in last place but still laughing wildly and willing to crow to anyone who would listen how amazingly fast and strong all three of them were.

Sure! Thanks for participating!

The kids whizzed through the obstacles, and he couldn't help but laugh at their dizzied steps. He called out directions where he needed to, chided them when they stepped off course, and hollered encouragement for them to give it their all in the final push to the end of the race. 

After all of it, Aiden would take first, Sorana came in second, and Jay rounded out the group in third place. Feeling very much like a proud coach he congratulated them all- before suggesting they hit up the nearest water source for a drink, and then off to find a snack.