Blacktail Deer Plateau hey man,

Eventually, Kindle found his way to the plateau once more. He liked this place, and it was just tall enough to get a proper lay of the land. He stood at the edge and glared out at the wilderness, worry making his expression stern.

He tipped back his head and unleashed the loudest howl of his life. It said, HEY. KID. GET YOUR FURRY ASS BACK HERE.

And it said it at top volume. He waited, of course — for a long, long moment. A tinny voice answered him: Just a minute!

But from the sound of it, Katmai was a lot further than a minute away.

As someone who rotated between the two fronting positions of the sled, Cosmo had no business getting himself lost. But when you see a rabbit hopping along as your stomach starts growling, you should probably chase it, right? And that’s exactly what he’d done, and he thought he gave a good chase! He also thought that he wasn’t trained as a hunting dog, and it showed, considering the fact that he quickly lost sight of the hare once the wood got denser. He also also thought that he was most definitely lost now. Which was, of course, the rabbit’s fault.

Cosmo was attempting to put his sense of navigation to use, but without a team to fall back on, he found himself becoming overwhelmed by all the sights and sounds and smells and… stuff. Just before he started to panic, another noise cut through all the rest – a loud, impressive howl, perking his ears up as his head snapped in the direction it came from. It sounded distinctly different from the howls of his past friends, not shrill enough to be a husky, and wasn’t, uh, Samoyed-y, but Cosmo thought it sounded friend-shaped enough to follow. Maybe that was his way of finding his way back to where he came from! Maybe they had food. Probably not.

“Hey, I heard you from further back! Did’ja get lost too? Maybe we – “ As Cosmo trotted out of the wood, his cheery voice paused. He could’ve mistaken the mottled gray fur for a husky, but this dog practically towered over him – in fact, they probably weren’t a dog at all, now that he thought about it for more than half a second, in the middle of the wilderness. He took a cautious step back from the dog that was most definitely a wolf and not a dog or a weird husky, keeping his distance, but frozen with curiosity all the same. “Oh. You’re a wolf. Sorry, thought you were a dog. Is that rude? Sorry for being rude.”

The next voice he heard came from behind him; Kindle spun around, one paw sliding off the edge of the cliff in the process. That was two heart attacks caused by the rude ass that'd snuck up on him. He was bristling already, a snarl on his lips when he realized it was just a pup.

Or... was it?

Kindle's mouth slacked, but his brow furrowed as he took in the odd creature that stood before him. He was confused by it until it spoke the word: dog. Then his expression cleared, and with his annoyance forgotten, he took a few steps closer, advancing on the odd little creature.

"You're a dog?" he asked, marveling. "Me too! Or, well — I am a wolf, but my grandmother was... well, she was a wolfdog, not a full dog. But I've got dog blood. A little. Somewhere in me."

His tail spun. Speaking of tails: Kindle took a particular interest in the dog's. When he spoke, it was to that fluffy tail as he gazed over the dog's head.

"My name's Kindle," he said. "What's yours?"

Seeing the annoyance on the wolf’s face as he turned around. Cosmo took another step back, shrinking a bit as he attempted to gauge his response. Once it was clear that he wasn’t about to get eaten (as he was just now remembering the stories of big bad wolves eating poor innocent dogs, sometimes even humans!), he perked up in relief, and his tail started wagging up a storm behind him.

“Oh! Then I’m double sorry for thinking you were-and-then-weren’t a dog! I think that counts, if you want it to!” As the wolf – Kindle, his name was – came to stand right in front of him, Cosmo was overcome with an excited energy at finally meeting a friendly face, after going so long without one.

“I’m Cosmo! Nice to meet’cha!” As he spoke, he crouched into a play bow, unable to hold in any of that excess energy coursing through him. “Y’know, one of the sled dogs with me was a wolfdog! Well, is, I’m sure she still is one!” All of a sudden, he bounced up, running in a circle around Kindle, practically speaking a thousand words per minute. “She’s mainly dog, though, but she was super big, and used to say we had to listen to her since she’s got wolf in her. Usually she was at the back, since she was so strong, and I was at the front, so I didn’t listen to her most of the time.” He stopped in a half crouch all of a sudden, paws spread out around him as he stared up at Kindle. “You, though, you’re way more wolf than she is. Oh, I’m Cosmo. Did I say that? I’m not a wolf, I’m a Samoyed.”

It was hard to judge the age of the dog by their size and comportment. It was hard, too, to pinpoint whether they were male or female by scent. They smelled like nothing he'd ever encountered before, and they acted like — well. Kindle remembered his own puphood.

"Well," he interjected, hastily, "No offense, but just don't go noising it around. I don't have a problem with dogs, but not everyone's the same way."

Kindle reeled back just a fraction while the dog bounced at him, not offended or worried, but surprised a little by the forwardness of the play. He mirrored Cosmo after that moment of hesitation, however, albeit with some amount of dubious concern. After all — what could a dog be doing out here? And what were they talking about? In front? Behind? It was beginning to sound like some of the talk his older cousins had got up to, which he hadn't understood at the time. Cosmo seemed a little too young for that sort of things as well.

"Sure enough," said Kindle, still dubious when Cosmo declared themself a Samoyed. He thought it a name, and returned: "I'm a Morningside. Kindle Morningside. Pleased to meet you, Cosmo."

Slowly, he was catching the spirit that Cosmo was putting out into the world. From his mirrored crouch, he made a sudden little lunge for the other animal — just a playful nip! He wanted to examine the strange shape of that tail up close, but he rather thought the dog might need to be pinned before it was anything more than a white blur.

"You must be a long way from home," he said, crowding closer to try and initiate a wrestling match.

When his attempt at play was reciprocated, Cosmo's tail somehow wagged even faster. He barked in exclamation as Kindle lunged for him, feeling a nip on his flank as he bounded past him.

“Some people don't like dogs, for some reason,” Cosmo said, stopping in his tracks and spinning around to face him again. “Some dogs don't like dogs. That's their prerogative, I guess. Your secret is safe with me!” He paused, looking to the side. “Unless you mean my secret? I guess it's not a secret, though. I don't think I could look like a wolf. Should I try? Wait, I'm a bad liar, nevermind.” 

Cosmo realized as Kindle got closer that he must've been trying to initiate a wrestle. Oh, yeah. You're definitely my friend now. We're there. As he spoke, he attempted to jump up towards Kindle's side, pushing against him with his front paws in an attempt to knock him over. “Oh, yeah, I don't have a home right now. I did, and that's far, but now I don't.” Realizing that he'd have more luck pushing against a wall, he used him instead to push against as he jumped backwards, twisting wildly in the air and landing on the ground with a soft thud, tail still wagging all the same. “What about you?”

It was incredible how much floof the dog had — more even than his own mother. Kindle might've played more fairly if he hadn't been so distracted by it. As it was, he was busy trying (and failing!) to find Cosmo's scruff with his teeth, a friendly grizzle rumbling in his throat.

He had a mouthful of white shed when Cosmo sprang away. Kindle followed, his tail spinning, and crawled low on his belly to try and even the playing field. For the moment.

"Ha!" he laughed, lunging for first one pale ankle, then the other, just to see if he could make the other canine dance. "My home is far from here — but my nephew's wandering that valley down there."

He rolled onto his back, going on to a more defensive play style, fending off any attacks with gaping jaws.

"I'm just mindin' him, right now," he went on, just a little breathless with laughter. "And I think he's gonna stay out here. I'll probably stay, too."

He was still concerned. The wilderness was no place for a dog, was it? A wolfdog, sure, but not one as sweet and as friendly as Cosmo.

Cosmo noticed a bit of his own white shed in Kindle's teeth, but he'd barely even felt it, with how thick his coat was. Perks of being a ball of fluff. As the wolf lunged for his ankles, he was just pulling his paws away at first, but his evasion tactic soon turned into just hopping around – probably more for his own fun than anything else.

When Kindle rolled onto his back, Cosmo took the opportunity to attempt at mirroring the way he'd stolen his own scruff fur earlier, attempting to get past his defenses to land a nip or two at his neck, but not trying to hurt at all. As he tried, he noticed that instead of the incomprehensible fluff of his own fur, wolf fur seemed to be a bit more distinct. Still soft, but with some weirdly coarse hairs mixed in. Weird.

“Stay, like, nearby? Or stay, like, out here in general? There's a lot of ‘heres'!” Cosmo glanced up at their surroundings, momentarily distracted from their game. “I think I'll stay here, too. Here, not here here – well, I don't know, I haven't seen all there is to see!”

There was a break in their play. That was fine; nearing two, Kindle was beginning to mellow out of his more hyperactive beginnings. He rolled onto his belly, panting companionably while the dog looked around. He, meanwhile, looked at the dog, still fascinated by its familiar-yet-alien composition.

"Who knows," he said with a roll of his shoulder. "Here, there — " he gestured vaguely to the valley — "It's up to the kid, really. Katmai's his name. He's lookin' for someplace to settle down and start a family. I figure I'll do the same once he knows where he wants to stay. But I imagine it'll be this general area. We've got family down there."

Kindle hadn't met most of it. His cousin Valiant, for example, had only ever been described to him. He knew Angel Oak from her visit to Round Valley, but not her sister or mother. Not any of Valiant's kids, either.

"You're going to have to find a pack, too," he said to the dog, though even by his tone, he did not sound sure of this. It was in his nature, however, to try and tell others what to do. "You're too little to go around without packscent on your pelt. Somebody's gonna eat you, Cosmo."

That was how the stories went, anyway.

“Oh,” Cosmo said, tilting his head as he considered the possibility of being eaten, seemingly for the first time. He supposed he had enough fur in his coat to give him time to consider how to handle such a situation while a predator attempted to bite past it, finding where the fur ended and the flesh began. 

“Are you and Katmai gonna eat me?” He asked, half joking, half a genuine question. “I hope not. Maybe we can be friends, if we see each other again. I mean, I'm pretty hungry, but I don't wanna eat you.”

Kindle wanted to groan at the look on the dog's face, but instead managed to just look silently constipated. Yet there was a part of him that was thrilled beyond measure — here was an individual who was in clear and constant need of his guidance.

"'Course not," he said at once, though he made no promises about any other dogs they might come across. And, of course, this assertion relied on Kindle being there to make sure Katmai knew that Cosmo was not for eating. He'd just have to make sure of that, though, and they'd all be square.

He popped to his paws at once, as if Cosmo had electrocuted him with those words.

"We'll have to do somethin' about that, then," he said, already decided. "Let's you and me go on a hunt, huh? Dogs hunt, right?"

He knew they could, apparently, breed quite freely with wolves. They couldn't be all that different, could they?

When Kindle jumped back up to his paws, Cosmo almost found himself bowing instinctively in play stance again, but managed to hold himself back. Considering the difference between the two, being a wolf and a dog and all, he’d expected them to go their separate ways after playtime was over. The offer to go hunting made Cosmo much more excited, however.

“Oh, yeah!” Cosmo said, straightening up his posture. “Well, we can, I’ve met other dogs where hunting was their entire thing, but our thing was more, y’know, pull sled and run fast.” He plopped back down into a sitting position, momentarily getting distracted as he scratched at his ear with his back leg. “You could show me how, though! I can learn real good.”

Kindle began to lead the way into the plateau's woodlands, though he was distracted from any scent trails by his excitable companion. "What's a sled?" he asked, though he thought that he had a good idea of the concept already. As little as he knew of dogs, he had heard that — at least in the lands that his brother spoke of — they made for prized mates when they had a pedigree. Partially for their alien beauty, and partially for their finely bred talents and well-honed skills.

Sled-pulling did not seem like much of a skill to him. Far be it from him, however, to point it out to so friendly a creature.

"I'll do my best," he told the dog, his tail wheeling in the air. "You're little, but no littler than I was when I went on my first deer hunt. 'Sides, I'm plenty big for both of us. Can you run fast? Can you bite real hard?"

Cosmo just looked so soft!

“That’s good that you’re big, ‘cause I think I might be done growing.” Cosmo followed after Kindle, maybe neglecting to give him personal space as he kept close to his side, not wanting to somehow lose him. “I think I can bite pretty hard, though I don’t really need to, most of the time. I’m the fastest of my brothers, though! I was usually at the front of the sled, but… oh, right! What’s a sled! You asked that, I’m glad you asked that!”

The trail Cosmo began to take veered side to side, focusing less on his paws in front of him and more on talking, paying no mind as he occasionally bumped into Kindle. “A sled is something that can help carry things place to place real fast, usually through the snow, but usually just carrying a human – wait, do you know what a human is? Kind of like a big dog, on two legs. Anyway, the human kind of steers the sled, but you have a bunch of sled dogs attached to the sled, and the human makes noises that tell the dogs where to go. I was usually a lead dog, so I was real good at steering!” Cosmo puffed his chest out proudly as he rambled on. “Sometimes the sled was used to carry things to bring to other humans, but we liked to do races, and we were good at it! Hey, you’d probably be a wheel dog at the back, since you’re big and strong, and they need to be strong and pull most of the weight –”

Somehow, Cosmo’s lungs had not yet collapsed from all of the talking.

Kindle didn't really mind the chatter. It reminded him of his younger siblings, who he very much missed. But, as was often the case when his siblings were younger and more prone to babbling, Kindle didn't really understand much of what was said to him. It was just that, this time around, it was not a skill issue on the part of the speaker. It was just that the concepts were strange and the vocabulary confusing, and Cosmo was dropping an awful lot of knowledge.

His head spun, and it seemed they were nowhere near the end.

"Cosmo!" he called, hiding his confusion with a laugh. "You gotta be a little quieter while we're hunting. And keep an eye out for trails. And use your nose."

He lifted a paw and settled it on the dog's head to push their snubby nose gently toward the ground.

"Sniff," he instructed, or maybe ordered. (Semantics!) "We're looking for food smells. Deer, turkey, rabbits — you can't pick any of that up if all you're smelling is your own breath."

Cosmo’s head snapped up towards Kindle as he interjected, and he felt himself yawning in an awkward sort of embarrassment when he realized how long he’d been going on for. “Sorry! I forgot. That’s probably a good idea, since we won’t hear anything if I keep –”

A paw on his head, much larger than his own, stopped him from going on another tangent as his snout was lowered to the ground. He pressed his nose directly to the dirt in a moment of accidental overcompensation, before lifting it up to take a proper sniff. His sense of smell was actually quite strong – not as strong as wolves, most likely, but still able to pick up on a multitude of scents. Unfortunately, his was not as well trained as it could’ve been, so rather than having clear, differentiated trails, they began to muddy together in an overwhelming mess. He focused, sniffed again, and –

“Rabbit!” Cosmo exclaimed, before immediately lowering his voice. “Oops, sorry! I mean, I was chasing a rabbit earlier, but I lost it!” Nose to the dirt, he began an attempt to follow the scent, realizing how familiar it was. “It might even be the same one!”

"Maybe," Kindle said easily. He was skeptical, but saw no harm in Cosmo believing it. He sniffed at the ground and began moving along the trails of the rabbit, his nose tracing from spore to spore where tiny rabbit feet had hit the earth. "Now hush, alright? Rabbits and deer have bigger ears than us."

Which meant they heard better, in his mind.

Kindle did his best to coach Cosmo along the trail, but privately, began to doubt that a tracker could ever be made of him. Apparently, though, he liked running — perhaps he would be more helpful in the later parts of a hunt. Running down deer could be exhausting, and it was always good to have more wolves (or other things) around who were happy to do it.

Eventually, they lost the trail of the rabbit even with Kindle in the lead — but they stumbled into a troupe of turkeys instead. Kindle was less worried about alerting them to their presence (turkeys had no ears, after all) and motioned for Cosmo to move ahead.

"Grab one," was his simple instruction. This was baby stuff, wasn't it? Kindle thought that his baby brothers had been just a bit smaller than Cosmo when they'd started on turkeys — he did not consider all the experience they'd had leading up to that point.

Reality hadn't yet set in for Cosmo, that if he didn't catch this rabbit, he'd go hungry for even longer. His meals weren't going to be lovingly made and served to him in a doggy bowl with his name on it like they used to be. Hunting was something exciting to him, like a game, or a new command he was being trained to do. 

He tried to focus hard as he tracked, but ended up occasionally getting sidetracked by new and exciting scents. He almost didn't process what the new one they were both tracking was until Kindle spoke.
Cosmo looked up from the ground to see some sort of group of bird things, which he'd never seen before in his life. He assumed you could eat them, though. Maybe they were like chickens.

“Okay!” Cosmo shout-whispered cheerfully, all the while realizing he didn't quite know how to do that. He knew about prey drives in different kinds of dogs, and knew that Samoyeds weren't high on the list – he'd heard that they were bred to hunt large game as a group, but that wasn't something that was ever part of his job, so it was an area he was greatly untrained in. He crouched down – he thought that was what you were supposed to do – and attempted to stalk closer.

There was a smaller one on the edge of the group, looking the opposite direction, and completely oblivious. Cosmo didn't notice the comparisons you could draw there with his own role out here. They'd been looking for a while, and his stomach was rumbling, and he was finally starting to get tired, so he wasn't having quite as much fun. He just wanted to actually catch something. 

I have no clue how to do this, Cosmo thought, squeezing his eyes shut and tensing up his muscles. Instincts, wherever you are, please help me out here! He reached inside himself, looking for anything his canine ancestors left him. He only noticed that he managed to grab something in return as he leapt forward.

There was a mess of feathers and white fur as the still surprisingly large bird and him tumbled, rolling together on the ground as it flapped its wings wildly, but he held on tightly (when had his teeth found themselves in its neck?) as he clamped down, tail managing to wag with pure adrenaline as his tastebuds were overcome with something metallic. And feathery.

He hadn't noticed that the troupe of turkeys had long since been scared off, as he clamped down harder, and the turkey's flailing became less and less frantic, until it didn't seem to out up a fight anymore. His grip on instinct loosened, and so did his teeth on the bird's neck as it flopped to the ground, lifeless.

“Kindle! I didth ith!” Cosmo was muffled by feathers as he spoke, which he had to spit out, along with some blood. He was completely oblivious to the fact that his bright white fur was stained with blood on his snout and chest as he bounded triumphantly towards Kindle. “I caught something! I did it!”

Kindle followed at a short distance, intending to try and grab a turkey himself if Cosmo flubbed it. But the dog did well after a bit of an uncertain start. Clumsy, but there was no arguing with results. He was prepared to offer nothing more than a quick, Nice,

— but he fell silent when he began to suspect that this was Cosmo's very first hunt. Inwardly, he felt a tiny thread of panic. Sure, he'd hunted this one, but how was he going to provide for himself? What was he doing out here??

"Eat up, then!" he said, just a beat too late, wagging his tail extra hard to make up for it. And then, "You did real good," he assured the dog — stridently, as if someone had just said otherwise. He was rebelling against the voice in his head that whispered that a loud, clumsy creature like Cosmo would surely die out here.

"We'll make a wolf out of you yet," he promised them both.

Cosmo was none the wiser to Kindle's hesitation, just happy to accept the praise as his tail wagged hard enough to potentially break the snout of anyone who ran into it. 

Looking down at his prize of turkey, he realized he wasn't actually sure where to start with eating it. Sure, he'd been fed raw meat before, but that was meat that his human had chopped up for him, especially to prevent the bloody mess on his fur he had now. But this turkey had feathers, and bones, and eyeballs, and all sorts of weird bits, but his stomach was growling, so he decided that didn't matter. Like Kindle said, he was supposed to become a real wolf, after all.

So he found the part of the body that seemed the fattest, with the least amount of bones, and hesitantly dug in. It was more work than he was used to, tearing through the layers of skin and feathers, and somehow even more organ-y bits than he was expecting (also, it was warm), but his hunger quickly took over. He hadn't realized just how ravenous he'd become after being so used to daily meals fed to him. 

As Cosmo dug in, he hoped that one day he'd be able to help take down something big – like an elk. Or something. He was too busy eating to think too hard about it.