Hushed Willows longing

Buchanan watched as the boy's posture lowered below neutrality and felt a sickening twist in his stomach. A sharp hiss of a gasp let the assassin's lips and he swallowed thickly the bile that had risen to burn in his throat. While Silas hadn't full blown submitted to him the sight even slight as it was, was enough to dredge up unwelcome memories. He didn't like it. The Officer had spent many years convincing and manipulating Buchanan into thinking that he was nothing but a tool: a weapon and to see the juvenile lower himself even if it was out of respect and that Buchanan outranked him it made his stomach roil. The very last thing Buchanan ever wanted was to become like The Officer: and that was exactly what he thought of. “Hey,” He gasped and gave his throat a soft clear. “You-ah, you don't have to do that.” He spoke to the juvenile, hoping that his tone was encouraging and reassuring instead of uncomfortable. He didn't want to have to explain why seeing anything so much as resemble submission to him made him on edge and uncomfortable. No, the boy didn't need to know just how much of a mess the assassin truly was and didn't need to know the terror of the stories.

A deep breath was taken as the boy introduced himself as Silas, confirming Buchanan's suspicions. Trying to distract his thoughts from the direction they had taken, Buchanan had given a firm nod. “Stark informed me about you,” Buchanan informed the juvenile. “Said you're an apprentice, right?” The dark wraith posed it as a question though, allowing Silas to either confirm or deny what the alpha had said for himself. Buchanan's brows furrowed and his gaze slipped to the grouse at his paws when Silas gestured towards it before his mercurial gaze slid back to the juvenile. What an interesting question, wondering how to go about answering it. It was as simple as “yes or no”, not really. Birds were one of the hardest prey Buchanan thought: if because they were so much smaller and had the ability to fly away and out of reaching jaws. The trick was to catch them unaware but as it was with anything: it was never foolproof, never a guarantee. There would always be the prey that got away. Failures were just as much apart of hunting as the successes. Yet, Buchanan didn't want to bluntly say “yes, it's hard to do” even for a veteran “hunter” such as himself and potentially discourage the boy.

“That depends,” Buchanan decided. “Birds are a lot different than your big prey, and even small mammals. It's kind of like hunting squirrels, I guess. They're small and if you're not quick and catch 'em off guard they will fly away. But it's not impossible,” Buchanan made a point to emphasize that. “If bird hunting is something you're interested in, or want to master my suggestion would be to practice on ducks or geese.” There was usually a lot of them in one spot, in Buchanan's experience with them, and they were relatively big and wouldn't pose quite the challenge of say, a small songbird. "I can help you, if you'd like." The offer was given, not wanting to just impose his teachings on the juvenile, figuring that offering him advice he hadn't necessarily asked for was probably imposing enough, as it was.