Blacktail Deer Plateau I can play 'em like a Ken doll

Her frolicking in the water might have been enough to drown out her brother's tentative call if only Saēna hadn't paused and reached over her shoulder to nibble an itch. The nickname he applied to her whispered tremulously from the distance and Saēna froze, inwardly cursing that she had been discovered. The rule was to go out in pairs only, but Saēna had managed to skirt this requirement, if only because she was quick enough to get away from the crippled Alpha male. Eventually, she knew she would be grounded, just like Junior was.

But that day was not today. “Puuuura,” the boy's littler sister chirruped, having very recently mastered stringing the oo sound together with the rr and enunciating it correctly. No longer would he be poo-wa, at least not for her. She slapped the water with a broad paw, giggling and calling “Come ou' Pura!”

She, of course, knew he had difficulty speaking. She didn't necessarily understand what the issue was, but she knew there was one, and although others constantly tried to get Pura to practice, Saēna was usually fine with his silence. Maybe because she knew what it was like to be the worst at something (read: her entire life), or maybe because she was simply too young still to care about something like that.