Bearclaw Valley dreamin' again of a train track ending at the edge of the sea

Feel free to skip and lightly powerplay him, I'll hop back in if he's reprimanded or addressed or anything like that!

Awwwww, Lucas' eyes seemed to plead even as Laurel rose and left to respond to a summons. Was there anything in the world better than being groomed by your mama? If you asked Lucas, he would claim that dancing was better, but only just. Laurel's ministrations came in a very close second, and a great many things were tied for third place. He managed to roll slowly over onto his paws with a wiggle and a twist, and his icy eyes followed her form as she headed for the borders.

There wasn't a disobedient bone in Lucas' body, but no one had told him to stay put. A new yearning rose up in him then—curiosity, you might call it, about where Laurel went when she went away—and he plodded hastily after her, utilizing his good nose to track her when he couldn't see her brown figure across the rolling valley. Laurel had a shadow in the form of a white-and-tan roly-poly dancing queen.

Of course, Laurel wasn't alone when he found her. There was an unfamiliar wolf with her, and soon they were joined by a third, a bright white male who stuck out to Lucas, though the boy couldn't place him. Even frowning his hardest and drawing up nearly right behind his father, he couldn't recall where he knew that fur from. Some memory that time had eaten, surely. "Hi!" he chirped to Xan's derriere, beating his tail cheerfully against his own hinds and rhythmically stamping his paws in the grass.