Totoka River if given a knife and a hand in which to hold it, the mind would eventually eat itself

the boy thought it odd that the sandy wolf only fought well when he wanted to. why would he not wish to fight as well as he possibly could in any given moment? surely, there was a reason why he might hold back some of his strength, but illidan wasn’t entirely capable of understanding such things. then, the boy cupped his rusty ears forward with furrowed brows at the comment that had followed the stranger’s first.
 
he’d said that illidan was hapless in his fighting. part of him took offense to that. had his head not been cloaked in a hood of ink, it might very well have been possible to see the red fire that rose to his cheeks and flushed him out. still, the other male made mention that it had seemed as though their scuffle hadn’t been the boy’s first. that was a fair assumption, and an accurate one. illidan nodded his head in response and attempted to swallow the lump of embarrassment in his throat.
 
“we were not met kindly when we moved into our home. the wolves next door thought they could force us out by stealing one of our members and torturing her,” he explained in a gravely tone. “we tried to infiltrate their pack to get her back, but it only broke out in war.”
 
again, he was reminded just how much he hated the cliffside wolves. they had given him a fire that could not have been doused unless he had found a way to enact his revenge on them. he knew that he was only one body in a sea of dozens, and that if he could not even manage to win a scuffle with a stranger on the beach… well, it wasn’t likely that he would find a way to make the cliff wolves pay for what they had done. at least, he didn’t imagine it was possible to do it on his own.
 
“could you teach me… to be better? at fighting?” the boy inquired to the wolf called embry.