there was a moon, once

Mercury and his siblings though he remained the tallest out of them, was finally eye level with his mother who, granted, was a fairly small wolf. He had never realized it until he was able to look her in the eyes and tell her that he wanted to leave the Bay. He wasn't yet his adult size and his youthful features, too big paws and awkward movements painted him for what he was: a pre-teen. Child was too insulting to consider himself considering he was about a month or so away form reaching his six month milestone in which he would be free of the 'puppy' title and would be considered, at length, a useful addition to the pack. When the foreigner spoke to Mercury, the smoky black colored boy had to, literally, bite back the urge to let the sardonic words that burned the tip of his tongue off of his lips, despite that the urge was rather strong. He saw no ties between Stavanger Bay and where ever it was the man was from, but decided that coming from him at his current age the sass wouldn't be appreciated and instead would make him be labeled as even more of a child. As to which Mercury would not have appreciated on any sort of level.

While the scent was familiar to the Lodbrok boy he did not have a name to place with it which left a vast amount of possibilities before him. Mercury knew well of Blacktail Deer Plateau and was able to determine rather quickly that it wasn't where this male stemmed from and so that knowledge was basically, more or less, useless to him. “Stavanger Bay doesn't have alliances,” Mercury warned the other, having heard Ragnar speak it enough times that it was a reflex reaction to say it. Ragnar's advice on how to handle those outside of the borders wasn't lost upon the eldest traitor son. “If that was what you came here seeking.” Mercury didn't know, for sure, only went off of the limited assumptions he'd been able to make based off of the other male's words.