Ouroboros Spine Send up my heart to you

Already, Valiant felt that he could relate to the boy. He, too, had lost his mother very young. Had been left in the care of other family, though for a long time had been on his own. He could have said this. He could also had said that he'd met the boy's mother, and that her love for him had been so clear and so true.

But this, he felt, was more important: that a man of his pack might take an interest in him just because he was a child of the pack. He need not be anything more than that to have all that he needed provided for him.

Lessons were an important part of that.

"They can," he agreed, his tone approving of a correct supposition. "But it takes them longer to get into the sky, and they like to peck around on the ground in the mean time. We can practice our pouncing — hopefully, I can show you how it's done."

He offered a wry smile, leading the way toward the trees. "And your tracking — that's important, too," he added, sticking his nose into the leaf litter. "What kinds of scents do you know?"