Ira had been meant with no resistance as he slipped out of Swiftcurrent Creek's birders though the child took adequate credit for this, promoting it to be a combination of intellect and skill. He had observed the patterns of the wolves – his guardian, Jinx among them - that patrolled the borders over the course of a couple days, knowing that not every wolf was a quote 'creature of habit'; regardless he had exhibited a surprising and perhaps remarkable amount of patience and his stalking given his tender age of four months now. Ira wondered if Jinx would have been proud if she had known; though if she had figured out what he was up too it had not been from the child who had coveted his activities as a closely guarded secret. Most things he did lately, Ira found himself wondering what Jinx would think – if she would approve or disapprove. Whatever other motives Ira had in his life, he yearned for the Kesuk's praise and lessons more than anything. Ira did not consider this as a growing affection for Jinx, given their arrangements of their ...relationship, though beneath his blatant denial it was the seedlings of affection, dangerous and toxic as they were him.
Fierce milky blue eyes with flecks of starbursted crystalline blue around the pupils scanned the vaguely familiar lands, though Ira remained unsure if Jinx and him had came this way on a journey to Swiftcurrent Creek or not. Most landscapes looked like one or another to him, unless they were drastically different. Unlike when Ira had first been brought to these lands by Tark he did not put distance between Swiftcurrent Creek's birders and himself with previous design of running away. While the insolent child was not fond of Lethe in the slightest he clung to his Mambo with a possessiveness. Brazen and fearlessly he made the journey to a lake he thought was called Duck Lake though he found out the appropriation of the name by the feathered fiends that roamed the snow covered banks, causing him to freeze, muscles of childhood pulling taunt beneath his insipid coat laced with silver.
Though Ira had been immediately taken with the idea of claiming an avian as his own for a companion, it was not ducks that he had in mind. He found them to be rambunctious, obnoxious, and dirty. Lips lifted in evident disgust borne of an irrational and seemingly random fear of them. Princelings weren't supposed to be afraid of anything, and there was a certain irony in the fact that Ira was generally fearless except in the presence of ducks. They seemed contented to remain ignorant of his presence, and though he could not claim the same, he watched the small gathering in a predatory fashion familiar to his species. Ira did not move closer instead stationing himself as far away from them as he could manage without straying too far from the lake.