Lost Creek Hollow mom stop crying, i know i'm not a big nerd.

Liffey didn't know this knew territory of theirs very well, in spite of having considered it her home for so long. With Rannoch doing as well as she was, she had become braver about leaving him for longer and longer periods of time. It was always a little scary at first, but she was getting better about quelling her anxiety. It helped to find other things to focus on, and the scout/naturalist was having an easier time at finding distractions.

Today's distraction was exploration. More specifically, Liffey found herself trotting South along the Hollow's main creek. At least, she supposed it was probably a creek. It was Lost Creek Hollow, and it wasn't quite wide enough to really be a river. She would maybe call it a stream, but was a stream really that different from a creek?

Luckily, thoughts like these helped with keeping her thoroughly distracted from worrying about Rannoch.

@Breccan <3 It's night time!

Breccan had been out for a night stroll, but at some point during his walk, his eyelids had just gotten too heavy and he had laid down for "just a quick second." He would never want anyone to see him passed out beneath a bit of snowy shrubbery on the bank of the river. He had a reputation to uphold, after all (or so he thought; really, he wasn't much of anything yet). But he was a growing boy, and no matter what his mind wanted, his body knew that he needed rest, so it had insisted until he had laid down.

He obviously didn't know that his mother was passing by, and she might not have even noticed him, except for the grown-man-sized snore that erupted from his nostrils and shattered the beautiful luminescence of this particular winter night.

Liffey's absent thoughts were interrupted by a sudden loud and startling snore. She jumped a little and froze, much like a cat, her eyes widen and peering as she looked around her. She didn't see anything at first, but the sound continued. Something was familiar about it, so she followed it the few feet it took to bring her to her little prince, sleeping soundly and noisily by the stream.

An adoring smile slipped across her lips as she watched him. He was such a handsome boy, sure to be a heart throb like his papa. Liffey tried not to play favorites with her children, but try as she might, she had always held Breccan in higher esteem than his sisters. He was a prince - his father's heir. Her perfect little king.

Gently, Liffey leaned forward and pressed her nose gently to his cheek. "Hey Breccan," she whispered, grinning, "You want to come on an adventure with mommy?"

Like many other teenage boys, Breccan was a heavy sleeper. He remained oblivious to his mother's arrival and didn't even notice her feather-light touch against his cheek or her whispered words. No, it wasn't Liffey that woke him up -- it was his own snoring, as another guttural sound rumbled through his chest and startled him back into consciousness. He twitched and blinked and looked up blearily, right into his mom's face looming over him.

"Ah!" he squealed, his voice cracking as he recoiled. It took him a few seconds to gather awareness and piece together what was happening and where he was. He exhaled noisily as he pushed himself up into a sitting position and stretched. "You scared me," he said sheepishly, ears splayed. "What are you doing?" Because he had missed her question about adventuring entirely.

Liffey frowned when she failed to wake him at first. She'd thought he would've popped right up at the invitation to an adventure, but it seemed not. Thinking she likely needed to be a little louder, she was just leaning in when Breccan bolted upright and she ducked backward in order to avoid getting clocked in the chin by his skull.

"Yeah, I can see that," Liffey commented with a laugh, shaking her head, "You apparently are quite the heavy sleeper." She grinned as her heartbeat slowed back to normal. "I was just asking if you wanted to come on a little late night adventure with me," she reiterated hopefully.

His heart rate gradually slowed as he got over the surprise of waking up suddenly. As always, Liffey was pleasant and patient, and her invitation was impossible to resist. "Yeah!" Breccan replied eagerly, taking to his feet. He stretched, first his front legs and then his back limbs, and then with a yawn and a quick swipe of his paw over his eyes, he was ready.

"Where are we going?" he asked. Exploring had once been a top priority for the youth, but since moving to Lost Creek Hollow -- and really, since Rannoch's injuries -- he had stayed close to home. He perhaps wasn't as brave as he wanted to be, but with his mom as his guide he was excited.

Breccan agreed, bringing a grin to Liffey's face. Her boy always seemed to be up for whatever she had to offer. Not for the first time did she marvel at his ability to retain such an upbeat attitude considering all he'd been through. In her mind, his childhood had been something of a tragedy - famine, homelessness, the near death of his father. In reality, there were far worse things, but Liffey didn't always see beyond her own universe.

"I don't really know yet!" Liffey answered, gesturing with her muzzle for him to follow, "I was just following this stream to see where it leads. It keeps branching off in different directions, but I'm trying to stick with the main body because I'm betting we'll end up at a big water source." That was usually how it worked, anyway. But again, she remembered that this wasn't likely something that was undiscovered by the pack - just by her. "I don't suppose you've already been on this adventure before... have you?" she asked, glancing sidelong at her little prince.

He fell into step quickly and easily with Liffey, and although she didn't have a particular destination in mind, that made the journey all the more exciting. He bumped shoulders with her happily, realizing as he did so that he was nearly the same size as his petite mother and that he would likely soon outgrow her. But even if he eventually dwarfed her in height, he would always figuratively look up to her.

Breccan's gaze followed the gentle curve of the river up ahead of them as Liffey mused aloud about the tributaries branching off from their main source. She asked if he had explored this way before, and he shook his head. "Nope! I hope we find a waterfall or something cool like that," he said.

Liffey was pleased to hear that her son hadn't partaken before in this particular expedition. She knew he would've been a sport and come with her even if he knew where the stream would lead them, but it would be more fun to discover this together. "I bet that's what we'll find," she commented, "That or a lake. Some sort of body of water, for sure." At least, that was what experience had told her was usually the case thus far.

"So what've you been up to, Brecc?" Liffey asked as they walked, curious to hear. She felt like she had missed so much while Rannoch had been injured. She didn't want to miss anything else, and she wanted to know everything that had happened to her kids while her focus had been elsewhere.

"Cool," Breccan replied; whatever they found at the end of their journey, whether it was a waterfall or a lake, he would be thrilled. It would be just as exciting to have such an adventure in the daylight, but doing it under the cover of darkness with only the moon as a guide was even more enchanting. He trundled along next to his mom, his paws squishing delightfully in the damp earth next to the water.

She asked what he had been up to, and his first response was to shrug his shoulders and say, "I dunno." But his mind was already spinning, thinking of the things he had been doing in his spare time. Just like he would soon tell his dad, he said, "I like playing with Nuna, and Treason gave me some pointers about hunting."

Liffey listened as her son answered her question - first referencing someone she didn't know and then one she did but just barely. Another pang of guilt gripped her as she tried to remember. Nuna might be one of those that had come from the Valley when that... bear pack... had joined their ranks. They'd had some kids with them, as she recalled. Thinking that was the most logical possibility, she went with it.

"You enjoy hunting?" she asked. I mean, just because she went with her assumption about Nuna didn't mean she had to risk revealing she was wrong.

She asked if he liked hunting, and he nodded his head. He had really only had the one experience so far -- save for playing around with smaller prey, like mice -- but he liked it, and knew that as he matured, he would be responsible for providing for the pack in some way. Maybe hunting would be his thing. "Yeah, I like it. I'm not very good yet, but I'm gonna keep practicing," he said.

Up ahead, he could see that the river forked in two directions. "Which way should we go?" he asked, surveying each option beneath the glow of the moon.

Liffey smiled at her son. "Well, that might be my fault," she confessed, "I was never very good at hunting, so you might've gotten my genes. I'm sure you can overcome them with practice, though. I never really worked that hard to overcome mine." The only one she ever hunted with really was Rannoch, and the pair were usually too distracted by each other to be successful in catching any prey. She did better by herself, but there was still nothing to brag about.

She looked ahead at the fork in the river upon Breccan's question. She frowned a bit, but said nothing until their paws had taken them right up to it. She looked from one fork to the other while her ears twisted to and fro, listening. Once she'd decided, she turned to her son and posed the question to him. "Well, I think we should follow whichever way the river is running strongest," she said, "Can you tell which that is?"

Liffey's comment about hunting drew a distracted smile from Breccan. It didn't much matter to him if he had earned his skills -- or lack thereof -- from his mother. As far as he was concerned, he would just keep working at it until he was successful, and with Rannoch and Treason around to help, he knew he could do it.

He studied the river carefully, examining the two directions under his mother's suggestion. It was easy to follow her instruction in order to make a suggestion; the left fork was moving faster, tumbling over a small collection of rocks, while the creek to the right did not seem to have as much of a current. Pointing to the left, he said, "This way!" He eagerly began to trot along his chosen path, glancing over his shoulder to make sure Liffey was following.

Breccan took a moment to decide, but in the end had made the right choice. Liffey beamed with pride as she followed him. Her perfect little prnice. He would rule his own pack one day with the same kindness and fierce protectiveness of his father. It would break her heart to not follow him down that road, but she had decided long ago that was the duty of a mother - to prepare your kids for the lives they were meant to lead while you have them, and then let them go and live those lives when the time came. It was what her own mother had (unwillingly) done for her, and it was what she would do for her kids.

She thought of Wisp with a pang, but drove the thought away again. Not today.

"Good job!" she praised as she stepped up alongside her son again, "And can you explain to me why you chose this path?" She knew Breccan hadn't just guessed, but it didn't hurt to make certain he knew what he was doing.

At his mother's praise, Breccan slowed and smiled back at her. She pressed for more information about his decision, and he obliged her willingly. "Well, I just looked at the water and it looks like it's going faster this way -- so that's probably where it's strongest," he explained. His description wasn't all that detailed, but he still spoke like he was delivering some very important facts.

A beat later, his smile broadened into a grin and he said, "And I thought this way looked more fun." With that, he stepped into the shallows and gave a big splash with his paws, hoping to send the moonlit spray in his mother's direction.

Liffey smiled at her son. He had a good brain in his head, which was not surprising considering who his parents were. There was a small gap in his knowledge, though, that she felt it her motherly duty to point out. She did pause to laugh and duck her head away from his splash, though she was not so easily sucked into play.

"Good! You can also use your ears to help as well," she informed him as she trotted along, "Harder running water will be louder."

She informed him of another trick in regards to the water's direction, and he paused in his step to put it to the test. He cocked his head, turning one ear towards the creek, and listened carefully. She was right; he could hear it slopping more heavily against the rocks, and while he couldn't compare it to the other fork that they had left behind, he imagined the soft tinkling sound it would have been making.

"Cool," he said, nodding and then resuming his forward motion. He was a little disappointed she hadn't tried to splash him back, but he let it go quickly. "Think we're almost there?" he asked, even though he didn't really know where "there" was.

Liffey had never been all too playful a creature. She'd always been more the quiet intellectual, the one who preferred playful conversation to actual play. Were she human, she would be the one found in Starbucks on a Saturday night having a nice cup of coffee, discussing books with a friend, not the one downing their fifth tequila shot at the bar to the cheers of a drunked crowd. Which is to say, she was not her mother.

Unfortunate that her kids didn't have grandma around more often.

"I'm not sure," Liffey said honestly, "But I think we're definitely getting close. See how the trees are starting to thin and the sound of rushing water is getting louder?" She glanced over at the creek and paused, looking back the way they had come. "The creek is also widening. I think soon we'll come to a point where it'll be too big to call a creek," she commented as she began to walk again.

Although she wasn’t able to give him a definitive answer, Liffey’s prediction proved to be correct. The creek’s banks began to widen and the trees around them grew sparser. Breccan could hear the rush of water and moved ahead of his mother quickly.

They hadn’t found a large waterfall, but a miniature one of sorts. It tumbled down a short embankment and swirled into a pond in the middle of a small clearing. Moonlight sparkled on the rippling surface. We found it! Breccan said, although they hadn’t even really known what “it” would be when they began.

The moment Liffey saw the waterfall, she knew that this was just a pit stop for the creek. It was large, but not large enough to be the water's final resting place. While Breccan darted forward eagerly, her eyes swept around the edge of the pool until she found where it continued on along its journey.

But, her son was excited and proud of this find. So, Liffey smiled and stepped up alongside him. "Looks like!" she said, reaching to nuzzle his temple affectionately. With a quick grin at her son, she stepped right into the pool and moved in until the water was just touching her stomach. It wasn't very deep, but still, "Want to come swim? Maybe there are some fish we can try to catch?"

He didn’t even have to wait for his mother to invite him in; as soon as Liffey submerged herself, Breccan followed right behind her. The words were barely out of her mouth as he slipped into the water alongside her. He hadn’t done a lot of swimming before, but had waded in the hollow’s creeks enough times to be confident with the water lapping against his sides.

Yeah, let’s look for some fish, he agreed, and began to splash about. He was too excited to realize that fishing probably required just as much stealth as hunting on land.

Liffey laughed at her son's excitement. He was getting older now and growing so big, but he was still her little boy in so many ways. As much as she wanted to see him grow into the magnificent king his father was, she also just wanted him to stay her little prince forever, and never leave her side.

That was a hope for another day, though. For now, it was time to fish with her son.

Ima wrap this one up <3 We can has new soon! Breccan needs to meet his sibbies!!