Blacktail Deer Plateau dip you, flip you, bubble bathe you

Anyone's welcome—p'raps someone who'll spar with her? :)

Osprey couldn't decide whether she liked the license to roam freely, even after dark, or if she missed the familiarity and routine of the rendezvous site. Sometimes, she found herself slinking back there to find it empty and she would simply stand in the center of the clearing musing, unaware that her father occasionally did the same. During these moments of quiet pondering, she would realize how much she—as well as the other pups—had grown, physically, mentally and socially.

She mulled these things a few moments today before trotting away into the forest. Junior stopped a few times to sneeze violently. "Stupid Rina," she muttered with no real malice, "you gave me your cold!" After swiping some snot off her muzzle, the youth sighed softly and kept walking. She hoped to run into one of her father's two special friends, though she would've been just as happy to happen upon Aunt Willow, Uncle Atticus (she hadn't seen him since returning) or maybe even Aunt Osprey Sr...

Having dug up and chewed on Junior's half-rotten ears, Pura was very, very suspicious when she suddenly appeared back at the Plateau with even more meat on her bones than when she had left. He had hung back at the meeting announcing the wayward girl's return, levelling dark looks her as well as Fox. One new face, another back from the beyond. Neither sat well with Pura, whose tolerance for change diminished as he grew.

The freckled was not sentimental, and had not consciously returned to the rendezvous site since the pups were given leave to roam the Plateau. Pura liked the borders, and when he wasn't patrolling he liked to cool himself in the clear spring that marked the site of the Virtúte siblings' Fairy Kingdom pack.

He was burying a fresh poo behind a tree with Junior trotted into sight. They were both big wolves now, though their long, lanky forms set them apart from true adults. Pura peered out from behind his toilette du jour, wrinkling his broad, freckled snout. I know what your skull tastes like! he thought, struggling to understand that whatever they had buried next to Pied had not been Junior at all, but some other unfortunate beast. "W-why aren't you d-dead?" he rumbled at her.

She stumbled across a cousin instead, though both Pura and his sister had long since ceased to be cousins or even couslings. They were full-blown siblings. As such, Osprey's dark face broke into a smile at the sight of the freckled gray wolf. Momentarily ignoring the uncertainty on Pura's face, she strode up to him and greeted him with a nip to the bridge of his muzzle. Her tail raised too. Despite being gone three weeks (and pronounced dead), she still fancied herself the top dog of the puppy pack. She wasn't as much of a bully about it these days, though her dominant behavior left nothing to the imagination.

Pura's question elicited a quirk of her brow. "Why aren't you dead?" she shot back. Then something clicked in her mind and she added, "I went away for a while but I didn't die," in a mildly indignant tone. The adults hadn't filled her in on that little detail, as it was rather morbid. They should've known it would come up regardless, like an insistent pimple breaking through the skin, an angry red pustule. "You thought I died, Pura?" she pressed wonderingly.

Junior didn't seem to understand what he was talking about. It didn't occur to Pura that the adults might not have filled her in on the tears, breakdowns, wailing, listless into-space-staring, and heartbreak she had caused by disappearing. The pack had lost Kaskara (to her own gob), and it was a wonder that Peregrine had not executed the freckled Virtúte boy after his grave-robbing antics. Unlike his comrades, Pura had experienced all of these events as just that - events. The hurricane of emotion that crashed through the plateau had been uncomfortable for him, but it was nothing that couldn't be solved by avoiding contact with other wolves for a while.

"Yes," he replied, studying her mismatched eyes intently. His tail swayed slowly, pensively behind him. "I a-ate your bones, but .. daddy said.. your daddy said it was n-not allowed." The success of their conversation eased the tension in Pura's posture. This was possibly the longest conversation he had had since that talk about what was sacred. "You t-tasted .. gross."

Osprey received this news with a baffled expression, her bat-like ears flicking backward. She was about to insist that there was no way Pura had gnawed on her bones when he remarked on their foul taste. Junior momentarily forgot about the heavier subject at this perceived insult.

"I bet yours taste even worse, bonerface!" she countered petulantly. "I'm gonna find out!" she added, a playfully threatening tone creeping into her voice as she suddenly pounced at her brother, meaning to engage him in a play fight.

Pura shrugged listlessly at her suggestion that bonerface bones were even less desirable - logically, that wasn't true. His bones were alive, and the ones he had tasted were most definitely past their sell-by date. His shoulders were still around his chin when she pounced a split second later.

He met her first move with a surprised snarl, rearing onto his hind legs and splaying his front legs to catch her weight.

She took him off guard, spurring him to rear onto his hind legs and essentially catch her in his arms. If she'd had the weight advantage, Osprey might have knocked him over onto his back. She was the slighter of the two, however, so she simply bounced off his chest and landed back on all fours. One of Junior's ankles buckled and she dipped ominously, yet managed to avoid falling over entirely.

With the element of surprise lost now, Osprey Jr. began to circle, her ears thrusting forward and her lips wrinkling backward. Her tail arched up and over her back as she slunk. Although there was still an impish gleam in her mismatched eyes, she was nonetheless determined to beat her freckled foe. It wouldn't do for the Alpha pup to lose a challenge, especially one she'd started.

Yo sistah! Do you want to keep it paragraph-based, and if so, do you want to use dice rolls at any point in the thread for critical moments?

The other girls weren't really sparring material - yet - and Pura had not done battle with anyone his own age since Junior's disappearance, and the adults hadn't exactly been in the mood to play. They had grown since then, and he was pleasantly surprised when she was repelled by his broadening chest and stumbled.

A faltering moment like that from Pura might have lost him the fight, but Junior recovered swiftly from the buckling ankle and stalked cat-like around him, teeth bared in a snarl. Her opponent's face remained impassive as he began to shift around a the center point of the circle, keeping the family jewels out of harm's way. There was more to them now, and he wasn't about to risk castration.

I'd like to keep it paragraph-based if possible. If we hit an impasse, we can definitely roll out the dice. :)

Their roles were clear at the moment: Osprey was on the offense and Pura was on the defense. That worked just fine for her. She was a Warrior, after all, and making the first move was part of her job description. She wondered if her brother deigned to fashion himself into a Warden. Maybe once they were finished with their spar, she would ask him. She hoped it hadn't ever occurred to him... then she would get the pleasure of taking credit for what she considered a brilliant idea.

Now was no time for words, though. Junior knew that Pura was a little slower than the other pups and though it had never occurred to her to judge him for this, she fingered it as a weakness. A feint would work well on him, she thought. Thus, she sprang at his right forepaw, jaws snapping and chin nearly hitting the dirt as she dove. At the least second, she snapped her head back and attempted grasp the underside of her opponent's throat instead.

Junior's sudden movement startled Pura, and he did exactly what his adversary had hoped - exposed his neck. Her sharp little teeth seized around his neck, pressing on his jugular. He could hear the increase in pressure as blood struggled to push through the much narrower passage. He didn't move - didn't speak. Perhaps she was punishing him for disturbing her grave - her sacred grave, and Peregrine would want him to receive his punishment with dignity.

Osprey succeeded and knew the satisfaction of her jaws closing around Pura's throat with nearly perfect precision. She applied pressure for about five seconds before loosening and releasing her grip. Triumphantly, she sprang backward, head arching and tail doing the same. She waved it, indicating that although she considered herself the superior, she did not intend any malice.

Junior couldn't help but wonder, "How come you didn't fight back?" Then, before Pura could even answer, she added, "You ever thought of being a Warden?"

It didn't last long. Junior's pinch loosened, and she leaped away from him like a whippet. Pura drew a couple of steadying breaths and righted himself, watching the girl's tail swing high above her head. It transfixed him, and for an awkward amount of time he did not answer her.

When he came back to earth, it was with an unintentionally cryptic answer. "Punishment." A rare explanation lingered on the tip of Pura's tongue, but Junior cut him off. Pura nodded in response to her question. He missed out on pretty much everything else that went on around him, but the freckled boy understood The Jobs - though of course, Junior was free to interpret it has her idea. "I like patrol. You will be a warrior. I don't know what Nana will be. She is small," he finished, as if warrior and warden were the only acceptable jobs. It hadn't occurred to him that Saēna might want to become an outrider - they were too frequently absent from the pack lands, and that was not something he wanted to consider a possibility.

The word punishment made little sense to her. Had she been a bit older, she might have pressed the matter, yet Osprey was too young to read into it. She brushed it aside. The topic of trades was much more interesting to her anyway. It seemed like Pura had given it some thought and Junior didn't know whether to be annoyed or pleased by this.

"You don't have to be big to be a Warrior," Junior answered confidently. "She's brave. She could be a Shield Maiden, like me. That's a girl Warrior. And I already am one," she explained in a slightly know-it-all tone, uplifted tail giving a single severe lash as if to make her point.

"You'd be a good Warden," she repeated after a pause. "It's more than patrollin', you know. You'd have to beat off bad guys. I think you'd be good at that." She paused, pondering their very brief spar. "We could practice together—you to be a Warden, me to be a better Warrior. I like t'practice and you need to get faster," she finished bluntly.

Pura didn't question her - he had yet to see her fight off anything but flies and pack-mates, so her status as a true warrior was up for debate, but he was not particularly interested in details. She would become a warrior eventually, or literally die trying. It was this that Pura focused on now. He wanted to practice - desperately - but warriors and wardens were always in harm's way, and a single pup's death had been enough to drive the pack to the brink of insanity. "What if we die? Nana would be sad, a-and Pe-grin."

Since this has been hanging out for a month, I'm gonna conclude it for us. :B

"What?" Junior asked incredulously. "We won't die. It's only practice," she said, revealing the fact that she'd misconstrued his more general inquiry. "You have to be careful when you're only practicing," she continued sagely. "You can't be as fierce as when it's the real thing, y'know." It was something she'd learned through trial and error, leaving many of her young and old pack mates with puncture marks in the process.

"We'll practice together later," Osprey announced in the next breath before rather abruptly marching off to do other things. She didn't bother with lingering goodbyes, knowing that he wouldn't care and they would see each other soon enough anyway.