Redhawk Caldera i slipped on ma' beans.

The weather was deliciously cooler than Glee could ever remember it being in her short life. There was a crispness to the breeze that brought her some feeling she couldn't explain, but that she loved. Her father had explained to her that Autumn was coming, her mother adding that meant it was almost something called spooky season. The little girl was clueless as to what that really meant, but she was beyond thrilled at the news nonetheless.

Morning was slipping steadily towards afternoon while Glee enjoyed the day. Spooky season apparently meant a gathering of grasshoppers that chirped and bounced all along the shores of the little creek that stretched from one end of the Caldera to the other. Glee prowled its shores after the bugs, getting in some hunting practice but mostly just enjoying herself.

Dwin could not stay away from Brecheliant for too long. No, that is not the right way to frame it. She could, but her conscience and loyalty (and pity to some extent) to her parents did not allow her. No matter, how far she scouted in the flatlands and the wilderness and how often a thought of "what if" entered her mind, her paws always found way back home, even if her soul was not entirely happy about it.

Contrary to the popular saying - kids did not grow up as fast as weeds. At three months of age the rascals were just as annoyingly silly and incapable of utilizing their full brain capacity as they had been a month prior. She still kept her distance from Frolic and blatantly refused to play the game of "Where the hell this bloody pup has disappeared again?!!!" And when possible she did not engage with the rest of the brood, preferring to be a food delivery service in hopes that the kids either grew up faster or became fat. In the first case - she would no longer have to babysit them. In the second - fat puppies could not run fast anyways. Though she had a suspicion that even in this turn of events Frolic would find a way to tumble and roll and disappear again. 

Today, while Glee was collecting grasshoppers by the creek, Dwin was sitting several strides ahead near a birch tree, which was full with song-birds and was twittering and chattering loudly. Quite a spring-like atmosphere, not characteristic to the autumn. She had stumbled upon this curiousity by accident and had stopped to figure out, what was going on. 

In spite of her efforts, Glee had not truly expected to catch one of the grasshoppers she sought. They were quick and she, not so much. She was growing quicker and more coordinated by the day, but was still lacking in grace at only three months. So, when she landed her latest lunge to find her paws clamped down on something solid and twitching, Glee promptly squealed in alarm and flung herself away, watching as she grasshopper she'd worked so hard to finally catch went fleeing into the brush.

Glee sat up and looked after it, trembling with nerves. After a few steadying breaths, she burst into giggles. What fun that had been! She raised one paw after another to lick away the grasshopper's scent, then looked around for more bugs to chase, only for her gaze to land on her elder sister who sat not too far from her. Her eyes lighting with excitement, Glee bounced to her feet and raced over to say hello, not at all noticing the wonder that currently held Dwin's fascination.

Just like that the birds first fell silent and the moment Glee's footfalls came within Dwin's earshot, the flock fluttered out and away from the tree. Oh, no... The older sister thought to herself, closed her eyes, made a deep breath and exhaled. She turned to face her younger sibling just in time to avoid collision with her. Up until now this particular specimen had not caused as much trouble as Frolic had, but just by observing (as little and as superficially as she had) she knew that the potential was there. After all - intelligence-wise this sister had shown just as little promise as Frolic. But that - dear readers - was Dwin's biased opinion. 

"Hello, Glee," she greeted the youngster. "On your own?" she asked and then cast a quick glance around to see, if hopefully any adults were there to collect her and thus rescue Dwin from nanny duties, looming darkly over the horizon. 

”Mama said I could go to the creek!” Glee proclaimed proudly, puffing out her little chest for a moment.

”I was hunting grasshoppers!” she continued merrily, ”I even CAUGHT one! It was scary so I dropped it.” She glanced down at her paws as though looking for traces of her brief victory, but her attention was quick to wander up to the tree where once a flock of birds had been. She tilted her head and scrunched her nose.

”It smells like birdy poos,” she announced.

"Is she mental?!" Dwin exclaimed to no one in particular, thinking in horror of all the times Frolic had had to be fished out of some sort of pond or lake or river (she was exaggerating, but her younger sibling managed to cause trouble, where four puppies were needed instead of just one) and then also remembering that Maia usually was not the one to witness it. She received soggy puppies at the end of the day and Eljay treated the occasional colds and sneezing spells. Here she had thought that parents made your life difficult only during your childhood. 

Glee seemed to have just as a short attention span as Frolic did. She went from telling about grasshoppers to pointing out that the Twitter Live that had happened earlier besides many great ideas exchanged and music had also produced a lot of crap. Quite like the real site, her narrator should mention. "It does," Dwin agreed. "But, if you rub your fur in it, not only will you get white hair, but you will mask you scent as well. Works well as camouflage," she suggested and looked down at the kid to see, if she was going to buy it.

Glee was not a fan of the smell of birdy poos, but at the same time, it intrigued her. She sniffed delicately at the air, grimacing but unable to stop her sniffing until her elder sister distracted her. She cocked her head as she listened, her little face frowning with thought. She could be a Camouflage? With birdy poos?

Slowly, a smile slid across her muzzle. "Are you telling fibbies?" she said slyly, her smile turning to a suspicious grin.

"Would I ever?" Dwin replied in a mock-offence, but then the facade broke down and she smiled at the kid. "Well, to be honest - mom would probably not be happy to have you all caked in the bird poop today, but..." she sighed, because here went a perfect opportunity to get the kid in trouble and play a complete innocence in the meanwhile. "... but later on, when you learn hunting or be out in the wilds on your own, it is always better to mask your scent. You do not know, what prowls outside, ready to pounce and eat you all - fur and bones included." Again - she realized that this was a bad choice of words. You could scare any other kid into obedience by telling them awful stories. Blackthorn kids - on the contrary - they charged at the danger. Perhaps, trying to bore them to sleep would work better, but they did not have the attention span for this. 

To sum up - kids were difficult. 

Glee giggled when her sister denied it. She knew a fib when she heard one being so practiced at them herself. She looked up at the tree again and pondered. They were close enough to the creek that she could always wash herself off before going back to her mother. If what Ceridwin said now was true—and she was inclined to believe her now—it was an important tactic for hunting.

Her pondering was interrupted by the idea of becoming some big monster's snack. She grinned. "They can't eat me—I'm too tough," she insisted with a wag of her tail. She was referring to her personality, of course, even though in all ways, she was just a little gumdrop in wolf's clothing.

"Do you roll in poos when you hunt?" she asked, honestly curious, "I dunno if I wanna be a hunter. I like prowling, but I don't think I like catching. Can I be a hunter that finds but not catches?"

"A bear will gulp you down in one take and won't even chew you," Dwin replied, looking down at Glee, who had just recently morphed in a wolf-like creatre, but had yet to catch up in growing bigger. "But, if you kick him and scratch him, he might have more difficult time doing that," she mused, realizing again that this was not the kind of joke you told Blackthorn kids. They tended to take such statements at face value. Even further. As suggestions. To try out.

"You can be, whoever you want - a princess, a monster in the lake or even a duckling," she said. "Except, if you are hungry, then none of your identities and trades matter. So - yes - you can prowl without hunging. But you won't have any food, if you do not hunt," Dwin explained, feeling smug for a second in beating Glee's logic. And then deflating in the next second, because it was not really any fun in beating a kid.

"Which one you want to be? As if, what you would like to do, when you grow up?"

Glee scrunched up her face in silent protest of her sister's declaration. She was still pretty sure she could beat up a bear, but she was not the argumentative type. Dwin could believe what she wanted, just as Glee would. And Glee believed no bear would be a match to her.

A princess, a monster, or a duckling. Glee considered all of these in turn. Each sounded like fun, so perhaps she could take turns being all of them? The question posed distracted her from this train of thought.

"I dunno," she answered honestly, "I just like playing games and listening to mommy's stories and exploring and helping daddy find plants and chasing birdies and pretending with Frollie..." She paused to think of more, giving her sister an opportunity to interrupt her before she went on like this for another fifteen minutes.

Dwin would not have minded, if Glee went on for fifteen minutes or longer, because they both had this quality of talking a lot and musing out loud in common. Frolic was more of - talk less, but let's do stuff! Dwin was somewhere between the two siblings. 
"In that case you want to become a Dwin - congratulations, that is the best trade choice possible," Dwin teased her sister gently. "A Dwin likes all the things you listed, except, she might have some reservations about Frolic. But no two wolves of the same trade are the same anyway," she grinned. 

"But, if you want to become a true Dwin, you have to find connection with your inner-Dwinness," she went on in a serious tone, but twinkle in her eyes revealed that she was joking. "Do you know, what that is?"