Bramblepoint can you hear me now?

The whelp insisted he could fight and no sooner had the words left his mouth then he was he launching himself at Peregrine. With Ferret for a son, he had really learned to have rapid reflexes. He swiped his leg out of the way, only for the pup to seemingly abandon his assault. Once more, the black wolf raised his brow, curious and intrigued by the boy. He peered up at Peregrine guilelessly and the Alpha male returned his gaze steadily, head cocked ever so slightly to the right as if he was listening to something in the distance.

His lips parted when the pup gave a name. He recognized that surname, of course, and immediately thought of taking him home. But then Peregrine's heart felt like it momentarily stopped in his chest. "Dead," he'd said about his parents. That meant FitzDutiful was no more. Although it had been years since they'd run together, Peregrine nevertheless bowed his head slightly, eyes closing in a beat of silence.

When he reopened them, he squinted thoughtfully down at the pup who declared he actually had no name. Peregrine's lips curved into a bit of a rueful smirk. "I'm pretty good at coming up with those, if you need a new one," he said, ignoring the absurd notion of proposing the pup take the name Peter, as if by giving him a home, Peregrine could simply replace the pup he'd lost. He knew it didn't work that way, that the thought was nothing but temporary insanity. "Or you could come up with a new one on your own," he added with a shrug.

"In any case, look..." Peregrine continued, changing tack a little bit. "I knew your dad. And he was a big fan of mine. Like, huge. He'd be thrilled if you came to stay with me. Tell you what. If you come back to the caldera, I can teach you how to hunt and fight. Then I'll release you back into the wild as soon as you're ready. Deal?" His jade eyes bored into the pup formerly known as Stoic, wondering if it would work on him, still wondering what Fox and the Firebirds would say if he came home with a stray.