Bearclaw Valley I bought this glove a thousand years ago

Since Wyatt's story about the eight legs and their acrid flavour, Lucas had done everything in his power to find one. They were elusive, leaving traces of their existence, a web here and there, sometimes spotted between twigs and other times drifting into his face on an errant breeze, but he never found one. Instead, the boy found a new source of amusement and delight in a creature much more wriggly than a spider.

It was moist on his tongue as he gulped it down, tasting of earth and water alike. It wriggled once on the way down and then it was gone. He smacked his lips and dropped his nose to the ground, waddling on fat legs around the dirt patch beneath a setting sun until he found another one: a small pinkish tail poking out of the ground. With infinite care, Lucas reached forward, clipped it between his teeth, and pulled a long worm up out of its burrow.

Two seconds later and it had also disappeared down his gullet, followed by a satisfied burp.

@Tadec

It had been a warm day. Tadec had sought to hunt for the young Redleaf children who had grown considerably in the last two months. His prize for them had been a large hare that could easily be shared between the three of them. It would not have been long and he would have been hunting for his own children’s food. The thought was a frightening one. Tadec could only hope that they would be as strong as Laurel’s pups had been. 

As the coywolf neared the den with the rabbit clasped in his narrow muzzle, the dark crow caught sight of the plump form of Lucas. Tadec smiled softly at the boy and approached with a low head and a twitching tail at his rear. Dropping the rabbit nearby, the dark thief lowered his torso some so that he might be on the same level as the child. “Hungry, Lucas?”

Gulp! went his throat as he tossed back a third worm, and then his ears perked of their own accord and he let his eyes follow them up to the dark-haired figure fast approaching. At first Lucas mistook the narrow male for Issun or another giant version of Wyatt, but by now he was better able to discern small differences—no important details, mind you, but little things—and this guy was a bit too small to be the same wolf he'd met while walking with Laurel. This one was unfamiliar. His eyes hungrily followed the rabbit as it thumped to the ground, but he refrained from running for it just yet.

He might be fat, and that might have something to do with his love of food, but he wasn't rude. "Who you?" he piped up, fixing the stranger with his usual bright smile. "I's Lucas!" As previously established.

Lucas did not know him by name. This wasn’t enough to bother the good nature of the crow. He nudged the rabbit toward the young pup with a gentle, shriveled smile. The glimmering of his bronze gaze caught the light in the boy’s puppy blue eyes. Though Tadec was not known to the boy by name, the child seemed to bounce forward eagerly. The coywolf remained where he stood, holding his frame low toward the earth. His large ears were pulled forward to collect the words that the puppy spoke, allowing his dark lips to spread further into a grin that revealed the tips of pointed canines.
 
“Hello, Lucas,” Tadec breathed reverently to the young boy. “I am called Tadec.”
 
The dark moonlighter rolled to his side, reaching out a narrow limb to stretch his paw toward the plump puppy. It was relieving to see that the child had grown so well, so full, and that the many times he had hunted and taken the children food had provided enough for them to grow. There was even more hope that his own children would grow to be just as strong and healthy as the blonde-coated young man before him.

The man's name was Tadec. He thought in hindsight that maybe that name had come up at some point or other between his mother and his aunt, but never in relation to him. Meeting new wolves was always an exciting affair for him, though, so when Tadec reclined onto his flank and reached out a leg, Lucas was quick to oblige him. He left the rabbit for now and padded confidently close to the hybrid male, ducking down to sniff at the wispy fur of his belly and armpit.

"Wha doin'?" he wondered then, eyeballing the outstretched limb and letting his tail whir at the sight of splayed toes. Nothing felt better than stretching out all his toes, and that simple display was enough for him to dip his chest down, stretch his arms foreward and spread the beans on both forepaws with a satisfied grunt.

The young boy padded close to the stretched coywolf. He sniffed curiously at the dark hair of his stomach. The thief was keen to remain perfectly still while the pup finished his inspection. There was a small fear that if he were to react, it would frighten away his present playmate. First impressions were everything, after all. When Lucas had completed his examination of the stranger who had brought him food, he pulled himself back and inspected Tadec’s features with bright eyes. It was only then that the crow noticed the distinct features in the youthful face. He was a jovial child; the corners of his mouth were lifted in a sweet smile, and his eyes seemed to crinkle with a pleasant welcoming mark.
 
Wha doin’?
 
The length of the coywolf’s ears stood straight on end. A small smile creased Tadec’s lips into a gentle smile. “Tadec is looking for someone to go on an adventure,” he whispered softly to the boy. “Has Lucas seen the fireflies?” Knowing that Indra would not be likely to want to race off into the unknown in search of little lights, Tadec hoped that the young boy would be eager to go. The sun was slowly making its way down to hide behind the mountains, which would leave them with plenty of time to seek out the glowing bugs.

Satisfied with both his inspection and stretch—the man carried hints and nods to Indra in his fur, Lucas noticed—he picked his front end back up and rocked back onto his chubby haunches with a grin. Even if he was the type of cub to shy away from a strange face, and he wasn't, Lucas would know Tadec for a friend by Indra's scent alone. His aunt was a swell wolf, right on par with Laurel for his most favourite adult, and he trusted her implicitly. By extension, that now included the hybrid before him.

It certainly helped that the man seemed to have secret exploits up his sleeve. Lucas loved a good story, and a good adventure was even better than that. His eyes were round as they met the dark coywolf's face, and his mouth cracked into a wider smile as he gleefully asked, "whassa fy-fly?" In that moment he couldn't have cared less if a firefly was a fire-breathing dragon or a fiery turd; the mere mention of adventure excited him beyond all measure, no matter what it entailed.

The eagerness that lit the boy's face was enough of an encouragement for Tadec. Lucas had grown enough that a short trek through the territory should not have been harmful to him. With a shriveled smile, the coywolf rose to a standing position and lowered his skull so that his gaze lingered like floating lanterns in front of the young pup. There was a moment where he wondered if Laurel would really want him to take the boy on an adventure, but he pushed it aside. It would have been far too difficult for Tadec to tell Lucas no than it would have been to endure the wrath of Indra's sister. With a flagging tail, the coywolf motioned in the direction he had intended to travel. Then, he swung his crown back around to where the boy was and he offered a smile that caused his eyes to crinkle and his gaze to glitter.

“Tadec will show Lucas. Fire fly is like dancing light in the dark. If swift, you can catch them,” the moonlighter offered to him with encouragement written on his narrow features. The other pups did not appear to be in sight, so Tadec imagined that it would just be him and Lucas on the grand excursion in search of the glittering bugs. That was for the best; he feared losing one of the young in the darker light of evening hours.

Tadec was right about one thing: now that Lucas was intrigued, no amount of saying "no" would stop him from tagging along. He had already proven to occasionally follow the adult members of the pack away from the den without permission, though this was never done to intentionally be disobedient. The boy listened as best he could but sometimes he got carried away in his excitement. Everything was an opportunity to see more, learn more and do more. He lived in the moment, and he lived for these discoveries.

So he leaped to his feet with a bright exclamation of, "Yay!" and pressed close to the coywolf, eager to set out and see what a firefly was. He glanced back as if in search of Piper or Wyatt, but he didn't know what they were doing, or if they were even round. They could be out with Laurel for a walk for all Lucas knew. "Can you eat 'em?" Lucas asked, settling easily into the role of over-eager child with a hundred questions. "Does fy-flies taste good? Does it taste like warms? Do you li'e t'eat warms?"

Warmth rushed to his cheeks as the boy drew closer. The halfling was not accustomed to the youthful energy, or the need for protection. He looked down at the child with a peculiar expression, unreadable surely to one so young. In a matter of moments, the dark thief shook away the feeling and set his sights on the great beyond. With a few jittery steps, he set out and they made their way toward the open expanse where he had last seen the dancing lights from glittering bugs. As they trekked, Lucas piped up with some interesting questions. Try as he might, Tadec was not certain that he would respond well enough for the pup.

With a thoughtful furrowing of his brow and a glance toward the darkening sky, the thin-limbed creature thought it was a strange idea to want to eat bugs. Still, the child seemed as though he was curious, and Tadec did not wish to be discouraging at all. He lowered his head some and glanced toward Lucas with a soft smile. “Tadec has never eaten fire fly,” he answered carefully, trying to word his response well enough for the pup. “But, Lucas and Tadec can eat one for first time tonight.”

While he may not have been eager to try such a thing, the dark male would have rather buried himself alive than disappoint his young companion. He would eat a firefly with Lucas.

Tadec had never tasted fireflies and couldn't answer Lucas' question. That was okay, though. He had never tasted a worm until today and would be happy to share his thoughts on their punchy flavour, and that's exactly what he did. "Warms are like rocks," he began, "but also kin'a like water, 'cause they's all squooshy and stuff. Tastes like meat but like dirt and grass too."

He might have gone on with this narrative, weaving every last detail into his account of eating worms, but a swift rabbit darted across their path in the growing darkness and the young Arctic wolf froze with every hair follicle piquing to attention. "Woah cool!" he exclaimed, taking several steps in the direction it had gone with ears upturned. His nose wriggled with interest as he spun back around to Tadec, tail thumping, and remembered that they were supposed to be hunting fireflies, not rabbits.