Dragoncrest Cliffs In the cold light of day, we're a flame in the wind.

@Helix, if you've got time? Otherwise AW.  :)

Life was still strange without Dalia and Hougeda was quiet without Bat, but he was getting used to them not being around. He could sense @Portia's sadness and found it somewhat infectious, though he was loathe to wander too far for too long. Of all wolves he knew, it was his mother who he loved most. The ashen Goufa simply didn't know what it was that he felt, nor could he find a way to communicate them.

Dacio wasn't sure if or when his missing family would return or even visit. Everyone seemed to be moping around, himself included, and so he sought some time to be by himself upon noting that his littermates had already settled for the day. The sterling cub ventured from the caverns that late afternoon and trailed through familiar woodland in no particular direction. Nose to the ground, Dacio sniffed at each rock he passed by for any sign of new scents to follow.

always have time for you. <3 i'm doing trades counselor and mercenary but we can target this to yours if you want?

Drageda does not offer the same generic routine as Trigeda, or Sangeda, does. The resent upset through all their lands is felt in some form or the other and though they are not at war, or even entertaining the notion, the change from loss of members—along with newer wolves—offers a weird sort of feeling. She does not recognize this pack beyond the sea and though she stands next to the commander, she’s no more connected to the wolves than she’d been before.
 
Helix idly moves through the wood. Her ears swivel this way and that and she noses the air every so often, so when her thoughts are disrupted in order to focus, yellow eyes dart about until she sees a freckled, greyscale child. The woman blinks a few times, having not met this one before (or seen him, for that matter), but the speckled child makes the connection to @Portia, whom she’d met once when around Thuringwethil.
 
“Hei,” she greets, staring blankly at the child the closer he gets.

Going for mercenary with this guy, maybe Helix can teach him a thing or two?  <3

Although he hadn't expected to cross another's path so soon, Dacio wasn't surprised to hear an unfamiliar voice call out to him in greeting. The boy paused in his tracks, lifting his crown to glance in the direction of a dark-furred adult who stared blankly in his direction.

Charcoal ears splayed backward, almost apologetically, as he offered a respectful dip of his muzzle. He blinked at her, unable to pair a name to her face, and concluded that he had not yet met this particular wolfess. "Hei," Dacio responded softly, with a shy little smile. 

The puppy shrinks a bit and she continues her stare, though it softens the longer she looks at him. The other two puppies—she assumes his sister—had been so well mannered that it is not a surprise he is too. Portia and Dalia have done well with their brood. Heda’s own children have been through a rocky start, it seems, and she is not surprised in their personalities either.
 
Uncertain this child’s level of her native tongue, she decides to give it a go: “What are you doing?”

The dark wolfess continues to look down on him, though the softening of her gaze upon him is enough to ease his tension. She presses on to engage him, piping up with question in their native tongue. Dacio and his siblings had been taught both since birth, and he lifted his dark ears in recognition.

Unsure if the swarthy adult was going to scold him for perhaps wandering too far from Hougeda, Dacio blinked up at her with a concerned glint in his eye. "Trackin'," he chose to be honest, though the ivory tip of his tail twitched with mild nervousness.

The more time she spends with Dio and Portia’s children, she finds she likes them much more than Heda’s. She doesn’t know if she’d admit it to anyone but herself. She doesn’t have to like them all equally, she is not their parent, but she won’t go out of her way for ungrateful and rude children. This one, on the other hand, might get more of her attention later on.
 
“What’s your name?” she asks, looking down at his feet and back again. “What’re you tracking?”

When no scolding comes, Dacio lets himself relax. His tension slackens and he continues to regard the Fleimkepa quietly, responding only when spoken to. "Dacio," the boy said softly, wanting to know her name but unsure if he should be the one to question his superiors. There was always some discomfort when conversing with the adults of Drageda, for it was difficult to recognise whether they thought him in their way or not.

"Uhm," he stalled, grey-green eyes dropping to the ground as he felt he should have found something worth following by now, but nothing had been able to keep his attention. "Nothing yet."

“I am Helix,” she follows up with the introduction and swishes her tail. When she looks up, her gaze follows his as he speaks and admits to not having anything of interest to track. Slowly, as if considering the answer, Helix nods her head and glances away for anything she may have seen on the way. “What would you like to track? Maybe I can help you,” she offers to the kid to help teach him a thing or two.

The adult introduced herself as Helix, and the boy instantly felt as though she was less of a stranger. Despite his initial shyness when meeting new wolves, Dacio was eager to know each individual who crossed his path. He was a naturally curious child and, as Helix offered to aid him in his tracking, his ivory-tipped tail swung to life.

"Yes please," he chirped with greater enthusiasm. "I want to find a bird." Nothing in particular, just something unusual that he hadn't seen before - and hopefully contribute to his feather collection.

At some point, the children will have to transfer from someone else’s problem to her responsibility. She will never have it one hundred percent but as a warrior, and a leader, it’s her job to help mold them as much as it is their parents. Portia and Dio are doing well enough so when he chirps with a bit of excitement, a smile becomes more prominent on her features. Finding a bird will be relatively easy as long as he doesn’t have a specific bird (and even that’s questionable). They live along the ocean, which houses a number of birds, so Helix straightens up and scans the thick foliage outside Hougeda.
 
“There’s a bunch of birds on the beach, and maybe by the lake,” she tells the boy, giving him the opportunity to do most of the decision making.

The raven-furred adult suggested that they seek birds out on the beach, or by the lake. Dacio twitched his nose in silent wonder, contemplating both options. His big sister had introduced him to ducks at fresh water and they made interesting sounds, but he was rather bored of them. He'd spotted sea birds from a distance, having observed alongside his sire as gulls swooped and cawed above the waves, but Dacio was interested in seeing them up close.

"The beach?" Dacio chose, but ultimately knew it was up to the adult to confirm. He smiled hopefully up at her, grey-green eyes alight with anticipation of learning something new. "I like feathers," he added, a little randomly, before supporting with: "I hope we can find some nice ones for my collection!"

Dacio settles on the beach, though he seems a bit uncertain. Helix cocks her head slightly to the side but he continues to elaborate on his purpose and she bobs her head once in understanding. “I bet we can,” she decides and looks through the foliage of Hougeda.
 
Prior to her promotion, she kept her distance from the cavern but since being accelerated through as Blixen’s secondhand, she feels a little more comfortable exploring a place she’d previously not been allowed. “Lead the way,” she offers to the young tracker, allowing him to lead them into Hougeda and out the other side, where the birds await.

He warmed to her quickly, and shed his initial uncertainty as though it had never existed. When a stranger managed to make Dacio forget his wariness, the ashen Goufa was swift to reveal his inquisitive, talktative nature. His soft gaze beamed up at Helix' raven features to accompany the broad smile on his muzzle, though he never quite met the amber of her eyes.

With excitement coursing his veins, the silver cub nodded enthusiastically and loped in the direction of the cavern that seperated their forest from the shore. "Do you like birds?" Dacio asked, his tail swinging cheerfully between his rear limbs as he peered curiously over a peppered shoulder. "I think owls are my favourite! Mother said they prefer the night time, though."

Helix never really spent a lot of time thinking whether or not she liked birds. Sometimes, they were a pest. For the most part, they stayed in the sky or high up in the trees. Some wolves are good at hunting them and the few she’s tasted were pretty good. Except seagulls. They’re kind of gross and sometimes filled with human garbage. Now, she has to answer the question so she gives the kid a tight lipped smile as they traveled into the cavern and carefully down the slight incline.
 
“Birds are okay. Seagulls are kind of annoying, but I guess the others aren’t too bad,” she says, her smile softening just a fraction before disappearing and trotting through the cavern. She nods at @Tirgatao as they pass through to the back and carefully picks their way to the outside. The ocean greets them in low tide, thankfully, and lap gently against the cliff walls. To the right she turns and steps out into the open strand of sandy beach with plenty of annoying squawks for them to find a few feathers.

Okay, so Helix wasn't as enthusiastic about birds as Dacio was, but seemed content to entertain his hunt for feathers. She smiled down at him as she commented on the annoyance of seagulls, to which he laughed. The silver Goufa enjoyed watching them swoop and dive over the distant ocean, having not yet experienced their cunning ways up close.

"My dad brings me here sometimes," Dacio announced as they stepped out into the open, canting a charcoal lobe in the adults direction as his soft green eyes scanned the damp sand for clean feathers. "He's a leader, and really busy. Are you a leader?"

They start to scan the immediate surroundings for anything of interest but as the kid pipes up, an ear swivels down at him and she slowly turns to look at him. “I am. Leaders can be very busy,” she tells him, looking up. “I bet he’s busier now that Heda is gone, isn’t he?” she asks. It was a bad time to take Heda away, perhaps, as her departure had a bigger impact. Drageda seems to depend on her instead of living on its own and she wonders how long it will fare without her.

“These birds don’t fly away until you’re right on top of them so if you want a feather, you might have to go scare it. Kinda trot after it for a while, let it run around in the sand, and then pounce. You probably won’t catch it but I bet you’ll scare a feather or two off it,” she encourages once they get a little ways and around the next bend of cliffs, about eight birds scurried along the sand.

It was true: Dio had been significantly busier in the recent weeks. Dacio hadn't really considered why nor was he bold enough to ask, but Portia had briefly explained the Heda's departure to her pups. He'd never had any real interaction with her that he could remember, but he felt her absence in the series of unfortunate events that followed.

"Yeah," he responded, a little sadly. While Portia had always been the pups' primary caretaker, Dacio loved his father fiercely and he didn't like having him around even less than before.

He is content to leave the topic behind, and his enthusiasm returns when Helix draws attention to the birds that lingered on the shore. Tail wagging at his hocks, the silver Goufa lopes forward with a spring in his stride toward them, barking a few times in attempt to surprise them.

Helix can see the change in his face when they speak of leaders but he doesn’t have anything to add. She’d been busy even when her sons were growing up and she hadn’t really been a leader of the pack and she wonders if she’d taken too much time away. 

Dacio doesn’t linger on it and Helix straightens hp, watching as the boy teeters after the birds and starts to scatter them. a few hop forward, a few spring into the air, but as always, a cluster of feathers sway to and fro and drift to the ground.

98

The birds lifted their beaks from foraging, eyeballing the wolf cub with suspicion as he loped across the sand toward them. Some scattered at once, darting out of reach, while the bolder animals waited until Dacio padded closer. He quickened his stride whenever he dared to reach out and swipe at one's tail, which caused them to flap their wings in surprise, sending a flurry of feathers floating downward through the air.

"Aha!" Dacio called out, triumphantly, easing his stride to halt and examine his prize. The feathers weren't nearly as detailed or intricate as those Dalia had gifted him or the ones he found in the woods from time to time, but they were different and would make good additions to his collection. Gathering the best ones between his teeth, the young Goufa trotted toward Helix with a proud glimmer in his pale irises: "I got 'em!"

The birds shuffle a few feet as Dacio gets closer. A few take off early on but a vast majority shuffle awkwardly until he’s close enough to disturb them. Helix hangs back so she doesn’t get in the way but once he’s interest shifts from the birds to the feathers, she trots closer to see what he’s good. “Good!” she chirps and wags her tail, lowering her nose and shuffling a few in his direction.

Helix closed the distance between them responded with some enthusiasm, encouraging him to collect more feathers by nudging them in his direction. Young Dacio, with his tail swishing happily at his charcoal hocks, lowers his raven muzzle toward the sand to gather them between his teeth before blinking up to seek the adult's features with a warm smile tugging the corners of his maw upward.

He was eager to add them to his collection back at Hougeda, but didn't wish to be rude. So thanked her kindly for sharing her time with him, excusing himself and loping toward the cliffs with a new spring in his stride.