Sun Mote Copse I'm gonna be a mighty king so enemies - beware!

"RAWRRR!" Elfie growled at a piece of deer-hide that had suffered from sharp puppy teeth already and lost most of it's fur. Funnily enough, the worse it looked the higher value it had in the eyes of the young wolf. He was so possessive of his toy that he did not let go of it in his sleep and Weejay, with whom he did not mind sharing everything else, was allowed to play with it rarely. 

Today that toy had become an imaginary monster of sorts and a practice dummy for Elfie's battle moves. It got pounced at, it got pinned to the ground, it got "murdered" and it got shaken around, until one loose bit managed to retaliate and slap him across the face. The boy blinked few times after this and then resumed his fight, accompanied by the soundtrack of puppy growls and barks and inbetween sounds.

Owen came tiptoeing gingerly into the unfamiliar territory that was thickly overlaid with scents that were now both familiar and foreign at once. He had an official invite from his old puppysitter Eljay and everything, it was true, but he still felt like an intruder as he crept past the borders, eyes flickering restlessly to and fro and his stiffly awkward legs ready to catapult him up and away the moment there was the first little sign of danger. His ruddy-furred ears pricked suddenly up at a nearby snarl, and before he could think his feet had already backpedaled a quickstep or three. He crouched there a moment, poised and indecisive, deciphering the noises piece by piece. Maybe all this had been a terrible mistake? Maybe he should just turn around and hightail it home... There was only one culprit making all that racket though, from what he could tell. And a very small, high-pitched someone with a tiny lung capacity at that. Okay, yeah, even Owen wasn't that much of a wuss. He padded up over the small ridge just ahead and peered down at the young noisemaker.

Owen cocked his head curiously, watching as the youngster ferociously beat up the increasingly bald scrap of deerhide. He had to duck his head and with a small hasty cough stifle a sudden smirk as the rawhide whipped back up into the air and thwapped the hapless puppy right back all of a sudden. This seemed to leave the small boy nonplussed for a moment, but it was only a few breaths before the little guy was back at it again and exacting his revenge. Hey, I think it's dead now, Owen called out, stepping forth a little more boldly with his ears and tail set at a more-relaxed half-mast. Though maybe you better wring its neck just to make sure... Did you hunt that all by yourself?

Elfie's critical period of fear was still to come, therefore at this point in life he still considered all wolves his friends. Though, when he looked up to see, who had spoken to him, there was a bit of a suspicion and wariness in his gaze, as he scrutinized the unfamiliar yearling up and down through narrowed eyes.

When the first inspection was done, the boy snorted, told the deer-hide to stay, where it was, and trotted over to the other boy to carry out the second, close-up inspection. He was genuinely curious about the stranger, but already his little, evil-mastermind mind was hatching up a plan of, where and how to best sink his tiny set of piranha teeth. To the outward world, however, he appeared to be the innocence himself.

The little boy gave him a look, but Owen took it in stride. What could this harmless and, frankly, super-adorable little shrimp do to him anyway? Owen didn't often feel very big and grown-up and in-control of things but he had to admit that standing here on this grassy hummock looking down on this little guy he felt very mature indeed, and almost...parental? Maybe Eljay had been right after all. Maybe Owen could be a really super-awesome big brother figure to this little guy! Assuming he was Eljay's offspring, that was... Tail genially all awag, Owen stretched out his long red nose and took a deeper sniff to try and ascertain this for sure.

The deer-hide seemed to have ceased its shenanigans without the child's animating force behind it, unsurprisingly. Owen glanced at the battered toy laying there all forlorn, and had to fight back a knowing smirk as Elfie ordered the thing to stay put where it was. Owen felt himself rather worldly and superior in that moment, smiling fondly down on the young boy, thinking to himself how great it was that he actually had a little brother...of sorts! In the wrong pack and at the wrong time and all that, true, but still! This was pretty cool, especially since it allayed the fears he'd relayed to Eljay awhile back. ...It never occurred to Owen that his newest favoritest "little brother" here might be already scheming about making Owen his next chew toy. Owen had already convinced himself after all that there was no way on earth that brothers could be anything like as bad as sisters, after all. Owen had more experience than he would ever have entirely wanted of the latter, after all, and none whatsoever of the former...and yeah, it kinda badly showed.

Owen crouched down coaxingly as the younger boy trip-trotted closer. Hey there! Are you one of Eljay's little kids, kid? And already such an impressive little hunter, wow! If I ever have a bit of deer attacking me I'll be sure to keep yourself in mind to call, in event of an emergency. I'm sure you could take down any ol' mean deer that meant anywolf some harm. Owen was oblivious to the sickly sugary sweetness creeping into his tone of voice, a doting and somewhat condescending cadence that he had always rather resented adults leveling in his direction when he was younger. That was just how one talked to little kids though, right? Especially when one wasn't even sure if they could actually talk back at all just yet.

The super-adorable little shrimp was a gremlin in disguise. Owen's sweet, condescending tone did not annoy or insult him the least, mainly because he was too young to understand most of, what the adults cooed to him. And - what's more important, he had learned that baby-talking almost always meant that they were going to give in. 

So, at first Elfie sniffed politely at his uncle's muzzle, tail wagging innocently behind him and then, when it was the least expected he bared his teeth in a devillish grin, opened his jaws - as predators do in cartoons - and was about to take a huge chunk of that big, leather button right in front of him.

Owen's gaze was fond, and nearly as soft and gooey as the tone of his baby-talking voice, as he looked down with growing fondness on the fluffy tot before him. Just look at that! The little guy was wagging his tail at him, and toddling boldly right up to him. Owen was happy to find himself the center of attention from such a cute little furball of a relative, and scrunched his own long limbs down further so as to get directly on the little guy's level. His own proudly upswept tail swooshed the air mightily behind him. He tucked his own chin downward and simpered back to see the tiny dude smiling so widely as he approached what Owen had already convinced himself the tiny one saw as his adopted big brother, here.

Gy'aaawww, you really are a cute little thing arentchyyaaaAAAHHHWWWCH! Then the teeth landed, sinking right into Owen's innocent nose leather. Up he sprung, legs stiff as a board and tail jutting out behind him in a bottlebrush like an angry cat's. His skull whipped upward into the air, instinctively hoping to dislodge his assailant through such a motion—but Owen found himself unwilling to go much further than that. What was he going to do after all, beat up a teeny tiny puppy?! Aaahh-ah-ah, hey, HEY, let go, let GO! he half-commanded and half-pleaded when he finally managed to find his words again, crossing his eyes to stare in desperation at the shark-toothed little monster he had so unwittingly allowed to let attach itself to his poor schnozz.

Wasn't that fun?! Elfie gave Owen a villainous grin, when he had landed on all four feet again after being jerked upwards earlier. It did not seem that the bigger wolf shared either his amusement or sense of humour. And he had no idea, how much it hurt to be bitten on the muzzle, but in the later months, while roughhousing with the rest of the Blackthorn crew, he would find out. 

Without any sense of shame or appropriate timing, he charged again, this time aiming for the tasty looking "knuckle sausages" aka paws. Perhaps, biting them would make more sounds to come out of his playmate.

Oh thank freaking goodness, his teeny assailant came loose without too many wild gyrations of his head required. Aaahh, ahaha, ow, said Owen, still somewhat in shock as he half-reached a paw up toward his throbbing, tender nose before thinking better of it—what if that might merely aggravate it worse, after all? He gawped in wounded dejection at the little furball who’d attacked him; confusedly he felt both disappointed and as stunned as a deer in headlights. He’d thought they were getting along so well! Wasn’t he someone this little toothy beast looked up to and admired and respected?! What the hell—how could it all have gone so wrong, so fast, and without a single warning sign so far as Owen had spotted?

How could it possibly be that bitty baby brothers could indeed be just as bad or worse than sisters?!

As Owen stood back and struggled to process all this, of course, his new “friend” did not remain idle. As Owen stared in hurt bafflement at the wickedly wide toothy grin the younger boy offered up, he was too slow on the uptake to realize that although his now-held-safely-high brown-black nose was out of the stubby-legged predator’s reach, other body parts were definitely not, and the precocious youngster had already swiftly changed his target. Owen yelped several times and tried to half-leap, half-mince speedily back as if he was stepping on hot coals—No, no, not the toes not the toes!! he screeched but alas, it was already too late. He was still trying to be careful not to actually hurt the little guy though, even as he ineptly flailed and tried to shoo the pup back to a safe distance away; unfortunately for him that meant Owen was being rather less careful about his own person. He didn’t see the protruding branch until he backed his rump directly into it. With another, even higher-pitched screech he rocketed forward, his tender hindquarters and still-stinging nose conspiring for a moment to make him forget to be careful not to trample the younger and presumably more-fragile boy (though given Owen’s current theatrics, one could definitely be forgiven for suspecting the opposite).

Elfie was used to adults towering over him and being somewhere far off in the sky, but this was the first time anyone deliberately used him as a rug and walked over him (that's, how he felt). He gave out a high-pitched yelp and once he had recovered and knew the exact location, where he was now, and the point he needed to get to - he bolted for the den, wailing loudly along the way. Let them know, how he had been treated! So mean!

Fifteen minutes later, however, all of this would be forgotten. And in the bigger scheme of things he would never remember this encounter at all. Other stuff would happen.