Lost Creek Hollow I think it looks more like a puma

@Terance!

The den had stopped being their required sleeping place, but that didn't mean the family had necessarily wandered far.  That was partially because in Arbiter's analysis of the territory, she hadn't been too happy with many of other other places that hadn't up until recently been claimed by Rannoch and Liffey.  But hey, this was Spook's thread, so let's go back to that kid.

He yawned.  It was well after dark and as far as he could tell everyone else was asleep.  His mother didn't rouse as he got up and wandered a little bit away -- not too far, let's be clear -- and he looked around in the shadows for whatever must have awoken him. If something even had.  He didn't particularly feel tired right now, but as he looked back over his shoulder at the darkish blobs of the majority of his family looked more like statues from this distance.  Not a twitch.  But at least he wouldn't bug them from here.  He sat down and started scratching at an ear.  Uhh.  What did anyone do at this time of night anyway?

if terance had woken his son, he hadn't meant to. but as he pushed through the underbrush away from his sleeping family, the sound of scuffling alerted him as well. he paused, looking back over his shoulder, nose twitching, as he gathered his surroundings. it seemed one of their menaces had awoken with him -- so terance turned to find out which one.

as he was visible again through the underbrush, he noted that it was spook who had woken. not terance's favorite, by any means, but certainly a breathe of fresh air from thing one and two. he gave a soft chuff to the boy, and then motioned with his head to follow him, disappearing once again into the wood.

Well at least he wasn't in trouble!  He did freeze at his father's summons, though, and kept there stupidly a moment before suddenly jumping into action and after his father.  Once he caught up, Spook didn't immediately fall into place as a shadow, starting off forward enough to nose at Terance's chin, which these days was a lot less of a stretch than it had been when he was younger.

He was certainly the most submissive of the trio, even though he didn't seem to be lacking in size or anything -- maybe a little bit less weight, but he was well within the healthy range.  Spook's words were kind of hushed, Daaad?  Where we goin'?  The times they'd been taken out on patrol had all been daylight, so that seemed unlikely.  Heck, he might not have connected the fact that it could be done at night so he assumed it was some other adventure.  Or like.. Time to go get a snack or something at least.  Or maybe something else?  Let's be real, when Arbiter had taken them around the territory, it had been all about utilitarianism -- for good or for bad.

terance grinned as the boy moved to follow him, nosing at his chin. the leader returned the motion, giving his son a little nose to the forehead as he walked over him. quietly, he noted how big the kids were getting. even spook, who was a bit smaller than the other two gremlins, was growing fast. terance still loomed over them, but all the same. as spook asked where they were going, terance answered first with merely a hum, his tail swaying. 

to the river, he answered, giving the child hardly a satisfying answer. likely, this was not what spook had expected -- though terance didn't know what he expected. patrol, maybe? he and arbiter tended to do a lot of that. he'd never taken arbiter out to do something like this, either, it didn't feel up her ally... but, silently, terance wondered if she secretly had a romantic side. the thought crinkled the edge of his eyes -- arbiter probably found ripping limbs off animals more romantic than this. 

and when they arrived at the river, a little downstream from their den, terance stepped onto one of the large, flat stones that bordered the creek. there were more, and they step-stoned into the water, which rushed over them even in the dead of night, but terance chose the dry one on the bank. and, without much else explanation -- expecting questions to come -- the stone himself tilted his head back, and stared up into the sky. if spook looked, he'd notice that the trees didn't loom above them. instead, the forest opened up to the sky, revealing a blanket of midnight blue, and the brightest of twinkling stars.

He was a little bit... Nonconfrontational?  For starters, at least.  Hence his only response was kind of a perplexed, Oh, as he tried to figure out why that might be.  Yeah, all things considered their world had been pretty routine and firmly educational in the realm of the practical.  Aside from whatever riotous games happened to be created by his other two siblings -- he was definitely not the instigator of anything.

Spook trotted along quietly, falling slightly behind as they got to the river because he wasn't sure what they were gonna do.  Cross it? It quickly became clear that wasn't the case as his father took a seat and looked... up?  Spook looked between Terance and the blackness above once, twice, then moved up to sit beside him.  Whatcha doingt?  There had to be more than just looking up, it wasn't like he saw his father randomly staring up at the trees or anything -- except when something made noise up there, then sure, whatever.

sure enough, spook did ask questions. he didn't seem to be as mesmerized as terance had been the first time his mother had brought him to truly stare at them. but ah well, he supposed they were half arbiter. i'm stargazing, he told his son, still looking up for a beat longer before gazing back down at the hooded boy, the stars above us -- they're nice to look at, i think. and then he watched and waited to see if spook had any opinions or anymore questions. 

sometimes they make pictures, too, he added with a quirk of his brow and a small smile.

Stargazing?  Huh.  He'd looked up and down a few times in the interim, not really sure what he should be doing, but now he looked up yet again and took a longer look.  Well, the stars certainly sparkled, at least.  He wasn't quite seeing how they were making pictures, though -- they were just a bunch of dots.  Since the dots didn't seem particularly illustrative by themselves, he made a guess, Pictures?  Do they like.. move and turn into stuff?  He certainly hadn't noticed but the trees did a much better job at blocking out the sky so he didn't have a chance to notice or be too curious.  That'd be pretty cool to watch, though!  He squinted, looking for the smallest movement.

terance chuckled. no, they don't move... but there are stories that describe the formations that the stars take -- like that cluster, there, the man said, pointing to the little dipper. he tried to get his son to follow his paw, pointing up to the stars. do you see it? it makes a little bowl -- it's call the little dipper. it felt right, to be describing stars to his kids again. he missed the times he'd done this with ibiis and okeanos... though it wasn't very often, as they've moved away just as these skills were developing. he glanced back at warlock, wondering if the pup had any opinions on the matter.

He could sort of see the shape, but in his mind the exact concept was a little fuzzy.  They were a few random points of light that maybe should be grouped together?  Oooh, he said.  Spook was pretty sure he was looking at the right thing.  But what was he supposed to see exactly?  Should he see more?  Should it really form into whatever it was?

His eyes wandered across the sky.  There were so many stars, and some did seem like they grouped together.  And there was the lighter stripe of the Milky Way cutting the sky at an angle.  Uhm.  But... All of them?  That's a lot of things up there and stuff.  He gawked upwards into the black.  Are they all stories?

everything in this world has a story, he told the boy with a small smile, like some cryptic fatherly asshole, but not all stars make groups together. 

there are a lot of things up there, he agreed with a chuckle, tail waving, i used to stargaze with my mother on every night clear enough to see the sky -- we found a lot of cool stuff up there. he shifted as his gaze scanned the nighttime sky again, landing on another cluster that gave him a little smile. sometimes, he added, gaze falling back down to spook, we used to make up our own stories, pick a few stars, imagine a shape, and then tell a story about it. he and ibis and okeanos had done that once or twice, but they were too young to fully get a grip on the concept... maybe spook was too, but at least he had more time with his son this go around.

You could probably see the gears grinding in his head.  That was a lot of stuff.  Seriously, everything was a lot.  Like he definitely could not count that high.  It was an interesting idea, though it did give him a bit of a feeling that the trees that rimmed his vision were somehow watching him.  Maybe like they were more alive than he thought.  If "sentient" was in his vocabulary, that would have been the right word.  Spook was quiet for a moment longer eyeballing the sky before looking to his father.  Tell one?  And a couple of quick wags of his tail to emphasize it.  After all, you couldn't just taunt the kid forever, could you?!