Sun Mote Copse but who could know if i'm a traitor?

time had a strange way of only looking forward, even those that experienced it were stuck in 'looking back'.

arcturus had replayed in his mind his last week in the spear a thousand times, wondering if one small nuance would change it all.. yet, as wraen had shown him, no matter what you did, it seemed fate would do as fate pleased.

hedging a sigh into the cold spring morning, arcturus patrolled firebird's eastern front.

With all the guardians in their ranks these days, Fig couldn't help but wonder if there was really much point in him continuing his daily rounds. He certainly enjoyed them, but he wondered if maybe they were overkilling it lately. Or was there such a thing? Until he had a chance to hash it out with someone, he would just continue doing what he did. Though he did think on it often. Maybe if he dropped down to just two trips around the borders a day, he might be able to spend that extra time hanging out with his baby siblings...

Distracted by his thoughts, he didn't notice he was headed right towards their latest addition to the guard squad until he was near enough to hear Arcturus's breathing. Fig lifted his gaze to land on the other male and froze in place, startled. It took him a few seconds to recognize him having not spent much time with him since the day they'd been introduced, but he relaxed when recognition fell upon him, and he smiled. 

"Hey! Sorry, I haven't been paying much attention to where I was going," he admitted sheepishly, then paused as he realized how absurd it was that he hadn't been paying attention--wasn't he patrolling the borders? Wasn't attention a little bit of a requirement to be effective doing this? "Probably should be... considering..." Fig's ears fell back and he looked away, a bit embarassed of himself.

arcturus had caught many scents along their borders; firebirds was full of a proud race of guardians, and it pleased him. being the newest, it took him some time to decipher the scents braided into the firewood, but one he found often was figment, the quieter of the boys he had met his first week in his new home.

alerted to figment's presence by the crunch of leaves and pinestraw underfoot, arcturus halted and waved his tail in easy acceptance as the yearling approached. he smiled in respond to figment's explanation -- he needed no explanation, for arcturus often found himself lost in thought as he went. "it becomes route, which makes it easy to let your mind wander." he supplied understandingly. "i was just going to check the stony fen at the edge of our territory. thought i smelled a badger there yesterday. would you like to come with me?"

Arcturus’s understanding remarks settled the embarrassment Fig was feeling until it was nearly erased. The yearling smiled, considering the idea. He hadn’t realized it until now, but he had grown to know the copse almost as well as he had the Grove or they Frosthawks’ territory. That was a comforting thought after feeling so very out of place when he and Phox had first arrived. Somewhere along the lines, he’d started to belong. He liked that.

Smiling to himself, he nodded his acceptance of the invitation. His ears perked in curiosity though. ”A badger?” Fig repeated questioning and trying to go back in his memory. Had he smelled it? He certainly prowled the borders enough that he likely had, but it didn’t stand out in his memory. ”Are they dangerous?” he asked, realizing he likely sounded naive. He didn’t care much though, not when the answer could be “yes” and so there were more important things to worry about rather than his reputation.

they fell easily in step, arcturus taking care to match figment's strides. with the two of them serving as patrolmen, there would be little to pass their paired eyes without inspection.

arcturus considered figment's question. anything was dangerous, in the right place at the wrong time. "moreso to puppies than adults - but i would not go picking a fight with one. do you know what they look like? i have only seen one in my life." arcturus considered them rather rare -- thankfully they had never favored the mountain.. but it appeared they, like wolves, had areas they were more apt to frequent -- and it just so happened the copse seemed their preferred habitat.

Fig frowned, not at all liking the answer he got. How could he have overlooked the scent of something on the borders that was potentially dangerous to his little siblings? He wondered if it had been merely a matter of timing--maybe he'd been by just before the badger arrived, so there hadn't been a scent to catch when he'd been there. More likely, there was simply a badger-sized gap in his knowledge. He hoped it was badger-sized, anyway, and not larger with more room for even bigger predators to get through.

He shook his head with a frown. "No," he replied because I realized that if he'd been told once what they looked like, he'd probably been told they're assholes. I'll just keep him completely clueless on this. He gave a questioning look to Arcturus, leaving him space to elaborate. He wanted to know everything he could about their enemy and start shoring up that gap.

arcturus didn't fault figment for being oblivious to all of the world's threats and predators. instinct only prepared a wolf for so much -- the rest was won by hard-earned knowledge.

he supposed that fig was lucky to never have met the beasts. they were fierce, and quite rakish in temperament. "well, they're not common. they're about the size of a three month wolf-pup. usually grey, with black and white striping. think a big skunk or wolverine, but no crazy tail." arcturus offered gently, sensing disappointment in the young guardian. he nosed along the ground for several moments, searching for that vague strand of badger-scent. "i only saw the one i mentioned before. i don't think they like being near wolves, for the most part. something about us being bad neighbors." he grinned in half-jest, pointing with his nose towards a clump of ferns that had a barely perceptible, several day old scent to it. "that's where i thought i sensed something. see what you smell."

the pair kept to it for hours longer, sussing what they could -- figment would show arcturus places he knew of the copse, and arcturus would share what little he knew of prey and predators; in the end, the two departed with arcturus feeling his handle on 'home' was that much stronger.