Sun Mote Copse he just started like banging his hands together.

Fig had heard the rumors about the new pack that was encroaching upon their hunting grounds, and while he wasn't particularly worried about them, he was feeling more wary as he walked along the Eastern borders. He didn't know all the details seeing as I'm not sure he's actually supposed to know anything at this point, but he was confident in the strength of his pack. He also couldn't fathom a reason for them to be anything less than neighborly. Naive of him, perhaps, but nonetheless.

He paused for a few minutes to inspect the side of a tree. It smelled odd, like something had been rubbing up against it. There was a tangle of dark fur caught in the bark, but he couldn't place what animal it came from. He frowned, then lifted a leg to pee over it, claiming it for his own before continuing on, scanning the area for any other signs of the animal.

Sometime between the start of Rain Month and getting lost, Figment and Fennec had come home. Alyx had no idea how she'd missed this development, but chocked it up to being mired in misery, then recovering from her time in Rusalka. Not that there was much recovering to do. They'd treated her very kindly and returned her better than they'd found her, so she had nothing to complain about. But in the days thereafter, she began to miss her friend there, and became strangely reclusive for a week or two.

Now she was out and about again, intently following the winding scent trail her older brother had left along the borders. He wasn't prey, but she nevertheless felt she was honing her skills by tracking him. It wasn't much of a challenge, unfortunately. His course was pretty obvious considering he was clearly on a patrol, but she did her best to use only her nose. She even shut her eyes at one point and followed where the scent was strongest, at least until she bonked her snout into a tree thanks to the splash of urine he'd left all over it.

It was still stinging when she caught up to him. Fig! she called out in a somewhat nasally voice, wondering if he would recognize her now that she was all grown up.

Fig was distracted from his searching by the sound of approaching footsteps, soon followed by a shout of his name. He turned to look behind him with interest, a smile breaking across his lips as he saw one of his sisters following his trail. He'd never managed to be as close to his father's second litter as he had been with Towhee's first--the distance between himself and Niamh making it a bit uncomfortable. But they meant no less to him than any other of his siblings because of it.

"Hello, little sister," Fig greeted, reaching to nudge her temple affectionately. She was getting to be far less little than she had been, but he still could see her as a tiny pup gumming ferociously on his paw. "You alright?" he asked, noting her voice sounded a little off.

She made a low, affectionate sound in her throat when Fig's muzzle bumped the side of her head. Yeah, just smacked my nose, she shared, shooting a dirty look over her shoulder toward the offending tree, which was well out of sight by now. She wasn't about to admit she'd been so engrossed in following the trail that she'd mistaken his urine puddle for him.

Whatcha doin'? she wondered, even though it was pretty self-explanatory. Mostly, she just wanted to force herself into whatever activity he was doing so she could spend time with him. Maybe he could even be like... her new Bronco. Y'know, since the real Bronco was a filthy traitor who abandoned her here.

She explain what had happened, but said she was fine. She did seem fine enough, so he merely nodded in acceptance. Fig had no doubt that she'd gotten herself into much worse scrapes in her life. She was a kid, after all. A little nose bump was nothing (since there was no blood).

"Just doing a border patrol," Fig answered. He hesitated for a moment before continuing, weighing whether or not he should say anything about what he'd discovered. What if it really was something dangerous? He ought to be sending her away, not... "I actually just found a patch of fur in the bark of that tree back there," he explained, nodding back towards it, "The scent wasn't familiar, so I was going to follow the trail and just make sure the whatever-it-was is gone. You wanna go take a whiff and help me out?"

He was reasonably sure it wasn't a real thread. The fur was low on the tree, which suggested that whatever kind of animal it was, it wasn't something big. He could protect her if they did somehow happen upon it, or at least distract it while she ran for help.

Turns out Fig was way cooler.

At least, he earned himself some major cool points when he invited her to come along and help him. Bronco probably would've wanted to protect her or something, and while she'd loved that as a kid, nowadays she wanted to be more useful. Alyx had a lot of brief interests that fizzled out quickly, but hunting was something that remained close to her heart. Okay, so it wasn’t really a hunt, but it kind of was, wasn’t it? Like a treasure hunt, but for some big, bad animal.

She was sold. Okay one sec! She scrambled back to the indicated tree and found the tuft of fur sticking up from the bark. Low to the ground and dark in colour, but she was too hasty to really notice much else about it besides the smell of it. Kinda musky. Kinda… gross, actually. Eww, what the eff, she muttered, wriggling her nose while she made her way back to her brother.

Kay, ready! she told him, grinning. If the trail smelled half as bad as the fur did, she didn’t think they’d have any trouble finding it.

Figment smiled while Alyx eagerly ran back to inspect the trail he'd indicated. He waited patiently for her, all the while trying to wrack his brain for what the creature could be. He somewhat suspected that it was a badger. It was reminiscent of the scent he and Arcturus had followed once. That had been a long time ago, though, and they'd never actually come across the beast. He tried to remember the description of it he'd been given as Alyx came bounding back.

"Alright, off we go," Fig replied with a smile as he turned and set off with his head swinging low. "You recognize the scent at all?" he asked conversationally as he paused to inspect a patch of grass further.

They didn't end up finding the creature, but while that might've disappointed Alyx, Fig was pretty okay with the outcome. He was just happy to spend time with his little sister.