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DoTW: New Friends and Moss Balls

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An RP between :iconlilwyverngirl: and :iconl-young: featuring our characters Kris’tran and Echo.

:iconlilwyverngirl:

Kris'tran trotted into the den site, for once looking a little happier and more confident than he normally would. Most of the patrols were out again and he was just switching places with Seaver to watch one of the new pups in Aryn. If there was one thing that delighted the young adult, it was pups. His terrifying and mentally damaging past made him determined to never allow such a thing to fall on any pup he could possibly rescue.

Aryn was no place where such neglect would ever happen, at least Kris'tran had been assured of this. Regardless, no pup would be harmed by another wolf while he was on watch. He padded in, his eyes searching for the pup that he would be keeping an eye on. He found the dark brown female and padded up to her, ears pricked forward in interest as he laid down in order to be at her level.

"Hello - Echo, is it?" He said with a kind smile. "I am Kris'tran, of hearted spirit. I am to be watching you. How are you faring, flowered lady?"

:iconl-young:

Echo sat towards the back of the den, quizzically staring at the entrance, trying to figure out how to slip past her guard. Her attempts at convincing him to go exploring with her had been futile and she had been unsuccessful in sneaking past him so far. She must have worn him out because he was pretending to be asleep. She sighed. Being in trouble stank. It was boring in the den. She had already explored every corner down to the smallest pebble.

Flopping down and rolling onto her back, Echo stretched her little legs as far into the air as they would go. She recalled her last adventure, the big failure that had landed her here in puppy prison. She had just successfully snuck past the wardens yet again but then she stumbled upon a blue jay who promptly flew at her, making quite a racket. She dodged its sharp beak and jumped away till she was far enough away for it to lose interest but by then her cover had been blown. One of the wardens trotted over to see what the commotion was all about and, upon finding Echo grinning back sheepishly, sighed in exasperation. He gave her yet another lecture about how dangerous it was to sneak off and took her back to the den. She guessed she had crossed a line because this time they assigned someone to keep an eye on her. No need for everyone to be so uptight. She would have to be more careful next time and watch out for those evil birds. Echo let her legs flop back down to the ground and sighed again. That is, if she could ever get out of here. She didn't see what the big deal was. She knew her way home.

Movement at the front of the den caught her eye as a young dark brown male with big paws entered and, after spotting her, headed her direction. Upon seeing him, her current guard got up and left. So this must be her new guard. Finally some change! She jumped up to her feet as he laid down in front of her. "Hello! Yup, that's me!" Echo cocked her head to the side as he introduced himself. Of heartened spirit? What did that mean? "You know mister, you talk funny. What's a flowered lady? Can we go exploring please? It would be so much fun with two of us! I'm so bored in here and I want to practice my hunting!" Echo stretched out her front legs into a play bow and looked up at him with wide, hopeful eyes, her tail wagging furiously. He looked friendly, like he could be reasoned with to go play. It was worth a shot.

:iconlilwyverngirl:

Kris'tran smiled at the eager pup at first while she ran up to him eagerly. He laughed lightly at her comment about his speech and her run of questions. "I know that, flowered lady. I came from far away before Aryn." The dark brown male seemed amused by her speech. He hoped she never lost her straightforwardness. "Ahhh, flowered lady is for something like a flower as opposed to plants or carcass? I cannot tell you what it means, for I know no other word for flowered yet."

He frowned at her as he responded to her other questions though. "You know you are not allowed to go out of the den site," Kris'tran chided gently. "Wandering about unknowing is dangerous. Besides, you can practice hunting here in the den site. Or maybe we can play some sort of game?" He cocked his head to the side with a smile again and gave a playful woof. And while he knew how trapped Echo probably felt being told to stay in the den site as punishment for her last outing, he wasn't about to get into trouble himself by letting the youngster convince him to pay outside the den area.

"What kind of games do you know?" he asked her trying to hopefully quell the disappointed "but why?"s that were probably going to ensue. "We can play hunt or play fight. Or I can ball up some grass and moss to play with." He tilted his head in the opposite direction. "I'm sure it can't be all that boring here in the den."

:iconl-young:

The small brown she-wolf sat back up and listened as the older male started to reply to her rapid-fire questions. As he spoke about being from a far away land her curiosity perked up and she pricked both her ears forward in interest. There was more beyond Aryn? What kinds of worlds could be out there? She kept these thoughts to herself with a slight smile. She was well aware that her adventures were what kept getting her into trouble and the cause of her being locked inside and yet, already, she was hatching plans to find these far away places and see what discoveries they might hold. But she wasn’t going to tell anyone. No, she would keep this to herself.

Her attention shifted back to Kris’tran as he tried to explain his strange phrase with flowers. Echo cocked her head to the side, one ear flopping down to her skull as she pictured flowers and thought about how they were different from carcasses. When she had an idea, both ears pricked forward again. “Well, flowers are pretty! And some smell good but don’t sniff them too close or they make you sneeze,” she said as she crinkled her nose. “I saw them give Mother some kind of flower sometimes while she was sick. They told her it would make her feel better but I don’t think it worked.” Echo looked down, missing Mother for a moment. But then she shook herself, the memory gone, and she gave her attention back to her babysitter as he frowned down at her.

Her hope of having an adventure outside today faded as he chided her about wandering around being dangerous and her shoulders slumped down in disappointment. He gave her the same answer as everyone else. What could be so dangerous that everyone was so against her going out? “All I have seen out there is birds, bugs, a couple mice and once I saw a frog. The only trouble came from the evil birds.” She mumbled as she looked at her paws. She raised her head to look back at her dark brown guard, confused curiosity clouding her expression, “What’s so dangerous about those? What is everyone so worried about? I can find my way home. Besides, the unknowing is part of the fun!” Echo finished with a slight pout to her face. She knew she was fighting a losing battle. No one ever told her anything.

She accepted her situation with a sigh and one ear flopped back down to her head as she considered the options for play that were offered to her with a friendly smile and coaxing woof from her companion. Her attempts at play fighting so far had never gone very well, she was too small to do anything and had no real muscle to speak of. Hunting was more fun outside where one could hide behind bushes and trees. A grin slowly spread across Echo’s face as an idea emerged at the mention of a ball and her ear pricked back up as her tail started to thump the ground. She lifted her head to meet her new friend’s patient and hopeful gaze. “A ball of moss would be fun to play with! We can play Keep Away with it!” She exclaimed with a big grin and a playful light in her eyes as she bounced to her feet.

:iconlilwyverngirl:

Kris'tran smile widened at the pup's interpretation of "flowered." Scents are certainly a different way of interpreting the benefits of flowers. Maybe pretty was a good comparison, though it seemed lacking in something. He decided he'd ask another wolf later on if they could help find a word for him to replace flowered. But her sadness after mentioning her mother made his smile fade as he tried to think of some way of brightening her up without allowing the youngster out of the den area.

When she shot back about her exploring not being "dangerous" he frowned again. "Where I am from there are mountained birds, sized enough to take a pup from the ground to the sky. And the ground can suck grown wolves under in the Wispwood if you are not careful. When you have enough moons you can go out and learn the terrain. For now here is safer."

Her interest in his ball idea made him feel a little better about having to enforce the rule for her to stay within the den site. When Kris'tran had been still a pup left mostly to his mother's watch, she'd balled up old bedding for he and his siblings to bat around and pretend to catch like prey. Sometimes she would even roll it in the blood of fresh kill so it smelled like prey. There was a mossy rock that was in the den site they could peel some off to play with. "There's moss on that rock over there," he told her, deciding not to let the youngster out of his sight to collect what he'd need. "Let's go collect some there and we can play out in the common area a bit." He backed out of the den where Echo was in and waited for her to follow him out before pointing with his nose to the rocks near his own den. There was dry moss still clinging to one of the rocks that the sun beat down onto it. It would be perfect to roll into a ball to chase.

:iconl-young:

Echo was starting to get the hang of how this older wolf talked. She brushed aside the caution about big birds in the mountains with a flick of her ear. The wardens had warned her about something called an eagle before, saying that one could easily grab her and carry her away but she had yet to see one so she was not concerned. She was sure she could get away from whatever an eagle was but the mention of the ground grabbing her intrigued her and she cocked her head. “The ground grabs you? Is it not hard like everywhere else? The ground is not alive. How can it grab someone?” This tidbit of information was fascinating. She would have to go see if it was true sometime when she got out again. She needed to figure out where this Wispwood was. She tucked the thought away with an innocent expression on her face as she waited for an answer.

At the mention of collecting moss to make a ball, Echo jumped to her feet in excitement. She followed Kris’tran out of her den and bounded in a circle around him before seeing the rock he pointed to with his nose. She smiled and bounced over to it, circling the rock and nosing the moss a bit as Kris’tran followed her over. The sun felt good on her dark brown coat after being kept inside her den all day and she gave a happy pant as she leapt on top of the rock and stretched out into a play bow, tail high in the air and wagging, both ears pricked forward as she watched the older male make a ball from the moss, learning what he did. It would be good to know how to make one herself. You never know when you might need a ball of moss. She jumped back onto the ground and braced herself, waiting for her friend to bat it her way, ready to bolt in and grab it. Keep Away was a game she was good at. Her lack of size and quick little legs made her a hard one to catch. She smiled in anticipation.

:iconlilwyverngirl:

As Echo barraged him with questions, the young adult chuckled to himself under his breath. He could just imagine how the pup might see marsh ground - the ground turning into a wolven face that lurched out to snatch the wolves. At least that was how he'd seen marsh ground when his mother had first warned him about the waterlogged land. Echo seemed unperturbed by the information though and more curious than ever.

She hopped up on the rock ahead of him and watched him curiously as he padded up to the rock. There was a thick patch of drying and some dead moss on the rock. He took a paw and started scratching at the surface between the moss and the rock until he'd loosened the moss enough to catch his claws on the edge and pull it down. While he did so, he clarified the marshy land. "It is soft land, watered too much that the earth becomes like dust; easy to move and give way. But unlike dust it is also unforgiving, like water. Moving out of the mud is like trying to move a puddle of water to a new spot. Very, very hard. You can be trained to walk in such watered places though. But someone must teach you first. Don't go out on your own."

He finally peeled off enough moss that he thought it was sufficient to make into a ball. Much of the strands had separated and frayed while he'd scraped it off, which would help him ball it together. Now he pushed the moss carpet against the rock to help him shape it; using one paw and his muzzle to force the moss into a loose round shape. He kept shifting his moss creation and repeating the process until the moss had been made into a sufficiently solid shape that it wouldn't just fall apart right away. He figured they would have a few passes or so before the moss unraveled since without help he wouldn't be able to shape it better than this.

"There," he said once he was satisfied. "My mother showed me how to make these. She made them for us littles when I was still so pebbled that she was our lone caretaker. It won't survive too much batting or chomping on," he warned. "We usually tore it apart after a few pounces." He rolled the little ball away a little bit to start the game, one eye on Echo.


:iconl-young:

Echo considered the older male’s explanation of the dangerous ground at the Wispwood as she watched him scratch at the moss covered stone. Trying to understand a ground that moved like water but was full of deep mud was hard to picture when she had never experienced something like that before. Her curiosity was not quelled in the slightest; however, she did concede with Kris'tran's warning that she would have to be careful when she went to explore this place. She had speed, not strength. Or size. If she got stuck in the mud she would have a very hard time trying to get out if help didn’t show up.

At the announcement of the ball’s completion, Echo’s tail started to wag in anticipation. She took notice of Kris’tran’s cautioning advise to not be too rough with it as she watched him bat it a little ways away to start the game. She sprang into action, leaping forward and gently grabbing the ball in her mouth before leaping a little distance away and turning back towards the older male, waiting for him to chase her before springing away again, a playful light in her eyes challenging him to catch her if he thought he could.

:iconlilwyverngirl:

Kris'tran leaned back on the ground in a sort of canine playful bow before following the young pup, his ears cupped forward playfully. He hadn't actually played with other wolves or pups for quite some time and it brought back a lot of memories long supressed behind the horrible memories of abuse his father left on his mind. Instead he remembered chasing his sisters and mother around with moss balls just like the one he just made for Echo to play with. He pounced after her, making sure he always came up short of the pup and jumping about playfully.

"Haha, you can't keep it away from me forever," he said playfully with a laugh and a wag of his tail. Kris' big paws and smaller frame made him look like a gigantic puppy as he chased Echo. He didn't care if any of the other wolves looked at him funny for being so playful with the young she-wolf. It made him feel much better to temporarily forget his dark past chasing the little pup as well as stretch his legs. He hated sitting idle - if he was going to watch pups, they would all get a lot of exercise.

:iconl-young:

It felt great to stretch her legs as Echo darted back and forth, her companion hot on her heals as they tore around the den site, not a care in the world. She hated being cooped up. Glancing over her shoulder at Kris’tran she smiled at his playful challenge. “Watch me!” She countered as best as she could through her ball of moss as she darted away again. The light in his eyes showed that he was having just as much fun as she was. He had relaxed into the game, releasing some tension that he seemed to always carry with him. She would have to seek him out the next time she was bored. He made a great playmate. She decided right then and there that Kris’tran would become a good friend. Echo huffed happily as they continued their game. It had turned out to be a good day after all.
You know Echo, if you didn't act like a pup then you wouldn't be treated like one, lol. Silly girl never learns.

Quick Summary: Echo gets in trouble for something and is confined to the den site. She gets caught trying to sneak away and so Kris'tran is assigned to watch her and keep her in check.

Kris'tran (c) :iconlilwyverngirl:
Echo (c) :iconl-young:

For :icondomain-of-the-wolf:
Comments4
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switt's avatar
Aww, the interaction between Kris and Echo is super sweet! <3

Speaking of, Echo is adorable. Poor girl is in puppy prison. xD