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Jak expelled her held breath in a sharp, irritated huff as her ears and tail drooped in disappointment. It seemed this would not be the morning she caught Riddiq unawares after all. She knew she would accomplish it someday. She didn't really know why it was so important to her that she manage this thing, but it was a goal she'd set herself. Riddiq always seemed to be aware of everything, and she thought that if she could maybe, just once, surprise him then it would prove she had gotten as good as he was.

Quickly she shook off her disappointment and offered him a crooked grin containing much self-directed chagrin. There were still lots of mornings to come, she reminded herself with the easy, confident optimism of youth. He had their mother's eyes, she thought as she met his gaze unflinchingly, despite having been caught in the act of sneaking. She guessed her blue eyes had come from their father. Svanhild and Vaako had blue eyes, too, but they weren't nearly as interesting to her as Riddiq. Something about her oldest sibling just drew her, and even though she knew he preferred to be alone she could not help shadowing him.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she lied badly.

Riddiq eyed his sister with a relatively blank face, one brow lifted at her poor attempt to lie. Though they were so young, Riddiq found himself setting aside a goal to teach Jakyra to lie better. It would benefit them to be able to lie convincingly if they got into trouble. He shook his head and pushed himself up off the ground, turning to face her and sitting down.

"You're worse at lyin' than you are at pouncin'." He said in a soft rumble, so as to not wake his brother and his other two sisters. The thought of them made Riddiq remove his gaze from Jakyra to look over at his sleeping siblings. Subconsciously, he was checking on them. He shook his head and looked at Jakyra. "You see her go?" He meant their mother, though he doubted she'd seen Gintare take off. He hadn't this time, he hadn't woken up until after the fact but like Jakyra, he wasn't worried.

Unlike Jakyra, it wasn't because Gintare kept coming back. He was confident in his ability to take care of his sisters if it came to it. Vaako'd be of some help: however the little brother bothered him, Vaako was dependable. A good man to have on his side, if nothing else.

That was a surprise. Jak had assumed that Riddiq would have woken as their mother was leaving, and so would have seen her leave at least. But then, her estimation of his abilities in pretty much every area bordered on granting him divine powers. She was absolutely convinced that her oldest brother could do anything he set his mind to. Her experience of the world was too limited for her to realize that no one could be good at everything, and she certainly wouldn't be able to recognize any of his flaws any time soon. Not while wearing those blinders of loyalty.

Jak's gaze followed Riddiq's and she tried to guess what he was looking at, and what he saw when he looked at it. Along with her brother's innate superiority, Jak was firmly convinced that he actually saw things differently than she or their other siblings did. Even Kofie, who had the same amber eyes, didn't seem to see things like Riddiq did.

This time, she didn't see it. It was just their cave. There wasn't anything special about it, except that it was reasonably safe and exceedingly familiar. Gintare had been leaving earlier and earlier in the morning, and returning later and later in the afternoons. Jak didn't think she liked it here, and she got the feeling they wouldn't be staying there too much longer. The idea of leaving scared her a little, but Riddiq would be there to look out for everyone.

"Okay. No dreams I can remember. What about you?"

He hadn't, but Riddiq wasn't going to tell his baby sister that. He felt loyalty to both Kofie and Svanhild, but Jakyra was his baby sister. It was more than loyalty that made him watch her especially with his special way of seeing things. He genuinely loved Jakyra, more than his other siblings. It was unfair to think that, but she was his favorite. Always willing to step up and try something when Riddiq asked, and the closest to him in the way they thought.

She was exceedingly loyal to him, whatever his cause, and it was more than he could say of the others. Perhaps it was unfair for Jakyra to feel she had to give that level of dedication, but Riddiq needed it. Her need of him kept him grounded, and kept him from simply running until he couldn't anymore. He doubted Gintare would miss him; though he loved his mother and felt she loved him in return, they were two different kinds of souls.

Part of him wondered if he was so much like their absent father that it hurt Gintare. Had he been alone, his ears would have dropped the slightest bit in worry, but he refused to let Jakyra see that. Instead, he shook his head. "Nothin' special." He liked to pretend that the dreams were nothing special and not night terrors that, on the ocassions they woke him out of a sound sleep, made it nigh impossible to return to sleep.

There was a reason he was often awake to see Gintare disappear, after all.

"Wonder if she'll be back before dark." He wasn't concerned, but it would make entertaining his siblings more difficult if Gintare decided to stay away all day long. He couldn't possibly watch all of them outside the den, and though he depended on Vaako to help watch Kofie and Svanhild while he watched Jakyra, he didn't feel comfortable depending so much on his younger brother.

It was bad enough Riddiq was so... different. He didn't want Vaako to become a mirror image of himself because of circumstance.

Jakyra resisted the urge to follow Riddiq's eyes when they moved toward their siblings. She trusted him to see any potential dangers and identify them as such, thus she didn't really feel the need to look for that reason. She just wanted to know what had caught his attention and try to figure out why it had done so, and if it was maybe something she could do in the future to get his attention. He was always good about paying attention to her when she demanded it, but Jak would have preferred if Riddiq granted her his attention without her having to constantly ask for it.

"Bigger would be nice. It would be a lot more interesting for exporing. And maybe even a little dangerous." Jak sort of relished the thought of encountering a little bit of danger. Then she could show her family that she didn't need to be protected, just because she was the last born. It wasn't as though there was such a huge difference between being the first and being the last within the same litter, after all.

Jak grinned widely at Riddiq's joke. If anyone else had made it, she probably wouldn't have even been amused, but because it had been uttered by her oldest brother, it was the best of humor. She grinned more in appreciation of the fact that he was trying to amuse her than because she'd actually been amused. It made her feel special, and made her wish she could think of something funny to say in response.

He nodded in agreement, smirking a little. "Danger's the last thing you need, Jak." He reached over with a heavy paw, putting it right on top of her head before letting it slide off again. "Let me handle dangerous." He would, gladly. Danger offered a challenge to Riddiq, one he often couldn't seek in the confines of the familial den. He outright refuse to fight with his siblings on most occasions, for fear of hurting them. "But bigger'd be nice." More roomy, and if they were lucky, he'd be able to explore a bigger den more than this one. He already knew every crevice and shadow it contained, every mark and scar of it's time.

It was familiar and boring at the same time, and that bothered the cub.

Jak's grin made Riddiq's smirk slightly wider, but after a minute the smirk slid away. The silence was comfortable for the most part; he felt no need to go through the motions of idle chitchat with Jak. Nonetheless, after a couple comfortably tense minutes, he looked over. "You hungry?" He asked with a tiny frown. He wasn't, he could go without for a few hours, but just sitting there was going to drive him nuts. Besides, if his siblings awoke hungry, he could go catch something for their sake.

Jak narrowed her eyes at her big brother. That had sounded suspiciously like, "You don't have to because I'll do it for you." When she was older, she might come to appreciate that sort of sentiment from a man, but more likely she would take after her mother and find it annoying or interpret it as a challenge. Already she was learning to view things like that more as challenges than as assurances.

"I will someday," she pointed out. "We're going to grow up someday, and then we'll all have to fend for ourselves. There's no reason we shouldn't learn now. I think that's part of why our mother leaves us alone so often."

For such a young cub, it was a fairly perceptive theory, though also mostly incorrect. Gintare didn't really think much about that sort of thing when she left. She mostly left for her own sanity and because she needed to bring in a kill to keep everyone fed. Fortunately, she'd never said as much to her cubs, and so they were able to make up their own theories as to her daily disappearances. Jak, at least, was inclined to be generous.

"Being bigger's not that important. Our mother's not that big. Or did you mean 'older'?" Jak would be older someday, too, and she didn't want that day to come and to find herself in a bad place because she'd just assumed when she was bigger and older everything would come ot her.

Riddiq's decision not to hunt sounded like a rejection of spending more time with her, but at least he wasn't going to go on his own. So he wasn't really avoiding her, maybe. Unconsciously she mimicked his movement, shrugging as if she didn't care what he did, and waited. She could be patient sometimes.

He snorted a little at that, though it made him think. Did Jakyra expect to just wander off on her own, then, when she was grown up? Riddiq doubted it. She clung to Riddiq's side whenever she had the ability to, he didn't think she'd just up and take off unless he did, too. "You'll always have me." He pointed out idly, voice low as he spoke. "You won't have to fend for yourself." And that was true on its own. Riddiq had no intentions of making any of his siblings fend for themselves because he left. Hell, if it meant letting Vaako tag along, he would. He had every intention in the world of leaving when he was big enough, but he wasn't naive enough to think it'd be alone. Much as he'd like to, he knew he'd worry too much of Jakyra if she wasn't right behind him.

"Both." He replied to her question, snorting. Whether Jakyra wanted to hear it or not, being bigger often meant not being so vulnerable. Bigger meant stronger, faster, and older meant smarter. Certainly, she would have to experience things, and he'd have to let her on his own. But he wasn't ready for that, and he doubted she was any more ready than him. While he spent the time away honing his skills, he knew it was selfish to not want Jak to do the same thing.

And he did want her to. He just didn't want her getting hurt in the process. Riddiq hid his pain well from the times he slipped up, miscalculated. He knew pain was just a lesson in being better than he was. Making Jakyra experience it, though, didn't sit well with the cub.

He watched Jakyra mimicking him, noticing the roll of her shoulders, and snorted a little, looking at the others. He didn't mind the silence, he could live in it as long as he needed to, and it wasn't uncomfortable, so the eldest of the litter said nothing more.

Jak's tail twitched as she stalked toward the mouth of the den. The morning hadn't begun as well as she had hoped when she woke. Some days were like that. Things would be better once she was outside, alone and able to practice her skills without Vaako criticizing or Riddiq smirking and telling her that what she was doing was unnecessary. If nothing else, she could create some wanton destruction, and that was always fun. Of course, if Riddiq decided to follow her, she wouldn't object to his company.

"I won't," she called over her shoulder with a quick grin. She wanted to make sure he knew she wasn't cross at him. Not really. She was just unnerved by the thought that he'd be leaving the family one day, and her with them. Killing things - even if they were just leaves - would take her mind off of things, and if she could tire herself enough by noon, maybe she wouldn't remember at all.

Riddiq didn't follow her; he watched her leave the den calmly, gold eyes burning after her as he watched her disappear out into the wild. He shook his head and pushed himself up, stalking towards the back of the den. In the shadows, there, he could think without consequence. He settled with his back against the cool rock of the den and watched the mouth of it, waiting.

Her grin had settled his mind a fraction of the worry he'd upset her, but he still worried. It was a habit when Jak was involved, she was headstrong enough to just dive into something unprepared and get hurt. Riddiq could be that way, too, when the urge struck him, but he liked being prepared. It came easily, his plans, so it was the likely course he took. He snorted a little, and closed his eyes, waiting to hear the sound of either his siblings waking up, or Jakyra coming back to the den.

He doubted either would happen soon.