Welcome to Gaia! ::

It was a cool morning. Dew coated the grass and clung to the leaves. The scents of the earth were even more pronounced than usual, as though the world itself were celebrating being alive. The large, blue wolf inhaled the rich scents, but felt none of the whimsy other wolves might. To him, the scents only meant better tracking. Unguarded prey. Easier hunts. Perhaps meals with a little more fight than usual, if they were not killed cleanly.

He slipped through the tall grasses, ghosted over the dead leaves, leaving not even a whisper in his wake. The dew clung to the edges of his cloak, weighing down its ragged edges, but it did not matter. He wore the cloth like a second skin and was long used to accounting for it. It did nothing to hinder his movements.

Onward, he led his charge, well beyond the familiar borders of their territory. For this, he wanted the unfamiliar. Improvisation had been the younger wolf's weakness when he had begun his training. It was well past time to see what he had learned.

Arkadios did not believe in baby steps. True, he held realistic expectations for his pupils - a pup could hardly be expected not to fall over his own paws on his first day of training - but he had never been one to coddle those he trained. They either learned fast or they suffered for not being quick enough, nimble enough, skilled enough. He did not punish them, as such, but neither did he hold back. In essence, the amount of suffering they faced was something they were in control of - they just had to be good enough to avoid the injury.

Though it had been many years since the Warmaster had roamed the world - and indeed, a fair while since he had even left pack lands for more than a brief trip - his body remembered well the measured gait that ate the earth without tiring him in the slightest. It was this gait that he used, even as he took deep, assessing breaths every few minutes and kept his eyes and ears tuned to his surroundings.

Eventually, something caught his interest. The scent of wolf. An individual scent with no territory marks anywhere near. A loner. He slowed to a stop beneath the still-deep shadows of an ancient tree and turned to his shadow. "What do your senses tell you?" he asked.

The warmaster nodded. He had expected nothing less. "You will learn to be aware of your surroundings at all times while traveling. It will save your life." Heightened awareness was unfeasible to sustain for extended periods of time - it took a great deal of concentration - but a low-level, instinctive awareness was a necessary tool for self-preservation. One could not be caught off-guard and expect to remain alive and healthy for very long. Not in their world. Certainly not they way they lived, nor on the battlefield.

"Assess the situation. Are there others nearby?" His words, like Soren's, were softly spoken, pitched not to carry, but to fall flat. There was no danger of the other wolf overhearing them.

Although the stranger was drawing slowly nearer, Arkadios showed no concern. He acted as though they had all the time in the world to conduct the lesson. Like a hunter in a blind, he was waiting for their prey to come to them. In the meantime, he would test his pupil. Refresh his knowledge. Then, the lesson would begin.