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 Posted: Fri Nov 17, 2006 6:27 am
Winter truly was beginning to grip the land as Aoede had taken her first steps outside. The trees had been ripped of their green coating and the ground was littered with their cast-off leaves each coated in a fine filament of frost. The water, too, was beginning to freeze a little at the edges where it pooled near the den entrance. Aoede's soft baby coat was scant protection against the cold winds and she often scuttled back inside the small cave which was home. Today, though, the sky was clear, the sun was out and the last breath of autumn brought with it a short blast of warmth.
Aoede wouldn't miss this chance to get outside for the world. She was tired of being cooped up with her overprotective mother and father and wanted to explore this vast outdoor world. The large fawn male, Oura, followed her. The others had gone hunting and he had been left to look after the pups. He didn't seem to mind her going outside but followed her and all the pups like a shadow if they tried to leave the den area.
Aoede looked around and called to her sister, Melete. "Come on s'warm! I wanna s'plore!"
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Posted: Fri Nov 17, 2006 8:43 am
Not far behind Aoede, a reply came from inside the cave. "Really? I wanna see!" Not long after, a small dark pup tumbled out, coming up beside Aoede. Her silver eyes looked around eagerly. She nudged her sister playfully, before casting a glance back at Ouranos. She eyed him for a moment, in an expression of puppyish deviousness that would have seemed decidedly unsubtle to anyone watching her
Conspiratorially, she leaned in closer to Aoede, whispering to her. "Where we going, huh?" She wondered if they could get away from the large fawn wolf. He was nice and all, but they were old enough not to need a babysitter. Really!
She paused, glancing back at Oura again. "Can we get 'way from 'im?"
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Posted: Fri Nov 17, 2006 1:00 pm
Quietly, Shambala peered out after the other pups. She hadn't been outside the den for quite some time. Having spent a lot of time keeping to herself she was beginning to feel like the odd one out, despite the fact she was in a lot of ways. But she wanted to 'splore too!
She stepped out of the den and peered about. Then, not looking she took a few more steps and found her paws in the chilly water. With a yelp, she jumped backwards, flailing her front paws as she tried to shake the water out of them.
She then raised her gaze to look towards the other pups. The only thing stopping her bounding up to them was a fear of rejection. But, she swallowed her pride. She wasn't going to get far without friends afterall.
"Hey!" she called, suddenly bounding towards them, ignoring the damp still in her front paws. "Wait for me!"
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Posted: Fri Nov 17, 2006 1:11 pm
Aoede grinned at her sister, looking over her shoulder oh-so-surreptitiously at the beta male who was sitting pretending not to watch them. She looked back at her sister and nodded contemplatively. "I heard Dad talking about how there was deers south of here. We should go hunt!" It didnt matter to Aoede that she didn't have the first clue about hunting or that, even if she did, pups didn't have any chance of pulling down a deer. It would be fun! And anyway, how hard could it be?
The silver-bellied pup looked up from her machinations as Shambala approached. The other female was a little older than the pair but had been in the den since they were born. She reminded Aoede of her father and sister's dark coats and that meant family. She decided that the more hunters, the bigger the deer they could bring down!
"Hiiii!" she replied, smiling. As the other pup approached she brought her into the conspiracy. "Ok, if we run fast and go under that bush there" she looked at a thorny bramble nearby "we're small enough to fit under it but he can't" she grinned deviously and darted off towards the thorny tangle without waiting for the other two to agree.
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Posted: Fri Nov 17, 2006 3:23 pm
"Yeah!" Melete agreed enthusiastically. Deer hunting sounded like fun! She spun around on her forpaws to see Shambala, to greet her with a chirpy "Hi 'bala!". Shambala wasn't quite her sister like Aoede was, but she may as well have been. She was nearly the same age as Melete, and they had played together often in the cave.
As Aoede pointed out the bramble nearby, Melete cast what she thought was a subtle glance over at the bush. She nodded her head in agreement. It was a failsafe plan! It had to work! As her sister darted off, Melete spun on oversized, clumsy paws and bolted after her, hot on the small brown pup's heels and fully expecting 'bala to follow suit. Today was going to be so great!
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Posted: Fri Nov 17, 2006 3:36 pm
"Yeah!" squeaked Shambala, as she watched the other two fleeing under the bush. She liked when fun things happened! Promptly following Aoede and then Melete's lead, Shambala scooted under the bush, her tail slurping underneath it like a rat into a hole.
Subconsciously wagging her tail as she pulled herself out from under the bush, Shambala couldn't help but grin at the other two pups happily. Mischief was fun, and this would classify as what she'd been told was mischief. Today was going to be great, she could tell!
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Posted: Fri Nov 17, 2006 3:44 pm
Aoede ran as fast as her small legs would carry her, alongside the river and heading south. Her small legs pumped hard to keep up the pace and eventually she slowed, out of breath but happy. She trotted forward, looking over her shoulder every few seconds to see if the other two had caught up. "Commeeee onn~~!" she cried happily, her tongue hanging out one side of her mouth, breath steaming in the cool air.
Aoede picked her way forward, heading in the direction she thought 'South' was. "How many deers d'you think we can hunt?" she called back, confidently answering her own question "I think we could get... five!". She paused for a moment to allow her friends to catch up.
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Posted: Sun Nov 19, 2006 6:30 am
Melete was hardpressed to keep up with the rapid pace that Aoede had set, but she ran as furiously as she could. Aoede was a little ahead of her, but she wasn't falling any further behind. She slowed when her sister did, her breath coming in deep pants. Surely there was no way that Ouranos could have followed them when they had gone so fast! They had all run like the wind.
Having regained her breath again, the dark pup moved up to trot beside Aoede. "Yeah! Big ones too, with those huuuuge horn things!" Melete didn't think it would be too hard. Afterall, they had deer to eat all the time, so it was probably easy.
"Where d'you think deers come from?" she asked her two companions, looking around. She couldn't see anything that looked like a deer here.
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Posted: Mon Nov 20, 2006 9:15 am
Shambala loped after the other two pups, not breaking any speed records as she casually caught up with the other two. She still panted a little as she came to a halt, glancing behind her to see if the older wolf had followed them.
"Deers," she announced knowledgeably, "come from underground. That's what they use their horns for, digging holes that they live in! That's why nobody ever really sees them, they only come out to eat." She nodded as she finished, as though to confirm her own faith in herself. "But now is feeding time," she added, remembering they were here to hunt deer. "So they should be all over the place right now. I don't know why there's none here..." She glanced about a few times, as though trying to locate a 'deer hole'.
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Posted: Mon Nov 20, 2006 9:26 am
Aoede thought for a moment on 'Bala's words. They seemed about right, she thought. Afterall.... why else would they have those big horns? She grinned and nodded as if she'd known this fact perfectly well all along. "Yeah, of course Bala!". The two younger pups, at least, had never been much farther south than here and Aoede had also assumed that this would be the farthest the adults would range. She looked around as Bala did, also trying to see if she could spot any deer but none of the creatures walked into view. Perhaps a little farther?
Oddly she had never actually seen a live deer, only those bits which had been brought back to the den and so she didn't have a real concept of how large a deer actually was. She padded this way and that, sniffing the ground loudly as if this would make it easier to scent things. She could smell something new and started to follow the strong, musky scent. "This way!" she announced with enthusiasm and started to follow the scent down a path of broken and trodden forest - something the adults would have immediately recognised as a game trail.
The young female's tail wagged happily as she imagined the pride on her parents face when she brought 5 whole deers home! She'd be the strongest, bestest hunter in the whole pack! She knew it!
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Posted: Tue Nov 21, 2006 6:27 am
"Ohhh.." Melete said, as if it had all suddenly clicked into place for her. Why hadn't she seen that before? Bala was so smart sometimes! She wondered how big a deer hole was, and what it looked like.
Following behind Aoede, Melete kept a close eye on the ground in case there was a deer hole there. Afterall, maybe if they found one, they'd find the deer it belonged to too. Imitating her sister, she began to snuff at the ground, like she'd seen her parents do.
After a few moments of lingering back, she picked up her pace again to catch up with the other two pups. A thought occurred to her as a twig snapped under her paw. "Hey.. maybe the deers don't come out cos they're scared of us? We need to be sneaky an' real quiet an' stuff?"
It made perfect sense. Afterall, they were big bad hunters, and the deers obviously knew that they had no chance!
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Posted: Tue Nov 21, 2006 2:55 pm
Quickly, Bala copied the other two wolves, prodding her snout to the ground and snuffing so enthusiastically that she ended up with a slightly tender nose and bits of inhaled dirt up her nose. She sneezed and pawed at her nose for a second. Before beginning to snuff about again, not wanting to look like she didn't know what she was doing.
"Definately scared of us," she agreed, nosing aside some foliage. "If we find a deer hole, we can lure 'em out and then hunt them down. But only if we're really shush-like." As though to demonstrate, she sunk down onto her belly and scooted along he ground for a few seconds, her tail waving out behind her like a broom. "Like this!"
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Posted: Tue Nov 21, 2006 3:03 pm
Aoede nodded in agreement with her sister and friend, mimicking the older pups posture and creeping along close to the ground in an exaggeratedly quite manner. She snuck forward along the path, her small tail held out behind her to help balance her small, not quite totally controlled form.
Her tiny silver tipped paws managed to sneak quite effectively - slipping over twigs and branches that a larger adult wolf might have had a hard time avoiding. Her voice, though, was not so quiet. "So scared! Yeah!" she agreed with the two dark female pups in a loud stage whisper which she obviously thought was 'stealthy'.
At the end of the trail, just a little way off, there was a large hole in the stone of the rockface. Much like their own den it was a natural formation in the rock and looked as though it might be inhabited. Spying traces of ruddy-brown fur on the floor and still catching the musky scent Aoede put two and two together and got five.
"Looook!" she hissed loudly, her nose indicating the cave mouth. "It must be a deer hole and they're all hiding from us in there!." The cave certainly might have fitted a deer if deer had truly been inclined to go underground but this was the home of another forest denizen...
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Posted: Tue Nov 21, 2006 3:14 pm
Copying Shambala's example, Melete dropping to her belly, crawling over the ground in what she imagined was a truly astounding display of stealth. Those deers would never see what hit them!
As Aoede pointed out the entrance to the cave, Melete crawled up beside her, her ears perked high in excitement. "Yeah! We should go in an' show 'em who's boss!"
Spotting the fur on the ground, Melete tilted her head to the side. It looked like deer fur. She stifled a giggle. "They's so scared their fur's falling out." Rising to her feet, she tiptoed around to the side of the cave entrance. She whispered loudly back to the other trio
"We going in??"
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Posted: Tue Nov 21, 2006 3:22 pm
Ha! They were following her example! That must mean she was right afterall, mustn't it? Full of her new-found confidence, Bala sniffled at the fur. "Good for us," she said in response to Melete. "We won't have to chew through dirty deer fur!"
She slunk a little further, sniffing all the way. She'd smelled this smell before, which led her to assume that it must be a deer. What else could it be?
"C'mon guys!" she said, her voice one of those stage whispers that the cubs had decided were stealthy. "Let's go!" With that, she promptly slinked up to and into the deer hole.
Perhaps, in hindsight, it wasn't such a good idea...
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