☽ Peregrine ☾

    Peregrine shook himself with a sheepish look toward his sister as she took a victory lap around the training hollow. The she-pup was just incredibly strong. If it was speed that was needed, or simply above average strength, Peregrine was your pup. He could take on any other pup just fine, but Wing was something else entirely. Trill gave each of them a nuzzle and a few words of praise for their jobs well done, then she took her leave to join her hunting party.
    "Well that was quite fun, don't you think, Per?" Wing grinned at him.
    "I suppose so. You're gonna have to teach me that last thing you did, though. It sent me absolutely sprawling," he replied with a smile in return.
    The pair of them spent a few extra minutes re-hashing their last skirmish until Peregrine felt he had it right. That was another thing that he liked about his sister. She would let him practice until he got it right. The other pups didn't quite understand that. They believed in good enough, which Peregrine respected, but didn't like. Eventually the pair of siblings ended up catching Wynandir on her way into the hollow, and they went back in with her to practice some more and watch her own training session with some of the other pups over the rest of the afternoon.

—

    Peregrine followed his sister who was following their other sister. Neither he nor Wing knew where exactly they were following Wynandir to, but the older she-wolf had told them it was important when she had come to get them. They walked along the riverbank for quite a ways before Wynandir stopped and turned back toward them.
    "Here we are," she said, which was no less cryptic than their walk had been.
    Wing stared at their sister flatly, "and where is here, exactly?"
    "Your first hunt with a team. I'll be going along with you while Roshan goes along with the second team we've been putting together. Come, meet your new teammates."
    She led her wide-eyed, now excited pair of young siblings a little farther on where they saw a dark she-wolf and a blue-furred she-wolf standing by. Peregrine's eyebrows knitted together with apprehension. He wasn't sure about working with either of these two. Orynne was a lot to take for a laid-back wolf like him, and Nila was Hakaan's daughter and this made her quite snooty. The red-tinged wolf bumped his sister's shoulder gently with his own as they approached their new hunting teammates, and she shot him a sidelong glance mirroring his own concerned look. As they came to stand in front of the pair of she-wolves they adopted twin smiles, each resolving to work hard and make the best of this.
    "Right. Shall we get to work, then?" Peregrine said, ready to begin.

—

    Aleifr stood up and shook out his fur, sending water flying in all directions. Most of it hit Caio, Idrit and Peregrine who were standing more calmly and drily by with only their paws in the cool, shallow ford. As Ale shook all the water out of his fur and onto theirs the trio began to splutter, laugh and bark at him in mock anger. He only grinned and made as if to chase them and dunk them into the river as well.
    "Ale, if you get me all wet and cold I'll claw your ears off! I will!" Howled the somewhat younger and more excitable Idrit as he tucked in his tail and ran for the riverbank.
    "I'm all for a good old water fight! Come back here! Per, come on, I need you on my team!" Called Caio who was hot on Aleifr's heels and ready to tackle him back into the water.
    Peregrine only grinned, then moved into position in front of Ale while he was looking back at Caio. The colorful scout had just opened his mouth to taunt the light-furred hunter when he slammed straight into the wall of muscle that was Peregrine. All that escaped his open mouth was the air that was forced out of his lungs as his forward momentum was stopped. He slid down into the water, first wheezing, then laughing. Caio and Peregrine exchanged satisfied grins and began scooping pawfuls of water toward their friend while he was down.
    "Ohhh, not fair. You know, I bet your sister coulda done better though, Per. She's way stronger than you," Aleifr wheezed through a cheeky grin and took off again.
    Peregrine shrugged and nodded his agreement with the statement, but Caio snorted indignantly and ran after the scout to defend his humble friend's honor.

—

    Peregrine loped alongside his friend as they followed their friend and alpha up the hill. Aleifr had come to collect them, then run off without another word, and the two hunters were so confounded that they simply had to chase after him. They crested the hill and plunged down into a thicker part of the forest, weaving expertly among the trees and underbrush after the colorful alpha. Peregrine wasn't sure how Ale had managed to do anything over the years with a pelt like that. It was incredibly easy to spot, even in thick woods like these. He shrugged off the thought as he narrowly avoided being clothes-lined by a low hanging vine that Caio had pushed aside, and applied himself more attentively to the task at hand.
    Eventually their giddy alpha slowed to a trot, hanging back so that the two panting hunters could catch up with him. Peregrine exchanged a glance and a sharp exhale with Caio as he fell into step with both of his friends.
    "I can't believe neither of you fell through there," Ale said, half disappointed.
    "That's what you get with two expert chasers!" Caio crowed with a grin.
    "I wouldn't say expert. There's still so much to learn... plus I was nearly taken out by a vine there," Peregrine countered in his humble way.
    "Nonsense! We make you train all the pups for a reason, Per," Ale said rather jauntily, "alright, just through here."
    The two hunters exchanged another confounded glance as Aleifr ducked through some low-hanging vines. Shrugging, they followed the colorful alpha down a short tunnel that opened out into the most beautiful secluded pond oasis. Peregrine blinked up at the enormously tall waterfall above that fed the pond and wondered how no one had ever noticed it before now.
    "How... did you find this?" He asked, bewildered.
    "I was running from a particularly nasty-looking bear this morning after he bested me in a fight, and the fellow would not relent. Anyway, I finally managed to get a lead on him and I needed a place to lose him. I saw nice thick vines, hid behind those. Then I heard water. I thought, even better! Conceal the scent, hide behind some rocks, and all he's got is the trail back out of here to follow. Turns out he didn't think I was worth it anymore before the vines, and good thing, too, because when I got here I was just as gobsmacked as you two squirrels! I thought you might appreciate it, so now it can be our place," Ale said with a huge grin.
    "I... mean. Absolutely, this is fantastic," Peregrine said, finally managing to take a step toward the water.
    Before he could go any farther, though, Caio gave a whoop of delight as he broke out of his own stupor and charged forth into the pond for a swim. Peregrine raised an eyebrow toward Ale who grinned, and the two of them ran to join their happily swimming friend.

—

    Peregrine had gotten up before dawn, bidding a silent farewell to Thorn beside him and then setting out to find Caio and the others for a bit of an unofficial hunt. He and the retired hunters had pup training duties that day, but their custom of late had been to get out for some fresh air and whatever breakfast they could catch in the early mornings. Now the red-tinged hunter trotted through the forest toward the grassy plains that lie across the river. The forest was odd that morning. Eerie, even. As he crested the hill just before the group's riverbank meeting point there was a sudden flash of light as something not quite solid hit him square in the face.
    He cried out as he was blinded, losing his footing and crashing out of the last trees and down the hill in a tumble. He could hear Caio and the rest of his friends calling out to him with a mixture of worry and muffled laughter, and then all was silent.
    Peregrine came to what felt simultaneously like moments and hours later, his vision still blurry. He looked around searching for his friends who should've been there but weren't. 'Have they gone on without me? Who leaves a wolf who just fell on their face unconscious and alone?' Peregrine thought to himself as he stood shakily and shook the dirt from his fur. He tried to squint and blink the blurriness away, but he was out of luck. Accepting this new reality for the moment, he made his way uncertainly forward toward where the river should've been just a few steps away. He didn't even hear water flowing after several minutes of— admittedly slow, but not that slow, right?— travel, and he stopped and blinked again.
    Finally, the now worried hunter could see more than just blurred shapes and colors. Trying to spot something distant and make out any detail at all was still impossible, and his gut told him that that would always be the case, but he could make out his direct surroundings with little trouble. There were impossibly lush green plants all around him that he had never seen before. He had thought the river glade was lush, but this was a green he had never experienced. Slightly panicked now, he turned in the direction home should have been and took off at full speed.
    He crashed through the thick, knotted plants of this strange forest until he got to where his instinct told him the Redfeather hollow should be. It was just an empty clearing filled with strange balls of softly glowing yellow light.

—

    "Peregrine?!" A voice called incredulously just as the large wolf was about to try to pounce on one of the strange creatures that roamed this world.
    Ears pricking, Peregrine stopped in his tracks. He turned slowly, wondering if this was just another voice piercing through the veil, but as he looked he saw a familiar light-furred shape emerging from the trees. Narrowing his eyes to focus them better as he had learned to do over the last few days he waited a few beats for the vision to fade, but when it did not he ran and barreled straight into his friend, almost knocking him over.
    "Caio!?" He prodded his friend's face with his nose, his flank with a paw. "How are you here? Where have you come from?"
    Caio shook off the poking and prodding and smiled an uneasy smile, "you've been gone for days! I couldn't sit around bickering about what to do any longer, I just had to charge out and find you and I did! Now let's..."
    Peregrine smiled a pained smile as his friend turned as if to go back the way he had come. He padded alongside the light-furred wolf as he moved along the edge of the clearing, waving a paw in front of him to probe for the exit.
    "I'm afraid you're stuck with me, my friend. There's no way back... Nila's definitely going to kill you," Per gave a weak chuckle, trying to keep it light.
    Caio turned toward his friend, expression uncertain but almost excited— curious. Peregrine could tell he was— as was his fashion— going to make the best of this.
    "Want to go exploring?"

—

[~550 Starting]
[611 Trained]