Awesome! [Zen]

[Hunter]

Running around on her own was BORING! But her friends had gone to sleep already, so she couldn’t play with them anymore. But it was cool staying up while her friends were home at the Asylum with their mammas. Then she could tell about ALL the cool things she’d done while they’d just been sleeping. Yearh, they would be really jealous of her tomorrow… but she hadn’t got anything to do yet. Boring! As for now, the puppy was jumping from rock to rock on the Tooth Cliff, making sure to stay far away from the edge as her parents had told her to do. The sun was setting and made the ocean and sky shine as if on fire while Victoria jumped around on the top of all the rocks, keeping her balance to prevent falling down. Her father, Clegane, had told her that she could fall down and hurt herself pretty badly when she was as young as she was, but Victoria didn’t care. He hadn’t told her not to, because it was also good for a future Soldier to know his or hers own limits. So she hadn’t been told not to jump around on the rocks – only that she shouldn’t come home with tears in her eyes if she fell. The only thing she wasn’t allowed to on the Tooth Cliff was to go near the cliff’s edge. So she had no intentions on doing that.

Only about three months old, Victoria hadn’t been out of the Tempest Pack’s territory yet. She was too young to stroll around outside the Pack’s borders. It was simply too dangerous. She wasn’t really aware as to why, she only knew it had something to do with cats. She’d seen a few cats before, but they weren’t so big – they were much smaller than her mother and father, but her parents had told her, that the felines on the Pack’s territory were small ones compared to some of the other felines who were members of something called the Iris Pride. So. The Iris Pride were bad. They were full of felines – big as well as small – and it was their fault that she couldn’t go any further from home than she could now. So she’d been told that she wasn’t allowed to go around on her own before she was bigger and stronger. But she was that already! She was a big girl compared to some of her friends of her own age, and she was also one of the strongest when they were play fighting! So why couldn’t she just go? There could be so much fun to explore out there. But she wasn’t allowed to. Her father had told her that she in a few months would be old enough to be taught how to fight like a Solider, but in the meantime, she had to play fight like a puppy. Why couldn’t she just learn real righting now? It seemed unfair. She’d seen some juveniles training, and even though it looked hard, she was sure she could do just the same!... maybe in a few months time… yes, in a few months time. Of course daddy knew what was best for her.

Victoria stopped jumping for a moment and looked in the direction of the Asylum. Her mother would probably be in there with her brothers and sisters. Her father too. And her friends, with their moms and dads. Maybe she should go in too? She liked to cuddle up beside her mother’s warm stomach and listen to her heartbeat… Nah, she would be out a little longer. She was cool, and she was allowed to stay up for a little longer. Besides, one of her parents would call for her when it was time for bed.

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[Zen]

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[atrb=background,http://i1198.photobucket.com/albums/aa446/jadedog08/Kaitable2-2.png] Kai’s heavy paws crunched on dirt and rock. The sound of crashing waves and wind whistling against stone told her she had neared the sea cliff, and the breeze carried a faint smell of saltwater that made her nose scrunch up. She was also alone, as far as she could tell, and it was then she remembered a vague warning one of the wise older dogs had once issued: “don’t go out to the cliff alone, because there’ll be no one around to catch you if you slip off the edge.” Well, screw that! What was life without a little risk? She snickered to herself and took off at a trot towards the highest point of the cliff. Disobeying the elders was always fun, and it served them right for not letting her participate in the latest battle against Iris. So what if she was inexperienced? It wasn’t like killing a cat was some incredibly difficult task that one had to spend years of training in order to master. A quick bite to the neck and that was it. She was an adult now, for crying out loud…a reckless, somewhat irresponsible adult, true, but there had been much younger dogs than her in that battle. It was all so annoying and unfair. The female muttered a few curse words aimed at the elders and kicked a stone roughly with her paw. She followed it as it rolled, eventually ending up a few feet away from of another dog. A much, much smaller dog who looked like she was barely a few months old. So Kai couldn’t be in any real battles yet, but pups were allowed to just wander around by the cliff unsupervised? This whole pack was messed up. “Yo, kid,” she barked to get the puppy’s attention. “Shouldn’t your parents be watching you or something?” She looked at the younger dog more closely, seeing a slight resemblance to that old man, Clegane. Was this one of his brood? If so, that made this pup pretty important. Clegane was legendary around Tempest for his fighting skills, although Kai had never formally trained with him. But even if this kid had a better standing in the pack than she did, Kai still felt naturally superior just because of her age.

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[Hunter]

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As she heard the sound of a rock nearing her, she stopped on the rock she was jumping on to focus on it - tilting her head slightly to the side and perked her ears of curiosity. Someone must have hit it since it’d moved. She was certain it hadn’t been there just before, certain that she’d heard it coming toward her. She hadn’t noticed that she’d reacted a little slower than a normal, healthy puppy would due to the hearing damage on her left ear. Her deafness irritated her to death but there was nothing she or anyone else could do about it. She’d told her mother to make it go away, that she wanted to hear like anyone else, but her mother had just told her that there was nothing to be done. That that was how it was. And it was so unfair! It felt weird only to be able to hear on her right ear, so already from a young age she had to get used at using her sense of scent and sight to observe her surroundings and not only depend on her hearing. But it was so hard! It was difficult when others were sneaking up on her, so that was what she hated the most when she was play fighting with the other puppies of the Pack. So, when they finally tried to attack her, she would always take them down with her strength and force them down on the ground where she would use her bigger size to hold them down until they promised not to do it again. But they continued doing it – if they were brave enough. She just had to beat them up enough to prevent the other puppies from sneaking up on her. No one was going to call her weak because of her deafness!

It was the Victoria heard someone. ”Yo kid! Shouldn’t your parents be watching you or something?”[/i] She looked away from the rock at her feet and found the shape of another dog. An adult female it seemed. And she was quite big. Almost as big as her father. Victoria sat down on the rock with an almost shy grin. ”Yo!” she barked back, trying to sound like the other female. “Yo”… it sounded cool, she would need to remember that. ”I’m old enough to take care of myself!” she continued and with that, she jumped down from the rock and landed on her stocky legs. She trotted a few meters and got to the rock the female had kicked just before. ”I just need to stay on the Pack’s territory, that’s all,” she said cheerfully and kicked the rock with a paw, making it roll some of the way back to the older female.

”Oh, and I’m Victoria! Who are you?” Was she about to befriend an older member of the Pack? How cool wouldn’t that be!? The older female might be an adult, but she was still young, so she could still be fun to spend time with. She couldn’t help but wagging her tail at the thought.

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[Zen]

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[atrb=background,http://i1198.photobucket.com/albums/aa446/jadedog08/Kaitable2-2.png] Watching the little pup with amusement, Kai lowered herself down on to her belly and sighed lightly when a salty gust of wind blew out from the ocean. Though she had come here hoping and expecting to be alone, the young husky sitting in front of her didn’t seem like she would be too annoying to deal with. In fact, Kai couldn’t help but smirk when the pup tried to act all cool and mimic the way she talked. It was always amusing to see how impressionable young kids could be. She snorted and raised an eyebrow playfully at the pup’s claim that she didn’t need anyone to take care of her. “You sound kinda like me,” Kai replied with a toothy grin. “But you're lucky, y'know. When I was your age the old folks were following me around every minute of every day. They still do sometimes. I can't stand it!" She huffed and caught the stone that the pup had kicked back to her, rolling it around between her paws. “Yeah, I’m still not allowed to leave Tempest lands either. At least not without someone to come along with me.” Kai looked carefully at the puppy, wondering if the kid would be able to keep a secret. She didn’t know the other girl well at all yet, but for some reason she felt comfortable admitting something personal to her. “Don’t tell anyone,” she said in a lowered voice, leaning in closer to the pup, “but I do sneak off sometimes by myself. I go out into the city where all the loners and cats are.” Kai smiled and nodded, expecting the kid to be impressed by this. “Mm, Victoria, huh? That’s…kind of a long name,” she mused, lifting a paw to scratch at her ear. “Don’t you get called by anything shorter? Vic, Vicky?” She then rolled the same rock she had been holding between her claws toward the husky puppy, continuing their game of catch. “Oh, and I’m Kai. Just Kai.”

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[Hunter]

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[atrb=background,http://i1198.photobucket.com/albums/aa446/jadedog08/victable2.png] "Speech"

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She looked at the rock as the bigger dog rolled around with it between her paws. Wasn’t she allowed to go outside the Pack’s territory? But she was at least one year older than herself – and bigger and stronger looking than many other members, so how could it be she wasn’t allowed to go by herself in the city as she wanted? She’d heard something about the new Soldiers teaming up with one of the more experienced Soldiers – just so the new one could prove than he or she could be patrolling alone without messing something up. It could be fatal if the Iris Pride found a weak spot in the Pack’s line, but Victoria wasn’t old enough to understand that. She’d just seen the younger ones team up with the older ones, but when the older female spoke about being looked after, it didn’t quite sound like that. It sounded more like she was looked after as if she was still a puppy. How humiliating that must be! She couldn’t believe that! But Victoria didn’t say anything, because the female was leaning forward and told her a secret.

”Really!?” she exclaimed, not knowing if she’d heard correctly, but didn’t say more as the older female commented her name and presented herself. ”Uhm no, I’m just called Victoria,” she said, being a little hesitant. No one had called her something else yet. ”But you can call me Vic, that sounds cool. And it’s short – just like yours, Kai,” she chewed a bit on the name. Kai. Vic and Kai. Yearh, that sounded good. ”But… about the outlands… the city… isn’t it dangerous out there?” she questioned, tilting her head a bit and frowning in curiosity. She didn’t know much about the outside – apart from that it was dangerous, so she was quite interested in knowing more about it. ”My father told me there are cats out there that are bigger than the domestic ones we have here in the Tempest Pack, is that true?” She wasn’t sure if she doubted her dad’s words, but… she couldn’t imagine that a feline could be as big as either Kai or any of the other members of the Pack. Besides, she’d only seen the small ones in the cells of the Mental Asylum, so it was difficult for her to understand just how big and intimidating a so called “lion” could be.

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[Zen]

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[atrb=background,http://i1198.photobucket.com/albums/aa446/jadedog08/Kaitable2-2.png] “Ok, then. Vic it is.” Kai chuckled a little, agreeing that the nickname sounded way better. Victoria was such a pretty little princess name; if the pup was hoping to be a soldier one day like her father, she needed a cooler title. “Oh, it isn’t dangerous at all,” the older dog grumbled, rolling her eyes. “The old folks just like to scare us ‘cause they don’t want us wandering off. Because if we’re out there having fun, we won’t be here doing the work they want us to do. Know what I mean?” That had to be the reason. She’d been off the Tempest lands a few times by now and had (so far) never run into any kind of trouble. The elders just wanted to scare the younger dogs into being obedient and doing their chores, so they came up with the stupid lie that any place outside of the packlands was dangerous. Kai paused for a moment at the mention of big cats. She’d been told about lions and tigers when she was a little kid too, but even now she still couldn’t imagine how a cat could ever get bigger than a dog. Even Vic, though she was just a small puppy, was bigger than all of the felines Kai had seen out in the city. “I…I don’t really know,” she admitted. All of her confidence and knowledge seemed to have disappeared then, and it made her feel strangely weak. “I mean, I’ve never seen any myself, but I’ve heard stories. A lot of our soldiers have apparently been murdered by those huge cats. I guess if they do exist they mostly live with the Iris Pride.” She knew the Iris Pride definitely existed. That was the one thing she knew the older dogs hadn’t made up. Kai had seen the warriors – the dogs who, unlike her, were actually allowed to go into battle – come back bloody and scarred, ranting about how evil the Iris cats were. But as for whether or not there were really big cats, she wasn’t exactly sure at this point. “I think I’ll go look for one someday,” Kai said, thinking out loud. The idea didn’t scare her at all, oddly enough. She really, really wanted to see if the stories were true or not. “I promise I’ll let you know if I find one,” she added, looking at her little friend.

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[Hunter]

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[atrb=background,http://i1198.photobucket.com/albums/aa446/jadedog08/victable2.png] "Speech"

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”Yes, definitely! I mean… That makes good sense,” Victoria said to the females response even though she still wasn’t sure if Kai was right. But it still made sense somehow. Because, if the outskirts wasn’t dangerous then everyone could stray around as they wanted instead of doing their chores in the pack… or… she chose not to dwell at it. It was way too complicated for her little mind to find out how the pack worked, so she chose to trust the older dog. That was so much easier. Besides, she was the oldest of them, and by that, she was most likely also the cleverest. It was just the elders of the pack who underestimated her abilities to fight the rat sized felines.

And now when they talked about the felines’ size. Even though Kai was older and had been outside the pack’s boarders, she still seemed hesitant when it came to the felines. But Kai had more experience with the “outside world” so how could it be she hadn’t met any big felines? If they really existed. Maybe they´re just good at hiding, Victoria thought even though she couldn’t see how that could be possible – unless they really were kicking ass when it came to the game hide and seek. She frowned as she thought about Kai’s words. The Iris Pride. Now that name was there again. It was a bad word. Her parents had used it in a negative way and Kai and some other members as well. How could one single pack be the source of so many bad things? She’d heard the mean things the slaves had said when she’d seen them in their cells and imagining them so much bigger than they were was no fun at all. It made the felines’ words more threatening if some of them were as big as her parents…

But she wasn’t scared of them, hell no! She was going to fight them if she one day should see a big feline. And the small ones as well. Just a bite in the neck and then it’s over – like her daddy said. It couldn’t be that hard if she trained enough. And she soon would – as soon as she become old enough, she would become a juvenile and then a Soldier of the Bloody Paw. Then it was her who was going to kick ass – and that not in a game of hide and seek, but out on the battlefield. ”Yearh, you should do that!" she barked happily and continued. ”And you just come back and tell me if you see an ugly big cat out there, Kai. Then we’ll go out, find it, and make sure it won’t cross our way ever again!” she said confidently, wagging her tail. Yup. If she became strong enough, nothing could beat her. Especially not if Kai was beside her. Ugh it was hard standing still when you were so excited. Kai and her were definitely going to be the bestest of friends! It was then she heard a familiar howl which made her perk up her ears. It came from the Mental Asylum. Had time already went that fast? She howled back, telling her father that she would be there soon. It was also starting to get pretty dark around the two young dogs. ”It’s dad, I guess I have to go soon,” she said, tilting her head while her tail still wagged – a little less than before though, because of the thought of going to bed. Now things had just become cool. ”But we’ll see each other again soon enough, right?” she asked and hoped the other female would genuinely agree.

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[Zen]

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[atrb=background,http://i1198.photobucket.com/albums/aa446/jadedog08/Kaitable2-2.png] “I will,” Kai promised, giving Vic a genuinely sweet smile. It amazed her how fast this naive little kid had grown on her. She didn’t consider herself good with young pups at all; she normally had such a low level of patience for their immature antics and their constant stupid questions about anything and everything they saw. A babysitter – or, God forbid, a mother – she was not meant to be. But Victoria was smart for her age, and amusing in a way that wasn’t irritating. “When you’re older, you and me are going to kick some ass out there. Just don’t let any of those adults turn you responsible.” She pretended to gag on the word, sticking her tongue out in disgust. Her floppy ears pricked forward at the sound of a deep warning howl echoing across all corners of the cliffside. Kai frowned in disappointment when she recognized the voice. She looked at Vic, and saw the same regret in the pup’s eyes. The older female let out a deep, frustrated sigh – adults just had to ruin everything, didn’t they? “We will, totally,” she told Vic confidently. “I’ll see you around the pack, and maybe we can train together someday when Clegane starts teaching you how to fight.” That would certainly be something, seeing delicate little Victoria grow into a tough, hardened warrior. But she knew it was bound to happen, as a warrior’s life seemed to be the destiny of all Tempest pups these days. It had been Kai’s fate, but she wasn’t complaining – she enjoyed the thrill of her practice sessions with the other budding soldiers, and eagerly awaited the day she could participate in a real battle. Kai leisurely rolled on to her side, flopping her tail once in silent goodbye as the puppy disappeared beyond the reaches of her vision. Be seeing you soon, kid, was her last thought before she put down her head for a brief nap.

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