Ah'mir
Ele'cannara
Played by Collie
7 MOS
26"70LBS
Posts: 29
Likes: 0
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Post by Kahru'hu on Jun 25, 2023 0:53:23 GMT
"Quiet, stomach. I'm trying to get us some lunch." Kahru grumbled back at his growling belly. If it didn't stop making noise, it was going to let all the lout in the forest know that he was coming. He was feeling a little grumpier than usual today, mostly because he'd been out searching for something to eat all day long. The cadet's hunt had taken him far away from his usual stomping grounds.
Ever since the day of the flood, food had been harder and harder to find close to home. All the animals had run away from the floodwater. They hadn't come back, either. No lout wanted to live in the soggy forest, Kahru had figured. All the plants they ate were underwater.
Kahru stopped and gazed around at the now unfamiliar landscape surrounding him. He was in a thick forest of pine and oak, though a human's path cut through the trees not too far from where he stood. Thin posts like short, dead trees lined the path at regular intervals. He couldn't remember ever seeing a grimm in his whole life, but they sure did leave behind some weird stuff.
The pup abandoned the forest and took instead to the path, partly out of curiosity and partly because he knew that shu'a and other lout used these paved walks as well. Sure enough, when he bent his nose to the gravel, the scent of shu'a flooded his senses.
Perhaps it was too ambitious for a pup, even one seven blinks old, to think that he might catch one of these creatures himself. Perhaps he hoped that he might find one of their new fawns nestled somewhere in the forest undergrowth instead. Either way, Kahru licked his chops and set off down the path with his nose to the ground, bushy tail wagging excitedly at his rear.
It wasn't too long before new scents and sounds overcame him though, ones that made him temporarily abandon his hopes of taking down a deer. He lifted his head and peered through the trees, which had now thinned considerably, and nearly groaned when he realized that he was looking at a large body of water.
For a moment he thought that he'd somehow circled back around to that stupid river, but upon closer inspection, stepping cautiously away from the trail, he saw that it was a different kind of water. This kind didn't run like the river. It stayed mostly still, and it looked like the biggest puddle that Kahru had ever seen in his whole life.
Once again his tail began to wag as he drank in the sight of this place. It was surrounded still by thick trees, but there were tall grasses lining the water here too. Kahru could see and hear lout out there. Jarri and lo'a fli, and probably more! He sat down hard on his rump, ignoring the rumbling in his stomach for a moment so that he could make a plan. He could bring home lots of lout from this place if he could figure out how to catch it.
If only he'd brought another Ah'mir with him!
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HERE IS MY HEART AND HERE IS MY SONG
THERE ARE TOO MANY PROPHETS HERE
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Ah'mir
Ele'canna
Played by Wrennie
4 years 5 month
2'3" | 52 lbs
Posts: 27
Likes: 0
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Post by Castor | Thi'e Grair Ren on Jun 27, 2023 3:36:59 GMT
Castor found himself following Kahru'hu on his adventure, stealthily weaving behind trees with his skeletal frame as the cadet crashed through the brush. He had hoped that his teachings would have given Kahru better instincts than to so recklessly barrel through the trees. The cadet was hungry - they all were, but that was even more reason to quiet down and try not to scare every lout in the forest out of their hiding spot.
His cadet's sudden veer from his course toward the lake didn't come as a surprise to the hound. Clearly, Kah'ru wasn't out here on a sole-purpose hunting mission. He was content to dawdle and make a ruckus, why wouldn't he want to take a quick break by the lake? At least the water lout hadn't been sent scurrying by the brute force of the flooded river. Red ears swivelled as he tried to pinpoint if any one of the cacophony of sounds was close enough for him to teach Kah'ru a lesson in being a responsible hunter for the clan. There wasn't time to waste being angry when being hangry was so much worse.
The sound of a nearby duck was his lout of choice. He padded up to his apprentice, careful of where he put his paws as to show the proper stalking technique that would actually keep the clan fed. He batted Kah'ru's heavily-furred shoulder lightly before turning to face the sound of the nearby frog. His pawsteps were slow, even more so on the wet soil that would inevitably give away his position much faster from the squelches of his weight shifting. He lowered his head, almost adopting a pointer-eque position as he approached the fli standing on the shore. Fli he found to be the most fun lout to catch, but also one of the hardest. Having wings gave them an unfair advantage in escape routes.
When he felt like he was close enough, Castor burst out into a sprint toward the bird, lean frame almost springboarding from tendons designed to do just that as he propelled himself towards dinner. A startled honk alerted the waterfowl of the danger afoot, but Castor was on the duck before it had gotten a metre into the air. He leapt, jaws snapping shut around it's leg. Landing on the ground, he practically threw it onto the grass and dispatched it with a quick bite to the neck. Returning to his apprentice with the limp fli in his mouth, he placed it down expectantly at his own paws. "You won't be able to run as fast towards fli as me, so you need to come up with your own strategy. You can't be making so much noise, especially around the water. The ripples scare away rapha and fli, and jarri are hardly enough to feed a ren let alone the clan. You'd need to catch a bundle to please anyone. Show me what you've got," he spoke firmly, his annoyance in the actions of his cadet quite clear. Hopefully, the shepherd-mix could get back into his good graces quickly. The smell of the fresh duck was enough to make his stomach do enough growling for his mouth.
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Ah'mir
Ele'cannara
Played by Collie
7 MOS
26"70LBS
Posts: 29
Likes: 0
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Post by Kahru'hu on Jun 28, 2023 19:59:51 GMT
Castor's sudden appearance came as a complete surprise to the youngster. He'd been so wrapped up in watching the water birds that he hadn't heard a sound from the bigger dog! The sudden tap on his shoulder made him jump and turn, recognition flooding his expression when he realized that his mentor had followed him all the way out here into unfamiliar lands. How had he done that? Kahru could never be that sneaky.
He opened his mouth to barrage his mentor with questions, but realized almost instantly that Castor wanted him to shush up and watch the hunt.
And so he did. He sat perfectly still, ears tuned in to watch the ibizan stalk quietly, the perfect picture of a canna on the hunt. Kahru soaked it all in, from the first stalk to the last pounce. The dispatching kill. The annoyed lecture that came afterwards. (He hung his head for that part, ashamed that Castor had been witness to his own failure to catch anything.) Otherwise, it had been a very impressive show and Kahru knew that he could only dream of replicating something so perfectly. Castor was right. He could never be that fast. He just wasn't built for it.
And then...
"Uh.." Castor wanted a demonstration. Kahru lifted his eyes to meet his mentor's, puzzlement clear in his own amber eyes. How could he begin to approach this? He opted to just speak. Thinking too hard about how to talk carefully hurt his brain and made the grown-ups tap their paws when he didn't talk fast enough.
"What I've got? Well. I was watching her to see if she'd go back and sit on her pata'woya. But...then you turned her into lout." He stood up and pursed his lips in a show of deep thought, scanning the horizon for another one of those water birds. Castor definitely wanted him to show how he could catch a bird. Not eggs. Even though the thought of digging into a nest of warm, freshly abandoned eggs made the cadet's own stomach grumble dramatically. Or maybe it was just the smell of that duck that was sitting between the two canna's paws.
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HERE IS MY HEART AND HERE IS MY SONG
THERE ARE TOO MANY PROPHETS HERE
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Ah'mir
Ele'canna
Played by Wrennie
4 years 5 month
2'3" | 52 lbs
Posts: 27
Likes: 0
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Post by Castor | Thi'e Grair Ren on Jul 7, 2023 3:50:03 GMT
He could practically hear the gears turning in Kahru's head while he tried to think of a way to please him. It was almost as loud as the tromp through the woods earlier. "What I've got? Well. I was watching her to see if she'd go back and sit on her pata'woya. But... then you turned her into lout," the cadet expanded. Castor knew better than to take his words as accusatory. He did, after all, interrupt Kahru's hunt with his own agenda. The Ibizan opted to nod along with his apprentice, thinking of how best to direct him.
"Woya are a good idea, but are difficult to bring back to the clan in one go. Let's walk around the edge of the lake and see if there are any more fli. You can try to catch one yourself. Remember that each pawstep on wet ground will make more noise, so stealth will be a good starting place for your strategy," Castor's annoyance had faded now as he tried to recall that the young dog, despite his ever-growing stature, was still a child and needed direction more than criticism. The slender dog began walking further, assuming that Kahru would join him. Maybe the pup would have a different idea, which Castor would entertain if he voiced it, but the mentor figured that he would prefer to take the route with a little less brain-work and follow along for this hunt.
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Ah'mir
Ele'cannara
Played by Collie
7 MOS
26"70LBS
Posts: 29
Likes: 0
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Post by Kahru'hu on Jul 12, 2023 2:46:14 GMT
Kahru turned his amber gaze down to stare hard at Castor's paws, but his ears were still turned straight up towards the bigger dog's face. Thinking. Listening. Sponging it all up for later. His mentor was right again. (How was he always right!) There would have been no way to get a clutch of woya back to the clan...not from here. Living lout should be his primary target.
Wordlessly he nodded and fell into step just behind the ibizan hound. His pace was slower if only because he had taken to heart what the older canna had told him about his footsteps squishing loudly through wet earth. His focus went into walking quietly, feeling the mud and water between his paws, and trying his very best not to squelch loudly enough that their prey might hear them.
Kahru's deep concentration was broken very suddenly by a commotion underneath his oh-so-carefully placed paws. There was something wiggling frantically there underneath the mud covered grass. The pup jumped back with a yelp that could wake the dead, flinching away from this ground-borne monster.
It only took a moment though for the cadet to recover his thoughts and pounce back into action, for he could see now that it was well and truly lout. Some kind of big, brown chek that was now scurrying for its life through the weeds, headed straight for the nearby pond. He overtook it in a few short, clumsy bounds, crunched it up in his jaws and then dropped the now (mostly) limp creature and slapped a big paw down over it hard.
"Got 'im!" He barked out triumphantly to his mentor, turning with a goofy grin to face the red and white hound. It wasn't a fli. And it definitely wasn't strategized. But here he stood now with his very own catch to toss into the pile alongside Castor's. Stealth be damned. All he had to do was walk through the right clump of weeds.
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HERE IS MY HEART AND HERE IS MY SONG
THERE ARE TOO MANY PROPHETS HERE
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Ah'mir
Ele'canna
Played by Wrennie
4 years 5 month
2'3" | 52 lbs
Posts: 27
Likes: 0
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Post by Castor | Thi'e Grair Ren on Jul 16, 2023 23:02:57 GMT
Duck feathers were oily, and quite frankly, disgusting to have to carry. Nevertheless, the fli drooped from its neck in Castor's jaws as he lead his cadet away from the commotion where he caught it. Red ears swivelled as the pair walked, searching for any lout rustling in the grass or calling out foolishly. His eyes squeezed shut as a heavy sigh caught the back of his throat when the foolish call he heard was not of dinner but of his apprentice behind him. There had better be a great explanation for this. It's not like Kahru had lived his life completely in the greenhouse; the forest was not some megalithic alien world.
He was pleasantly surprised looking over his shoulder to see Kahru jumping into action after the now scurrying chunk of check. It wasn't the most graceful kill, but it was a major improvement from having nothing. The young male had used his instincts and training combined to slap the poor thing to death, but food was food. The hound smiled behind his duck, pride leaking into his expression past the general air of annoyance that typically radiated off him. "Vell duhn," he praised, muffled by the oily feathers, "Leths get theese home." The careful placing of his stilts pivoted back towards the greenhouse once he flicked his head to encourage his apprentice to pick up his very own kill. Hopefully Kahru had learned something other than the thrill of the kill and Castor could say he actually was getting a handle of this mentoring business, but time would tell.
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