Dirty little secret

If there was one thing he needed it was some time and space away from the pack - especially now that winter had set in and the north had become even less pleasant to be in. If he had to spend one more day staring at the walls of the ship or the sparse, spindly pines he was going to go out of his mind. So he left and started heading south. He didn't even really know where he wanted to go at this point, but he just wanted to be somewhere else for a while. He didn't bother telling anyone where he was going or what he was doing, but he didn't feel like he really needed to. After all, wasn't that what his father and two of his siblings had done for months? He doubted anyone would even notice if he was gone for a couple of weeks and if they did he didn't feel like they really had much of a leg to stand on if they tried to give him a hard time about it.

He snaked his way though Boreas, passing through the Battlefield and slipping past one of the packs as he skirted around the edge of the desert and crossed through some not so interesting or pleasant hills. He found a nice prairie that was much more interesting and pleasant than anywhere else he had been and then eventually landed on a beach that was as dark and black as the darker markings on his legs. His paws blended in with the obsidian sand as he walked across it. He had been traveling for several days now, taking his time as he went and hunting as he went whenever he got hungry, just seeing the world beyond the pack for the first time. So far all he had learned as the spot his father picked for them to live was terribly dull and cold and miserable.

It was getting later in the day as he settled on the beach to rest for a while and as the sun began to set the the beach came alive, glittering with warm hues of orange and yellow wherever there wasn't patches of snow covering the sand. This area of the continent was becoming more interesting than back home by the second and it really made him wonder why his father had chosen that place to live. He pawed absently at a lump of snow that was near where he was sitting, pulling some of it toward him and squishing it into a ball that ended up being part snow and part damp sand. He supposed snow ball fights probably weren't as common down here or perhaps they were since snow was more of an occasional visitor than a permanent presence. Maybe snow was more pleasant or fun in small doses.

He scooped up the white and black marbled snowball in a large paw, turning it one way and another in the sunlight and watching how it faintly glimmered the same way the sand under his paws did. He wondered if he could do something kind of like this back home - make some snowballs that had something mixed into them or maybe even hidden inside them. Maybe when he got back home he could convince the blue family to play a game with him - some kind of guessing game to see what snowball had the prize inside. He could even make the snowball itself look interesting like this one but have nothing in it to throw them off. It was a game of chance he supposed, but a game none of the less.

As he threw the snowball across the beach and watched it land near the lapping waves only to break apart, he started trying to think of things that could be tucked inside a snowball for his game just to keep his mind busy while he sat alone in the beach. Different rocks, maybe one that signaled a prize, one that signaled some kind of prank or punishment. Maybe he'd use them as a way to draw straws for a spar or race. It would almost be a mental experiment of sorts to see who went for what kind of snowball. Would they always go for the fancier snowball just because that would likely signal something was special about it? Would any of them catch on to his trick before he pulled it and go for the plain one instead? What if they were all the same and equal in appearance? Would they leave it to random chance or try to weigh them in their paws first?

Down here in the warmer and more southern portions of Boreas this whole plan would have to be dedicated to the winter months, but back home he could probably play this little game year round. It was a random thought at best, but without anyone to occupy his time his mind was left to wander and ponder the most random of thoughts - including a half baked guessing game involving snowballs. He scoffed a little at himself and finally pushed himself back to his paws to continue on down the beach that matched him so perfectly with the dark obsidian sands that glittered with orange and gold.

WC: 881

Cináed Praetor