The Dire Warlord made his way to sea’s plains, walking among the arenas and training dummies as he considered the path forward. It was time to introduce his little ones, who seemed to grow mighty with each day, to the art of fighting. Even those that did not wish to take the path all the way, would need to learn the basics. Today, he would discover those that wished to make a career in fighting. The Warlord raised his head and howled for his children, summoning them to the beach and a space between arenas. He sat back on his hunches as the howl faded into silence and crashing waves. He had no doubt it would not be long before they came. "Speech"

Aris had been in the middle of squishing a bunch of random plants in a borrowed bowl using a rock to squash them when she heard her father calling. Her ears pricked up, and she dropped the rock in the bowl. It needed to cook anyway! She'd find a mouse to eat it later. Right now it sounded like there was something a lot more fun to do, and with the goldfish-attention span of youth she'd already lost interest in favor of something new and exciting. She bounced up to her dad, tail a blur, her prickly hackles raised in excitement and her oversized teeth exposed in a grin. "Hey Daddy!" she caroled, throwing herself against his forelegs in a violent hug. "We gonna do fighting???????" Her enthusiasm for that idea was clear in every movement and the particularly predatory expression on her face. Finally! She'd be as good a fighter as her daddy and then she would challenge to be the best rank, once she decided what that was. Not his rank, of course. But the other best rank. She bounced impatiently, waiting for her siblings to get there so that they could fight.

Walk | "Talk" | think

Her father's call of course out weighed any other thing she might have been doing so she quickly abandoned the little bird she had been following around for a bit now and ran off to find him. Of course he was pretty easy to find with how big he was so as she ran toward the sandy beach his dark form was easily spotted among the sea of tan. She had hoped she'd be the first one to show up so that she could brag about how she was the fastest, but her sister had managed to make it shortly before she did - making her the second to arrive. She justified it to herself by thinking that Aris must have been much, much closer to the beach than she had been so clearly it wasn't even a fair race. As she hopped over to where Aris was standing at Sirius' paws, arriving just in time to hear her mention fighting. Briar grinned excitedly and peered up at their father curiously, hoping her purple-marked sister was right. "Oooooh fighting! Yeah!"

Gossamer bounced through the all grass plains. She'd been learning about fire safety from Ásta and after they'd finished the lesson the pair quickly got immersed in a game of tag. Gossy was racing after the fox when she heard her father's call. She quickly scrambled toward the Sea's Plain with Ásta right next to.

She arrived to see Briar and Aris already there and she caught the words fighting. "Oh, yay! Please, teach us to fight!" She couldn't wait for a fighting lesson. Ásta could only do so much and as a fox she was more into getting away than fighting to win which didn't suit Gossamer at all. She wanted to be able to beat up bad guys. Gossamer settled down next to her sisters and awaited instructions. Her tail was wagging furiously with excitement.

Walk | "Talk" | think

Kotori had decided he needed a pet and had been in the process of looking for something dangerous and neat looking.  He’d force something into being his pet if it wouldn’t willingly do so.  Gossy had a fox so he needed something even more awesome than that.  A fox was pretty neat though, and a talking fox at that.  So Kotori had been trying to question animals he spotted to see if they’d talk back.  So far none had talked back, at least in a canid tongue, though a hawk had sure screamed at him.

At dad’s call, he quit his searching to run fast towards him and his siblings apparently.  Drat, a bunch of his sisters were already there.  Dad was sitting, that was perfect.  The pup ran forward, hopping up on his dad’s back to climb up his dad’s back, tail vibrating in excitement. “Lets go, I’m ready!”

“Hey little Ari” the Warlord said, stooping down to embrace the first little arrival. She tumbled into his paws and he balanced her with his free paw on her back, kissing the scar markings above her eye. “That’s the plan” he agreed, this time speaking to two wolves as his Zee-look-alike appeared in a tumble of excited words. He leaned forward to kiss one little horn nub. Free with his affections to these little troubles. He almost missed little Gossy behind Briar, and leaned forward even more. Almost enough to topple as he added a few kisses to her speckled face. His youngest son took advantage of his stretched out pose and leaped up his back, and setting on his stooped shoulders. The Warlord loved, undone by his youngest brood. He raised his head - careful not to dislodge Kotori - and gave a quick skan for little Hope. Not seeing the girl, he swept his gaze back over the others. If she wished to participate, she could hop in any time. “Alright, line up” he said, dropping his body to the side and giving it a little shake to dislodge Kotori near the ground. He waited to see who complied. “We are going to learn the basics today. Who can tell me what the basics are?” being raised in a war pack, he suspected some things had already started to rub off. "Speech"

Oh no oh no! Panic flooded through Ophie's veins as she rushed along, very late in heeding her dad's call. It wasn't as though she'd ignored him on purpose- Ophie would never ever do that- rather, she'd been taking a much needed nap up in her favourite tree and dosed off for longer then she'd planed. For a long and scary moment she though about skipping out on the meeting altogether, but she quickly shooed the ideas away as she figured she'd get in a lot of trouble for that. She wasn't a bad pup and thus far hadn't done anything to deserve a proper scolding and the thought of that changing had Ophie quaking in her little boots.

By the time she fumbled onto scene her dad had everyone already lined up to attention and she was struck with a wallop of guilt as she slunk into her position at the end of the line, eyes downcast and lips pulled tight in a guilty frown as she caught the tail end of his question. She wanted to leap up and tell her dad what he wanted to hear...but she didn't know. She fought and wrestled with her siblings because she found it fun...not because she knew what she was doing. But even then she wanted to try and her ears flipped back as she wracked her brain for something smart to say.

"Umm. Don't let em grab your neck?" Ophie peeped up from the end of the line, hoping it was a good place to start.

Gossamer grinned at her father's kisses then as he ordered them to line up she quickly scrambled back into line with her other siblings, well as much as she could anyway. Sirius asked what they thought the basics of fighting was and Gossamer thought on it for a moment. Ophelia spoke up first and her suggestion sounded good to Gossamer. Grabbing the neck was how you killed stuff, unless it was like a bug or something. Then you just ate the whole thing. "Biting?" Biting seemed important in a fight. She remembered getting after a possum with Ophelia and it would've been hard to drive it off of their territory if they didn't bite at it. She hoped her answer was good. She wanted to impress her father and show that she had potential as a warrior.

The rest of Ari's siblings came tumbling in in short order, except Ophie but she was probably off finding something stinky to roll around in. Aris sat up as straight as she could and pasted on a very serious, warrior expression to show how extremely ready she was. SO ready. It must have worked because her dad didn't wait for Ophie (though she ran up anyway) and got started. The basics. What were the basics of fighting? How basic did he want it? How do you distill the essence of battle down to its smallest components? Aris' face scrunch in a thoughtful scowl as her siblings came up with answers that weren't bad, but didn't really seem to get the whole of it for Ari, who was way overthinking things. Finally, she settled on it, and with certainty in her viice she said firmly, "Hurt the other guy and don't get hurt." That was the very basics of fighting, right? Everything else was just details.

Walk | "Talk" | think

Kotori was quite happy while he was up higher than everyone else for a few moments but all good things come to an end.  As his dad shook to encourage him off Kotori hopped down with only a bit of stumbling on the front end.

Kotori ran for a spot midway in the line, facing his dad.  What were the basics? He listened to the other's suggestions but refused to simply go along with the answer anyone else gave even if they seemed perfectly good answers.  “Never let them get behind you and never back down from a challenge?” Cowardice wasn’t allowed in the Fatalis family after all, right?