Word count: 224

It was apparent that this was as tall as Levi was gonna get. That whilst his bigger brother Bas easily towered over both Sirius and Azure, Levi would always be the small, shrimp of the lot. He didn't care, it never really bothered him- but did the Warlord really have to shadow his steps like this? As the rain poured down, punching along the line of his back, Levi cast a look over his shoulder with furrowed brows. Undeniably, he was going through a teenage, grumpy phase but whether he would ever emerge from the other side was yet to be seen. He didn't need a chaperone, didn't want one but he wasn't going to stand around in the rain just out of spite. Not when there was a perfectly good cave just there, ready and willing to provide shelter to those who needed it.

"How come you don't follow Bas around?" He asked as he stepped inside, the constant sound of rain fading with each footfall. It took his eyes a moment to adjust to the sudden change in lighting and his ears twitched at the distant sound of clinking changes. Little did he know his Mother had met Sparrow in this crypt, that they'd done bad adult things. Tsk tsk. "But if you must, don't slow me down. Aren't you getting old?"

The Warlord, who had recently taken Basilisk to the Hallows, smiled. Levi truly thought that? That he had missed the times he had set a wolf to follow the boy. But Basilisk was clumsy, a magnet for trouble. So far, the shorter, runtier wolf who had proved his might did not seem to invite trouble so easily. This outing wasn’t about chaperoning the boy, but spending time to get to know him. But you couldn’t tell a moody teenager you loved them and expect a good outcome. So he laughed softly, and shook his head. “I have minions for that.” Was all he commented. The wind scarcely bothered the thick-coated Warlord. He moved into the cave after Levi, shaking the worst of the water from his coat the second he stopped feeling the rain on his fur. “Thank you for noticing, Levi. I thought no one would appreciate the salt and pepper on my muzzle.” He said blandly, the angst of the young no longer stirred him as it had. “What do you scent in the cave?” "Speech"

Levi flicked his ear and scoffed. Indeed, he'd spent most of his childhood being shadowed by some companion or another. For a while, when he'd been younger he hadn't minded it as much, but in hindsight it was stifling. Almost as bad as when his Mother fawned over him, cooing and kissing, calling him her sweetest, littlest baby. Right. A snort pushed its way out of his nose at the Warlord's remark, salt and pepper, huh? For an old man he didn't look awful, hadn't yet gotten all wiry and thin with old age, made Levi wonder what he'd looked like in his young and proper prime. Whether any of his sons could compare, Mortis and Azure alike.

Levi shifted his attention to the question posed, his nose twitching as he took in the scents that wafted out from the deep. He took a few steps forward, seemingly unfazed by the morbid nature of this place. The knowledge that things had died here, would always die here after they got lost.

"Decay. Old bones." He sniffed again. "The air is musty. Bad circulation, is probably worse deeper in. We're probably the first people who've been in here in a while." He noted, barely holding back the urge to ask if his nose had stopped working in its old age. He was a moody teenager for sure, but he wasn't a shithead. Not really.

The Warlord watched in silence as Levi let his nose guide him. The pups were still learning to truly navigate with their senses, but Levi seemed to have a good handle on what he was scenting. Of course, the decay was hard to miss. That he noticed the lack of trails was good. This wasn’t a path easily taken. The Warlord, sniffing himself, nodded his head in agreement. “Bats, too. Faint.” it was subtle under the stronger smell of decay. Levi however should know the smell of bats. His father had one for a companion. “Pick a direction” he encouraged as they moved further into the crypt. "Speech"

Levi frowned slightly but didn't press any further or complain. He hardly spent that much time with his sire, too busy, so he couldn't say he was overly familiar with what a bat smelled like. Either way he had to chose which path to take, this way or that? From a glance alone they looked about the same, one branching to the right and the other to the left. The only thing he could see that distinguished one from the other was the fact one path had chains and the other did not. They swayed slowly, like curling fingers beckoning them close and Levi made up his mind, felt like it didn't really matter in the end.

"This way then." He concluded, already on the move as he went down his chosen path, that to the left with the chains.