Her father seemed to be more keen on giving practical lessons, but she didn't mind. If anything it just meant they got to go out of the pack lands looking for things to fight which she was obviously on board with. She followed along beside him as they passed through some of the places that she had already been like the aspen dam, the cedar falls, and even the garden which was looking less dried out than when she and Kione had been here last. The break from the hot Auster summer heat was very much welcome, especially to someone who liked to travel as much as she did. The scorching temperatures had not been pleasant for someone with as much wanderlust as her.

She was being extra spoiled today since her father went out of the way to take her somewhere new in their hunt for predators to fight and when they arrived in this place that was littered with massive bones she was far more interested in and awed by the landscape than what they had actually come for. For a moment while he was checking the area for predators she was just looking at the huge bones that poked up here and there from the ground. Some of them looked like ribs poking out of the dirt, some of them were more like skulls of creatures she had never seen before, and some still were like leg bones on a massive scale.

"Chimera & Rusalka"

With so many children and so much responsibility Chimera was spread pretty thin. However, when any of his children took the initiative to ask if he would spend time with them, the king put all of his business aside to do so. Today, he was taking his sweet daughter out for a bit of fighting and adventure. Ruse was terribly perfect and Chimera loved her so. He could never deny her requests, especially when it came to learning how to protect herself. He knew how rough and dangerous the world was. His little adventurer wouldn't be content to stay on the island forever, so if she could learn to fight, he would feel better about it.

Seeing the happiness on his daughters half masked face brought a grin to Chimera's own split features. He would take her wherever she wanted to go just to see the look of joyous wonder on Rusalka's face. The pair moved through the forest of bones. It was obvious that many large creatures had died here ages ago. Believing that large beasts had one roamed the land wasn't a far stretch. There were obviously dire wolves. He'd seen the massive dires from across the icy bridge. Huge creatures were quite believable, especially when there was such solid proof in their remains.

"Chimera & Rusalka"

While her and her father were exploring the unusual land of bones, she spotted a big skull that was mostly exposed from the ground with part of a skeleton sticking up from the ground behind it. It was a massive mammoth skull with huge curved tusks and she gasped softly with excitement and awe as she ran over to it, hopping up on one of the tusks with a grin. She climbed up the tusk and on top of the old bones, now several feet off of the ground from her new perch on top of this skull. "I’m the queen of… whatever this thing was!” she declared with a giggle and a pleased wag of her tail as she looked down at her father.

However, as she was standing atop her new vantage point, the hyenas that apparently had been using this skull as their den started filtering out and surrounding her dad with their signature laughing yips and barks. Her grin fell away and a more serious, concerned look took its place, her ears flicking back as she prepared herself to jump down and help her dad with the fight if she needed to. She didn’t know how dangerous or hard to fight hyenas were so she didn’t know what she was going into, but she wouldn’t just sit back and watch her dad her hurt! What’s why she was learning how to fight anyway, right? To protect herself and her family! Well, and so she could leave the island without worrying her dad so much, but that came hand in hand with the other stuff.

"Chimera & Rusalka"

His sweet daughter, not so little anymore unfortunately, ran towards one of the big skulls and wasted no time in climbing atop it. Her words of being queen brought a chuckle from the brute. "It's a mammoth. They're like huge fuzzy elephants." Did she even know what an elephant was? He'd have to show her some day. He'd seen live mammoths during the winter when the ice bridge had formed, but this one was bigger and had been dead for a long, long time.

While looking up at his highly perched child, the familiar sound of hyena laughter bubbled up all around him. The dire brute turned, his back to the skull to fix his singular gaze upon the approaching creatures. He hoped that Ruse would just stay up top and let him handle this, but he knew she'd been working on her fighting. She wasn't a baby anymore, unfortunately, and he would have to let her learn. At least he could be here to make sure that things went well.

A big hyena rushed him and Chimera dove forward, jaws wide so that he could bite hard into the beasts face. The hyena squealed and spun, its ruptured eye dribbling liquid as it ran off. He'd drawn first blood and it showed on the white of his coat.

"Chimera & Rusalka"

Ruse watched with a worried frown as the hyenas advanced on her father, clearly not willing to back down despite her father's imposing stature. A snarl pulled at her lips as she watched and waited, her legs coiled under her as she waited for a good opening and tried to remember all the things she had been working on and learned so far. She watched as the first one rushed him, but it didn't get very far. Her dad took care of that one very quickly with a swift bite to the face, sending it screaming and running from them with blood falling from the open wounds now scattered around its eyes. She spotted a different hyena that seemed to think that it could take advantage of him being distracted with its counterpart as it creeped up behind him and was about to pounce on him from behind, but Ruse wasn't going to let that happen.

With a growl that was far less intimidating than her fathers, Ruse leapt down from her perch on top of the mammoth's skull and she landed with her paws on the hyena's back, knocking it to the ground with her weight. She immediately bit into the back of its neck as it squealed and wriggled to get out from under her and she shook her head to tear through the skin at its scruff before it could do so. It did manage to get away since she couldn't get a very good grip on it, but it was more worse for wear than when the fight began and it quickly retreated behind its friends. She stood back to back with her father, snarling at the rest of the hyenas to see if any of them would be brave and go for them again.

"Chimera & Rusalka"

Ruse couldn't help herself and jumped down from her perch. She used the leap to her advantage and knocked one of the hyenas over, her teeth in its neck before it wriggled free and ran off. The wolves naturally moved back to back, Chimera's tail tapping his daughters haunch to gauge her location. He couldn't give her his full attention, but he would give her as much as he could spare.

Another of the hyenas leaped forward, a cackle erupting from its maw. Chimera met that cackle with a guttural snarl, baring rows of razor sharp fangs. The stupid creature continued moving forward and the two-toned behemoth met it half way. Just like the other, Chimera bit into the hyena's face, shredding its cheek and lips. Just like the other, it ran away screaming and he let it go. Would this be lesson enough?

"Chimera Klein"

Ruse stood behind her father, appreciating the tap of his tail against her just to make sure they both knew where one another was. This was her first time ever being in what felt like a real fight and it was exciting and nerve wracking all at the same time. She did her best to not pay attention to the nerves though as she snarled and growled at the last remaining hyenas while her father met an attack from one of them behind her. She always wanted to make him proud so she tried to remember all of the things she had been taught so far about fighting and defending herself so she could show off a bit of what she had learned, but as she really got into the fight she ended up kind of making it up as she went along which seemed to be working out for her so far.

After the last hyena that her dad sent running, she could tell that they were starting to get nervous and had backed up some, seemingly less willing to rush into a fight than they had been moments prior. One of them made one last ditch effort to get the upper hand and rushed at her, but as soon as she met it with the same energy and rushed back at it with a hard snap of her teeth it backed off and skittered back to its brethren. That finally got the message across and they started to dissipate, running off with their yelping laughter back into the grasses until their cackling eventually faded off into the distance.

Once she was sure they were gone she grinned and spun around to face her dad, giving him a wide smile while her tail wagged behind her as she looked up at him. "How was that?!" she asked excitedly, her front paws prancing a bit in her excitement. "Did you see me jump on that one hyena? I bet it didn't even see me coming!" She giggled and went to lean into her father's chest while her tail was still wagging a mile a minute behind her. If all fighting was this fun then she definitely wouldn't mind learning how to do more of it!

"Chimera & Rusalka"

With snaps and snarls, the hyenas had soon learned their lesson. Well, most of them. One rushed forward and Ruse rushed back towards it, Chimera right behind her, his thick coat standing on end and his teeth flashing. The beast squealed, turned and ran back towards the others. The cackling group was soon on their way and their odd cries died down to nothing.

The tension in the brute lessened and his haunches folded as he seated himself in the grass. He could see the excitement in his daughter and as she leaned into his chest, the man wrapped one thick foreleg around her, placing a gentle kiss to her crown. "You did well, love." She'd guarded her front, kept her back to him and hadn't done anything too reckless. Chimera's tongue swept out and he lapped a bit of hyena blood from the girl's cheek. "Keep up with your lessons and you'll be better than your old dad before you know it."

"Chimera & Rusalka"