HENBANE AERIS Bunny? Bunny. Henbane had found the thing just to the east of the Redwater Rocks, and she was in hot pursuit. Hot, the hottest. Chasing with all she could muster... frankly, she's not very fast. Yeah, sure, she's an athlete but the kind of athlete... it's a different kind. She's a bruiser. A brawler. Hell, Hen may as well have been born with bloody knuckles and a black eye. She wouldn't have it any other way, and she'll never be any other way. There's something off about this one, and there always has been. Chalk it up to generational trauma, or something like that. Right, the bunny. Hen thinks she's hot shit as she chases her prey, but the rabbit was a wiley thing. She won't give up her pursuit, her chase. A rumbling growl in her chest as it leaps, and she chases it by bounds. There was no question of boundaries in her mind. A pup born too wild to be held by the structured life and bounds that a pack provided, that is to say, she doesn't really get it. You can't just own land-- that's fucking stupid. The earth beneath their paws, it's as living or breathing as she is. As the bunny she chased was. Hen couldn't be owned. It doesn't strike her as the faintest possibility that the land could be either. It's just over the boundary that the rabbit finally leaps into a burrow, down a hole. "Fucking cunt," Hen doesn't see the hole until it's too late, of course. She steps into it, her face smashing against the ground. She can feel a muscle twinge in her foreleg, sending the shock of pain through her system. Still, it's her pride that's taken the brunt of the damage. "Bitch." Grumbling, Hen takes a moment to make sense of it all. This sucks.

As a prince of the Ashen Empire, it was Rogue’s duty and responsibility to know his home turf inside and out. Now, granted, that sounded hella boring to a young pup who wanted nothing more than to play and wrestle and nap in the sun, but he supposed he should do at least a little something productive to make sure his mother didn’t scowl at him today. But c’mon, it wasn’t his fault responsibility was so boring! Besides, it wasn’t like he was going to be the next Emperor or anything. Why not let him enjoy his privilege of name and blood and slack off from time to time?

So, under the guise of being a productive member of society, the smallish midnight navy boy meandered his way around the arid terrain of the Redwater Rocks, a place of great pride and importance to his family, and by extension himself. The territory was vastly different from the lush lands around the lake and the ravine that most of the pack resided in. Rogue quite liked the varying terrains of his home. It made exploring exciting! Leaping from red rock to red rock, the boy smiled to himself as he enjoyed the late afternoon sun. As his family was mostly nocturnal, Rogue usually wasn’t up this early, but today felt like an adventuring day, so out he went bright and early! At some point during his roaming, the sounds of growling in an unfamiliar voice caught his attention. Dark ears perked and sunset eyes widening in alert, the prince began to stalk his way around a few of the larger boulders, following the sound to its source. Was it a trespasser? A predator? Someone in distress?

Peeking his head out from behind his cover, Rogue spotted her. A young girl, looking close to his age, covered in dark calico fur. He didn't recognize her, nor did she carry the scent of the Empire, so she was a stranger—yet here she was on Empire lands. So it was a trespasser he'd found! Emboldened by a misplaced sense of noble purpose and authority, the pup puffed himself up with a swell of confidence and strutted around the rock, clearing his throat to get the girl's attention as she began to mutter expletives to no one in particular. "Hey, trespasser! What do you think you're doing here? This is Ashen Empire lands!" he shouted out to her as he drew nearer, studying her form for any signs of aggression or hostility. He replayed the basic fighting lessons he'd gotten from his mother and uncle back in his head the closer he got, preparing for the worst just in case.

"Rogue Klein"

HENBANE AERIS Someone was scoffing at her? At least as far as Hen can tell. Who had any right to be scoffing? Even worse, it meant someone had seen her fall. The bruised ego was now even worse, thanks. She pulls herself out of the hole, somewhat lamely, still scowling off after that rabbit. She would deal with that fucker later, or something. There was someone else to deal with now, and they had the nerve to be laughing at her! Laughing at her and... damn those were a lot of words and Henbane knew what about half of them meant. That's what happens when you speak three languages around kids. They learn all of them but they learn them badly, at first. She swings her head to look at the boy, shaking the dust from her coat. For now, Henbane would try and make sense of what he'd said, her nose wrinkling. "Th'fuck is an ash empire? It doesn't look burnt to me." Henbane looked from the boy to the landscape behind him. It was pretty red, but it didn't look like it had been on fire... at least recently. Was it on fire now? Then it wouldn't be ash, more like burning. What the hell was an empire, exactly? He'd said something about her trespassing, but Henbane had already forgotten. Instead she takes a curious step towards him, ruby eyes glimmering with just a bit of curiosity. The blue boy seemed like a weirdo. It was a good thing that Hen rather likes weirdos, especially because she's one too.

For a beat, Rogue could do nothing but just… stare at the strange girl. He was bewildered by her ignorance of his pack and his family, of the notoriety of the Ashen Empire, of what basic borders and territory claims meant! Her words baffled him probably as much as his baffled her, if not more so. She used language he’d occasionally heard his father mutter under his breath when he was frustrated and didn’t know the pups were listening. He didn’t know how to feel about that, especially since his mother always turned pointed looks toward his sire if she caught him sweating around the pups. This girl was wild, clearly a lawless heathen that had trespassed into his home. Her devil may care demeanor was bizarre and strange to the boy who had only known the decorum of a noble family.

Oh but she was waiting for some sort of response from him! The girl took a step closer to him, looking at him like he was some sort of strange creature she’d never seen before. Rogue didn’t shrink or shy away; the prince held his ground and met curious ruby eyes with his own bewildered sunset gaze. "Uh, the Ashen Empire is only the greatest pack in the land, duh! And it’s also the one you’re trespassing in right now," he responded, then looked around at the arid red rocks around them. "The land isn’t actually burned, silly. That’s our name because-" Rogue paused, realizing he didn’t actually know why their pack was called Ashen. He hadn’t received that history lesson yet. So he defaulted to the next logical answer. "…because my mom said so, and she’s the Empress." surely she would be able to understand the logic there. She was the Empress, she was in charge, so what she said goes! But there was a more pressing question on Rogue's mind. Looking back at the hole in the earth she had been digging at, Rogue asked, "Who are you anyway? And what are you even doing?"

"Rogue Klein"

HENBANE AERIS He stared. Henbane stared back. She's squinting at him, trying to figure him out. Trying to sort out which end is up, when it comes to the strange boy. Was there something wrong with him? Maybe he had a stick up his ass, or something like that. Henbane is borderline feral, the child of a single father who was doing his damndest to keep her litter in one piece. He'd done a good job, all four of them were still whole. Whole, hardy, and educated on the important things. The plants they could eat, the plants they couldn't, trapping and hunting, and they could speak three languages. Henbane was perhaps the most feral of her siblings, with no fear of strangers or regard for safety. The boy finally speaks. Henbane's ears flicker as she processes what he's on about, something about packs. Sounded boring. Sounded like a lot of rules. Because his mom said so? That was an awfully thin reason, especially for Hen, who didn't have the best experience with moms. "Do you always take everything your mom says at face value, just because she says so?" Her nose wrinkled, trying to process what that would even be like. As far as trespassing went... she'd changed the subject already, and that was good enough. The words empire and empress could be related, but also, they mean little to her. "Henbane. Who're you?" She squinted at him, scrutinizing the boy for a moment. "Was chasing a rabbit, fucker was too fast anyway." Hen shrugged. "Glad your house isn't on fire, or whatever." If it was, they'd probably both be screwed at this rate. She's still studying the boy openly, trying to figure him out. Why did he seem so... formal? It's weird. Henbane has decided that he's weird.

Rogue had genuinely expected his reason of his empress mother's decree to be more than enough to make sense to the strange girl, but alas, she proved just how much of a heathen she was when she wrinkled her nose and questioned him further. The midnight-furred pup looked almost insulted when she dared to challenge his mother's authority. Who was she to so openly defy the Ashen Empress and his family? Didn't she know they were nobles?! "You definitely should, since she's the alpha and owner of everything you see around you," he retorted, once more passively pointing out how her trespassing put her on his family's land. She was just lucky he hadn't called the guards yet to have her chased out or captured. That thought was ever present on the boy's mind though, kept like an ace up his sleeve in case he needed it. Besides, he hadn't ever seen anyone get captured by the guards yet and the idea was terribly funny to Rogue to think about.

The heathen girl introduced herself as Henbane, an odd name he'd never heard of before. The wrinkle of his nose betrayed his thoughts on how strange her name sounded. "Rogue," he introduced himself in turn. He didn't bother giving his family name. If she hadn't heard of Ashen, then there was no way she'd have heard of the Klein dynasty. Henbane explained with a shocking amount of vulgarity that she had been chasing a rabbit. Rogue's eyes widened a bit. He'd heard his sire swear when he hadn't known the pups were around, but he'd never heard anyone their age use that kind of language! "Uh... thanks?" Rogue didn't really know what else to say to that. He decided that Henbane was weird as well. Cautiously approaching the girl and the hole in the ground, the pup peered down into the dark warren. "There's a river that cuts through the land here. If we find something that can scoop up water, we could try to flood it out." No animal would stay long in a flooding hole in the ground. It seemed like the easiest way to flush Hen's prey out of its hiding place.

"Rogue Klein"