Kyanite was as stubborn as they came. So when her dad had set her to organising the storage room - a task she could do no matter the time of day - she made sure to sigh and grumble and really let everyone around her know how she felt about it. How much her dad was asking of her.

She put it off as long as she could, until she really didn’t have any more excuses, and then made her way to the room. There were coats shoved to the side, and meat that had been dried, but not organised in any disconcernable way. Frankly, it was a mess. She let out one more very weary sigh, and grabbed a box to use as a stoll. Her father had said he would be sending one more wolf her way to help with the work, and she wondered who she would be stuck with. If she was lucky, maybe she could foist most of the work onto them…

"Kite"

As per his sire's instruction, the burly yearling plodded towards the storage room. He mostly followed Kite's scent, now that she was on the move to start the work. Hardly keen to do most of the work himself, Stratum had made a point of lounging in her general vicinity, out of sight and out of mind, until she was done griping about the chores. Giving her a head start, the dun coloured male then meandered along after her. So when he strolled in, she was already getting to work. "You want to take the front half, or the back half?" he drawled with a lopsided grin as he squeezed past her and started to really survey the situation. It wasn't going to be a particularly quick task, but it didn't look.. overly intensive. Some of the half-assed attempts at partitioning goods was obvious enough, so they would just have to properly separate everything. Probably rearrange the boxes and chests that stored the smaller items. Nothing crazy. Probably. One massive paw reached out to overturn a crate that was overflowing with bundled furs. Maybe he would sort them a bit better, remove the wools and sheepskins into a different container, since they were usually used for different things than the rest of the pelts they kept. "I haven't seen you in a little bit, hey? Been out exploring?" he asked, rumbling baritones kept at a low volume. The caves carried sound so well that he never needed to raise his voice, and the whole notion of shouting was nearly unpalatable to the blond boy at this point.

A voice told her help had arrived, she pushed her facemask - which had slipped over her eyes again - and glared at him. “The front half, obviously I’m not getting off this stoll again until this section is done” She grumbled at him. It didn’t show in her voice, but she was pleased that Stratum had been the one chosen to help her. She wanted to spend more time with her siblings before…

SHe felt heat in her cheeks at his question. “I’ve been practising my sparring with Lioness out in the woods” She said, the lie rolling off her tongue with practised ease. She was keeping Beru a secret from everyone. And she did train, a lot! She had to if she wanted to beat up Azure one day. She busied herself pulling things from the depth of the shelf closer to her so she could dust behind them.


"Kite"

Her tone was probably intimidating to anyone else, but Stratum knew when there was proper venom behind Kite's words. This wasn't actually anger, just copping an attitude for its own sake. He snorted softly, a grin making its way onto his face. He hummed thoughtfully when she mentioned that she'd been out sparring with her companion in the woods lately, glancing her way as he shuffled the furs and skins into different piles to be arranged later. As he worked, the dun coloured youth made note of anything that looked like it had been sitting around for a while. Soon he and his siblings would be getting their own dens, and maybe he could get away with pilfering the unused tools and bedding from this storage room to decorate with. "Smart move, I guess it helps to have some shade so you can get better at fighting outside of the caves without blinding yourself completely." he admitted absentmindedly, nodding to himself at the assessment. It seemed like his sisters all had their shit together already, and had everything planned out. What was he doing? Tinkering, mostly. Long term planning wasn't exactly his forte. "I've been thinking of asking Ruga to mentor me in smithing," he offered, his own attempt at sharing how his training was going. That's what they were doing, right? Playing catch up, talking about what they wanted to do now that they're both grown? Probably. "not sure I want to spend much time guarding the market, I'd rather get to make stuff and then sell it off." he added, more to himself than anything. He replaced the worn hides in the overturned basket, and tipped it back upright. Pushed it into the alcove that served as a bottom shelf. He folded a few of the sheepskins up, and piled them beside the basket of hides on that bottom shelf. There was a huge mess of stuff beside him, poorly hidden against the back wall of the cavern. Maybe.. maybe he should sort that out before getting too invested in organizing the shelves. Otherwise he'd probably end up rearranging everything to fit the contents of the mystery pile into the shelves. Plunking his rump down in front of the heap of mystery items, Stratum set to work shifting everything into smaller piles according to his own arbitrary categories. Cleaning stuff, food stuff, crafting stuff, bedding stuff, and.. miscellaneous? He wasn't sure what some of this shit was. "Are you excited to get your own den? Seems like you've been itching to get away from dad and us." he asked next, tone neutral and carefree. He wasn't too upset that his sister was independent, she dealt with a lot more bullshit from their family than he did. Her disinterest in playing games or going hunting with the rest of the siblings.. that hurt a little more. Perhaps he was trying to gauge just how far she had distanced herself from him and their siblings, to measure just what kind of wall he might need to scale before he could draw her back into cuddle piles again. After everything that they'd been through, he wanted the simplicity of infancy again. Demanding attention and food from someone else, smushing his siblings beneath his pudgy frame, and slobbering on his sisters. All the while this bounced about his skull, he continued to move dried meats and packaged preserves into the cache that had been dug into the wall.

Well that was interesting. Stratum had an interest in blacksmithing. She hadn’t realised that, and she felt a pang. She knew she got caught up in her own drama’s very easily. She had so much to be annoyed about. People to hate, and be in competition with… it was all very distracting. But she loved her littermates. She loved them more than anything else in the world - including her older siblings, parents, and other members of her large extended family.

She wanted to know what Stratum liked. Maybe she could pick up some starter tools for him from the Marketplace? Something to remember her by... her thoughts were interrupted by what Stratum said next. She squinted at him, frowning, silent for a moment. Then she huffed, and dropped down from the stoll (which in itself was annoying, now she would have to climb back up) she marched over to Stratum. She got in front of him, getting in the way of whatever he was doing.

She raised a paw, extended a claw, and poked him in his big dumb chest with it. She waited until she was absolutely certain she had his attention. “Itching to get away from you? dumbass.” She told him, even though it was kind of true. She was trying to leave. She wanted her independence, she wanted to be seen as more than just the defective Fatalis child. “Away from Azure? Sure. that man is a menace. Away from Dad? Who alternates between treating me with kid gloves, to forgetting I have a disability and making my life difficult? Yeah, maybe. He didn’t even tell us mum was dying. I wasted my goodbye with her!” her voice had started to rise, and hadn’t stopped yet. She was yelling now.

“I spent it whining about other people getting toys I didn’t! Like a baby! So yeah, maybe I want out of the family den. But you? Andy? Charlie, Crux, Dread, Vanta? You guys are mine. And if you think for one moment you can get rid of me that easily, then think again!” She poked  him another three times, just for emphasis, and because she was mad. And she wanted to.


"Speech"