Sirius soaked up the lesson like a sponge. She'd already had several successful hunts, but recognized that they didn't make her an expert. Clearly Cascade knew what she was talking about and it was for that reason that Siri made her the sole recipient of her attention. Everyone else faded away. No other voice registered. She listened intently, reverently, and when they were asked to try it she did so without hesitation. Her paws seemed to find every tiny twig and crackly leaf there was. She'd hold one aloft and feel, but what she seemed to be sensing didn't quite mesh with reality. It was a tad frustrating. Obviously she wasn't totally crap at it since she'd caught and killed several prey animals, but why? Even that big bumbling Imperialis boy seemed to be doing better than her! "Speaking" "Thinking"

Atreides cocked his head to the side to listen as Cascade spoke at length. Mostly it was pretty basic stuff that the older kids had probably all figured out unless they hadn't made any sort of attempt at all to start hunting for themselves. Some of it though was new to him, and would be really helpful especially the demonstration part. It was one thing to know something and another thing entirely to see it and as he watched the way she moved he had a bit of a lightbulb moment. Oooooh so that's what he was doing wrong there. Stretching lazily to his feet he joined his siblings in testing out the skill. It was certainly easy for the naturally easy-going male to move slow and feel his way patiently, but it took considerably more will power to actually pay attention to what was under his paw pads. Not to mention he was more than a little distracted by the new Imperialis puppy's antics - he couldn't help but grin as the little one pranced around, even though his own white-booted paw proceeded to power stomp a branch while he was distracted. "Whoops," he muttered to himself, trying to school his expression into something suitably serious and concentration-y... like Sirius over there, being all serious and stuff. ""

Sabre, despite his lack of enthusiasm for the whole ordeal, listened intently as the Saxe woman spoke. She was no Daegmar, but she was - despite her natural handicap of not being a Thyre - clearly lightfooted and capable in the subject she taught. Surely his mother would not choose to live with complete idiots, so he might as well pay attention and learn. Perhaps he might even surprise his mother with some tidbit of knowledge she had not yet taught them... As the other pups began to eagerly bumble around in an attempt to copy her, Sabre too moved. Even had the Imperialis children not been here he would have hardly been the tallest among them, being outsized by his sister, one of the Destruction boys and both of the Armada girls in addition to the alpha's older children, but he was lithe and elegantly built and so it came naturally for him to hold himself lightly as he moved, like he was dancing to a classical piece only he could hear. Let these other children move like the lumbering oafs they were, he would put them to shame. He would...

Crackle.

Damnit that leaf was not supposed to be there.

Vana was, maybe, a little too interested in flaunting the fact that it was her mother teaching the lesson because her mother was the best mother, and not paying nearly enough attention to the lesson itself. It didn't help that the black and white woman had dropped off Ashmedai. Vana still didn't know how she felt about having a little brother, and found herself spending an inordinate amount of her time staring narrow eyed at the younger boy. She was certain having a little brother was not a good thing, but she had yet to decide if it was a definite bad thing. After all, he didn't even have Daddy's eye spots, he was just all over freckles so surely he wasn't any real competition for her Daddy's attention... He was just annoying.

And suddenly the lesson was over and everyone was testing out stuff her mother had been teaching. Stuff she'd barely paid attention to. Well, she didn't need to pay attention anyway. Raising her nose and sniffing snootily, she decided she'd show them that she was the best here even without the lesson. Moving daintily across the ground, she sought to keep silent, but it seemed like no matter how daintily she moved things still cracked and rustled and crackled, and the more noise the ground made the angrier she got, and the angrier she got, the more angrily she set her feet down, and the more noise the stupid ground made, and why was this so hard?!

As the pups one by one began to practice what she'd taught them, Cascade found herself smiling around at them, tail wagging. Not out of amusement, though the antics of the youngest Imperialis and the seriousness of the elder pups were in their own ways funny, no. Out of pride. Look what they'd created in the short time since Imperium had been claimed by Valentine. A mere year and some odd, and already the next generation grew so promisingly, so much potential for the future blossoming in the environment Valen had built for them all. Ah but she was getting all nostalgic here - time to move on while the lesson was still fresh in their minds. "All right, you guys are doing great. So let's move on to learning our prey. Some of you older kids have probably already been hunting them - we call them jackrabbits, but they aren't rabbits at all, they're hares. You might wonder why that matters; a rabbit's a rabbit, you might think. Well, rabbits and hares have very different lives and have very different ways of escaping predators, so you need to have a very different method of dealing with them. Hares, like what we're hunting, don't live under ground. When they run, they aren't looking for a convenient burrow to dive in - they're going to try to outrun you. They can do it, too. A hare is much faster than we are, so it's up to us to trick them, not chase them. Chasing them down will use up far too much energy for far too little gain." She swept her eyes over them quickly, pairing them up mentally. "I'm going to give you all partners. Hunting in pairs is much more efficient than solo hunting, but you have to learn to do it properly. So... Integra, you go with Colette, Atreides with Shakespeare, Sirius with Sabre. Hm, Evangeline, you'll go with Karabela, and Angelus, you stick with Ashmedai. I'll jump from group to group to keep an eye on you. So!" Had she had hands she might have rubbed them together excitedly. "What you're going to do is find yourself a hare. They usually hang around under bushes during the day to keep them safe from predators, but it's still early enough in the morning that they're probably out in the meadows feeding. The best way to catch a hare is to surprise it in its shelter and pounce before it can run, assuming you can even get through the brush. They birth their young above ground in their shelters so you can get at their leverets that way during the spring birthing season if you need a quick snack, but do that too often and you're going to seriously impact the population, which means you'll be going hungry in the future until the population rebounds. You aren't always going to be able to find their shelters or get through the brush, though, so the way we are doing it today is going to be invaluable. Ok get with your partners," if any hadn't already, "and I want you to decide among yourselves who out of the two is the better runner, or the better tracker. That one is going to be the wolf who finds the hare. Once you've found it, that wolf is going to chase it." "Now," she said, holding up a paw, "I know I just got done telling you that chasing a hare is inefficient, but you aren't going to be trying to catch it. That's going to be your partner's job. The chaser is going to herd the hare toward their partner, who will be waiting downwind to ambush the hare before it even knows they're there. Hares run in a zig zag pattern so keep that in mind as you chase them, and conserve energy. Don't attempt to keep up with them, just make sure you keep them going in the correct direction. Got it? All right, let's get moving and see if we can't catch ourselves some breakfast. Angel," she added as a quiet aside intended only for her son's ears, "I suggest you let your brother do the chasing and you do the catching. He is as high energy as the hares, but he's still small enough they might just run right through him." And she didn't want the young pup to be discouraged from the hunt, as young as he was. He needed encouragement at this age to eventually step into his future role as a functioning member of the pack. OOC: Go chase some bunnies! Starting a separate thread isn't for your hunt isn't necessary unless you want to or are planning to do a lot of posts for the hunt, but - Remember that for those who have hunting as their skill you need to have 3+ posts and a clearly defined kill for the hunt itself to claim the hunt separately from the training thread. Ash, Siri, and Sabre are the only ones with hunting set as their skill - if you play or are partnered to them see if your partner would be willing to do the necessary number of posts for that.

Sabre stilled his attempts at silence as Cascade began to speak again, this time revealing to the pups the secrets of the prey animal of the day. Hares? He scoffed silently to himself. Child's prey. Though, he supposed, they were children chronologically, and he could not expect the adult members of the pack to understand otherwise. Still, her method of hare-hunting was... intriguing. Different. If only it did not depend so closely on a hunting partner, someone who could fail to live up to the standard required. His gaze strayed to Sirius Armada, and he frowned. If it was anyone, why not one of his siblings? Someone he could trust, even if just a little. Though as far as wolves who weren't his blood were concerned, Sirius wasn't so bad. She was... not frivolous and foolish as so many were, and she'd been trained by his mother and Hati even if they hadn't been started as early or intensively as he and his sisters. "You want to run, or hide?" he asked her coldly, deliberately putting a cynical spin on his choice of words. They'd figure this out here before they split off so they didn't scare off all the prey yapping about it, then he'd see how the older pup did living up to his family's standards these days.

Oh, so the cottontails she'd been hunting weren't rabbits after all? Huh. Who knew. Hares. She was going to have to get used to calling them that. Cascade went on to pair the pups up for their next assignment and Sirius turned to face her opponent, whose sour gaze was already fixed on her. Siri returned the expression without remorse. She wasn't particularly pleased with being paired with one of the younger ones, but oh well. She'd make the best of it. At least he wasn't one of the wild or whiny ones. She loathed the idea of corralling both the rab- hare and an emotional baby. Sirius shrugged. "I'll chase. You can hide." "Speaking" "Thinking"

Seperated from her family again, Cascade wouldn't think it appropriate to place herself with her brother. Not that Colette would dare say anything to contradict her decision she would sigh softly as she gazed longingly at Shakespeare. Quietly the spotted girl would find her assigned partner, surely she would want to be the one to catch the hare. With her strawberry blonde ears pinned to her head the timid little she wolf would wait to be told which role she should take on. She would have felt much more comfortable it was only her brother that was relying on her ability and not the other girl. Taking a deep breath she'd try to steel herself for what might happen, she was hardly bigger than a hare herself. Thus far she hadn't caught anything like that in her life. Lizards and bugs were more her forte. This lesson was bound to be a disaster. ""

ooc: I'm peacing out, Colette can pair up with Eva, sorry guys! Integra's going to say she'll go after Raba and bring her back so y'all can keep doing what you're doing.

At some point Karabela was so engrossed in her stalking practice that she some how ended up separated from the group. This didn't perturb her however, in fact she found it rather exciting. Nose to the ground, golden eyes sharp she started following the unusually scent she'd managed to pick up. Now what on earth could this be? Curious to a fault she continued to stalk farther and farther from the gathering.

"Speech"

Integra was quickly getting the hang of stalking, but even in her intense concentration the movement of one of the younger pups away from the group did not go unnoticed. She was an older sister after all, sometimes it was hard not to keep an eye out on the younger troublemakers. Integra sighed and glanced at Cascade, the meaning clear. She'd go fetch the little brat! And feed her some dandelions as punishment. -exit Integra- ""