Cold Gin In The Back Room [Fight Training?]

The previously clear little valley was littered with enough debris now to satisfy him for this bout, so Chaos settled himself down in front of Valdis a moment. It had somehow become very important to him in this moment to open up to the yearling, to help her understand him in some way. He'd never really felt the need to before. Before the only wolves who'd mattered to him had been his family, and they'd understood him from the start. He'd never had this need to explain himself to Rhys because she and he had always been around each other, and knew each other's foibles and abilities through long experience. But Crew had become almost as important to him as her, and they were coming into it pretty late in the game all things considered. As much as he was content to present a front to the rest of the world, to show them just the shallow, self-centered, fun-loving, impulsive dick, the wolves who had chosen to actually give him their loyalty and follow him deserved more than that. Well, he was all that, but he wasn't just all that.

"Yeah I don't want to get any one of you killed because you think you need to face down a pack of dire wolves in their own den all alone just to impress me, Valdis," he told her in complete seriousness. "I'd rather you run if you get in over your head, and I'd rather you take a partner or two with you if you're going to beard the dragon in his cave, you know? So that no matter what you still have backup." He smiled crookedly at her. "There's nothing wrong with retreat, not at all, and it doesn't take away from your prestige. There's always going to be someone who'll call your bluff eventually. The trick is to show them the retreat is your choice, and you aren't running with your tail tucked just because they said so. If you don't let them see that you're afraid, it won't matter if you are."

He tilted his head to the side to consider her question, though. "Now, unless they're really, really incompetent - and there are a lot of them that are, mind you, but it's better to assume they aren't even if you tell them they are - a pack wolf is going to know its territory better than you do. Our mountains, for instance, or Abaven's plains with all those damn snakes. We know the safe paths and how to move through them safely, and they know where the snakes are more likely to be and which ones are safe and which aren't. Defending is always going to be easier than trespassing. The trick is to turn that against them. They drive you into a dead end canyon, you kick off that wall and use that extra height to land on them, or over them, and you get your tail out of there. Improvisation and innovation when your terrain isn't in your favor, that's the trick. Your paws are sliding on pebbles, you kick that shit into their eyes as a distraction so you can move off them. Boulder? Hop up there and grab the high ground from them for an attack. You know?"