sibling bonding! maybe?

Misery gave his little brother the most indulgent smile.  Everyone had to prove there were worth something to Misery before he’d believe it.  He gave out no free passes for being family.  How close to being inside the den did the pup need to be so that mom wasn’t upset at him.  Misery imagined that was somewhere along the line of thought going through the kid's mind.  Big world, he wanted to go see it.  The question was if the boy had thought to go out further without permission.

Misery grinned at the question of what he was up to, a well-refined roguish grin.  That was it, he grinned, but what happened to the answer?  Misery’s kept a general glance between kid and den as he considered options.  He could sleep out here to keep an eye on their mom or go elsewhere to rest or do a few more experiments.  More experiments meant needing more subjects to study and was he really ready to go hunting?  

“Try counting fireflies,” Misery teased the boy a bit, “There’s plenty in the sky.  If there are more than thirty-eight let me know.”  The small black and silver wolf said the last part somberly, “It’s an important number when considering swarms.”   Misery wasn’t in the practice of giving information before getting some of his own.  “It's unlikely you’ll count that many though, so don’t worry overly.”  Misery both doubted the kid could count that high, especially when the fireflies were so good at dancing about and confusing even an adult wolf trying it.

So would the brat take it as a suggestion or an assignment?  Would he open up more or try to press his luck with having Misery answer his question first?  Really though, considering where the fireflies were thickest wasn’t a bad idea and to some extent, a general number recorded might not be a bad idea.  Well, one more thing to be done.

"Misery"