Make me strong

Chade felt relief flood him that she easily accepted the request.  The boy wasn’t sure how long being in this band would last before Manea would kick them out as their real mom had.  Sure, she seemed nicer but if his own mom kicked him out how could he not wonder if someone they had only recently met would do the same?  Trust was something he had lost fast with life.

He followed Manea to the clearing.  Chade shook his head at the question, “no, we uh, well, we’ve been alone for a while.  We play tussled and dad showed us a little but we were just little pups then.”  Chade knew his body was still a weaker pup's body but mentally he hadn’t felt like a pup for ages.

Chade had sounded embarrassed at the first part but puffed out with determined pride, “I’ve distracted long enough to give Ricin a head start but mostly we just ran away.  Nothin’ wrong with running if you can’t win.”  Running was the sort of thing that sounded cowardly, once upon a time he would of thought that.  Seeing enough death had changed that view.  “But that won’t work forever, and I’m tired of running.” A pause then added, "I know how to attack prey though, if that helps any?" It helped feed them but was killing prey any help in learning how to fight predators?

"Speech"