puppy spars! (v stolas)

Young master Stolas was doing what he did best: studying and observing the world around him, drinking it in like a sponge. All of it, every single detail another piece of information he logged away in his brain. After their first day venturing outside the den, the little Abraxas-Destruction lord had been fascinated with the world around him, wanting to know how everything worked and how it all worked together. There was a burning, unending drive to find the answer to the why of life. Why. The question confounded and amazed him—and annoyed his father whenever he would ask it on loop a million and one times.

Stolas was sitting and gazing up at a pair of cicadas on a tree chirping noisily in the warm early summer evening. Their noises were almost musical to him, and already he found himself wanting to dissect them to understand how they made that noise. Were they just screaming really loud, or were they calling other cicadas in the night? Speaking of things calling, the voice of his aunt carried from nearby. Tiny red and black ears pricked atop his head, and Stolas was quick to rise to his paws and trot with a bit of a prance in his step to answer his aunt's call. He found her sitting amidst a sizable ring drawn in the ground, some upturned earth and tamped down sand tipping him off as to what had been happening here.

"Hello, Auntie Venom!" Stolas called out with a beaming smile to his beloved relative and regal Empress. She did a lot to inspire him with the way she behaved—measured, proper, level. He stepped into the ring to join her, taking careful steps so he didn't mess up her perfect circular arena, sniffing about the soft sands and catching some faint traces of his siblings' scents. "Is it my turn to play with you?"