Auster Ninja (Puppy) Warrior

His trap had been strung and out poked the head of a very confused and not very enthralled puppy. He did not seem to have much interest in enthusiastically propelling after the string-fed mouse toy, but he'd breached the threshold all the same. Sighing heavy, Zephyr put down the stick and gave the pup a short frown. "Well that was anticlimactic." However, that didn't mean the rest of his plan would fall as flat.

With a shrug of his oversized shoulders the bird carried onward, reaching one wing forward and scooping the young pup up beneath it's tip. He curved the wing and brought the puppy against his chest, holding him there and chattering to him excitedly while he walked. "I made something for you, I think you're gonna like it! How do you feel about becoming a great Knight and warrior? Or the future Aegis, like our Dad?" It was foolproof, what puppy didn't want to be a big strong fighter one day, especially with a sword-wielding warrior like Artorias to look up to? "Stick with me and you'll be the strongest pup of the litter, just you wait!"

Once they reached the obstacle course he placed the pup gently down, ending his ceaseless excited babbling and turning bright aqua eyes onto his little brother to judge his reaction. Scattered throughout the gardens were various stages of an obstacle course talon-crafted for the little one, and two 'lanes' for each competitor to race through it. It began with a long stretch of empty ground for sprinting - cardio was important - leading into a portion of thick brush and interspersed trunks, requiring the pup to duck under or climb over and around to pass through. Just past the brush were paving stones he'd stolen from the courtyard, placed strategically in fair puppy lengths apart to jump across without touching the ground. Around the paving stones he'd scattered bright orange leaves scavenged from the bases of the autumn-touched trees, signifying lava. Once past the agility portions, the pup (and bird) would need to push things across another open space. On Zephyr's side he'd found a large log, on Kea's the soccer ball he'd made from hide and compacted straw. Finally, the competitors would need to climb. Wooden boards had been leant against the solid garden barriers leading up and over, with pawholds of clay hardened every few inches up it's height. "What'dya think?" He chirped, clearly excited for the morning's activities.

"Zephyr"