Made in the shade

Rogue had decided that he liked summer. In fact, he liked it so much that it was probably his all time favorite season so far! Sure he had not seen fall yet, but come on, who did not love the warm, sunny days and firefly filled nights? Summer just felt like fun all the time! But there was one glaringly obvious problem to there being so much sun all the time now—with his family being mostly nocturnal, it meant less hours for them to enjoy the dark of night and having to endure some measure of extended sunlight. At first, Rogue had not minded at all. But the more time he spent in the daylight, the more he realized what a pain it was on his sensitive eyes. How on earth did wolves deal with this much light all the time?! Sure, he could have hid away in his family's palace and the Ashen caves all day, but he refused to be a prince forced into hiding from the likes of the sun!

So being the clever little devil he was, Rogue had concocted a plan to deal with the harsh rays of the summer sun. If the sunshine was trying to force him into hiding in the shade all the time, then the boy would just have to bring the shade with him wherever he went! Simple, no? It took Rogue a few days of studying and planning to put together his idea. The pup drew inspiration from the dense foliage of the Cryer's Ravine after watching how the thick canopy of tropical and deciduous trees helped keep the territory cool and shady all day long. His "aha" moment came when he found one of those large leaves strewn across the ravine floor, and after some inspecting and placing it atop his head, Rogue had his answer. Gathering up as many of those large leaves as he could carry, Rogue rushed back to the palace to being building his prototype invention.

It took a couple of drafts to get the idea down right, but once he had a proof of concept, he worked like a madman, crafting together several fronds attached to a strap of leather that he sized to fit around his crown just right. Some flexible sticks went around the leather to help reinforce it against the added weight of the leaves and to give it some rigidity so it would not come undone as he walked around. Lifting his leaf hat up in his paws to give it one final inspection, Rogue beamed with delight and affixed it to his head before heading out into the bright summer day. He winced against the initial brightness as he exited the palace—but then blinked in stunned amazement as he realized it wasn't as bright as he remembered it being. The leaves were helping to shield and shade his face from the sunlight! Laughing in triumph, Rogue did a couple of laps around the Ashen lands, notably around the open areas around the lake, and was pleased as punch to find that he had in fact managed to mobilize shade wherever he went! Not giving a damn how silly he might look with his leaf crown on his head, the navy blue pup pranced proudly around, looking for anyone and everyone he could find to show off his genius new invention to. Maybe if they asked nicely, he'd make them all one too!

WC: 574

"Rogue Klein"