Smooth and silky

Briar watched Ember practice and eventually get the hang of brushing and smoothing her tail with a proud smile. She knew that as a young wolf stuff like this could get tedious fast, but she was glad to see that it was easy enough for Ember to do so hopefully her daughter would keep up with it on a regular basis. In the grand scheme of things, was it really that important that her coat look pristine all of the time? No, it wasn't, and Briar knew that her own preferences didn't define how they should all behave all of the time, but she also knew the importance of a first impression and the fact that you never really knew who you might end up meeting. They never put their kids above anyone else in the pack, but it was also just a part of their lives that they would be slightly more high profile than others and could end up in positions of power one day. It was good to set a good foundation early in her eyes.

She chuckled as Ember finished up with her tail and questioned whether or not it would always look like this when she brushed it. "There's always good and bad days for how your fur can look, but for the most part! A good grooming routine and regular brushing makes all the difference." Ever the sassy, cheeky girl she was, Ember asked about boys looking at how pretty she was now and Briar sighed with a little roll of her eyes, but she couldn't keep the little smirk of amusement from her lips. "Well, they better not stare for too long... or at all around your father if they value their lives," she joked, chuckling to herself. It was hard for her to believe that their second litter was now old enough to start talking about boys, but time was still running on whether she wanted it to or not. Ember and her siblings were growing very quickly into adults so she had no doubt that she and Art would be chasing off suitors soon enough. Her train of thought was disrupted as Ember asked about whether or not Art would help with her with her tail. "He does sometimes, yes. Especially when it's more difficult for me to do it myself like when I was pregnant with you lot," she replied with a chuckle, lifting a paw to playfully boop Ember lightly on the nose. Of course Artorias often had difficulty keeping his paws to himself when he was grooming her tail, but... she wasn't about to tell her young daughter that.

"Now then!" she began, swiftly moving past that thought to the next part of their lesson. "Your tail is beautiful like this and it's perfect for special occasions or just being around the castle, but for the times when you need your tail to be more practical braiding it is a great option. It keeps the longer hairs out of the way and keeps things from getting stuck in it," she explained with a pointed look, glancing briefly over at the small pile of leaves that were sitting on the floor off to the side. Chuckling a bit, she got to her paws so that she could come around to lay behind Ember so that her paws would be facing the same direction as Ember's for demonstration purposes. "So you want to split it into three parts and each of those you're going to layer over one another. Just remember that the sections on the outer edges are always going to come back toward the middle each time. Just remember left, right, left, right... And as you work your way down you keep adding more of the fur further down your tail to your sections. It'll get easier as you get older and your fur grows out more, but for now it's not too hard to do." As she demonstrated each step as she explained it, slowly going through the motions a few times so Ember could watch. She made it about a quarter of the way down Ember's tail before she stopped and undid her work to turn it over to her daughter to try. "Give it a try! I'll help if you get stuck."

"Briar Carpathius"