Yesterday had been all about Juniper so today would be all about Sierra. Getting back into the groove of being a teacher had been easier than she had expected and she was already looking forward to many more hours of lessons and training and practice with her little fighters. She did try one more time to get Malik interested, but her sweet, peace loving boy was having none of it. He'd put up with some of the basics because she insisted on it just in case he ever ran into an aggressive predator during his travels and adventures, but he wasn't interested in learning anything beyond that like Sierra and Juniper seemed to be.

She brought Sierra out to a grassy patch next to the creek that they had been camping out beside for a couple of days, grinning at her smallest daughter as she motioned for her to take a place across from her. "Alright! Ready for your lesson?" Once her little girl confirmed that she was she nodded and began, "I'll let you decide what we start with then. We can go over attacks, blocks, or dodges. Your pick!" All of her children had already gotten the run down on the very basics of fighting and proper stances, so now she would let them decide their own lesson plan for what they wanted to go over first. She'd make sure they covered all of the topics eventually, but they could start with whatever seemed the most interesting.

Tamsyn Carpathius of the Valley

Sierra was all but bursting with anticipation and joy. She brimmed with it as she followed along after her towering mother. Juniper had told her all about her own fighting lesson the day before. The girls had swapped stories about the grand adventures they would go on, and Sierra was ready to take to this lesson like it was its own adventure.

She settled across from her mumma, and looked up at the familiar seagrass eyes of her. “Ready!” She barked back. Going for drill sergeant with her voice and landing closer to a croak. “Attacks, mumma!” she said once she was given a choice. She wanted to get right to exciting stuff.


"Sierra of the Sea"

Tamsyn chuckled and grinned at Sierra's insistance that they start with attacks right off the bat. She wasn't all that surprised—that did seem like the most fun, exciting stuff in comparison to everything else. "Alright, attacks it is!" she said as she leaned forward to do some small corrections to her daughter's stance, fixing the placement of her paws and making sure they were firmly on the grassy ground. Her paws were still so incredibly small and if she hadn't witnessed all of her pups tumbling around and getting into everything they could possibly reach she might be a little more worried about her getting hurt, but she had learned a long time ago that puppies were pretty bouncy and tough. She was still astounded by how little Sierra was though. She was absolutely adorable, but the mother in hurt kind of wished she had taken to something like crafting or navigating instead of fighting.

With her little corrections made she began, saying, "The biggest thing for you to remember is to be fast and focus on quick, small attacks instead of trying to slam into someone the way someone that is big like your father might. You want to do everything you can to attack without getting caught up under someone's paws. Sometimes, if the circumstances are right, you might even be able to get on their backs and get a hold of their scruff or shoulders that way." She wouldn't encourage that kind of fighting too much since that seemed awfully reckless in her book, but she had seen some smaller wolves do those kind of maneuvers before pretty successfully so she'd be a bad teacher if she didn't mention them. She got into her fighting stance across from Sierra and gave her a nod. "Why don't you give it a try? Come at me however you'd like!"

Tamsyn Carpathius of the Valley

Her mother was quick to agree, and it was all the excited young girl could do to hold in her desire for tipp-taps of excitement on the ground in front of her. She forced herself to hold still, and pay attention as her mother corrected her stance. Moving her paws as Tamsyn instructed her to. Once Tamsyn leaned back, satisfied in her posture, the young girls eyes zeroed in on her mother in anticipation.

“And ride them, mumma? That sounds fun!” she said, with visions of scaling up someone's legs and taking them for involuntary rides. That sounded like the most fun way to win a fight, but maybe not the most practical.

Her mother told her to start the fight, and Sierra was quick to do so. She ran straight at her mother, then swerved to the side, before attempting to dig her little claws into a leg in an attempt to drive her momentum straight up the taller wolf.


"Sierra of the Sea"