Art & Code © Rex/Witchdogtor DO NOT USE WITHOUT PERMISSION

He'd been trying to get in some practice lately. It seemed to be the only thing to really get his mind off of things, and he swore it helped lessen the frequency of his headaches. He practiced in silence after waking up early. The sand beneath his feet was still cold to the touch, and the palm tree he was "sparring" with bore a few new notches from where his teeth and claws had scored it. Though it was getting tiresome fighting a tree of all things...but at least it helped him practice his balance. Sort of. After sparring it for a half hour or so, he dropped back onto his haunches to take a break, thinking about nothing but someday knocking down that tree. Would he ever be able to do it? He wasn't sure...he felt weaker since his incident during the flood. Pathetic even. But he dared not show that to the others.

"Speech!"

She knew she probably wasn't supposed to venture quite this far from her family's tree house on her own, but considering she was so very close to her first birthday and still within the pack's borders she figured she could get away with it. Eventually she found herself on the dark sands of the cove and for a second she thought she was alone here with just the sound of the waves breaking the silence, but quickly she picked up on a noise that sounded like something hitting wood in the distance. Curious, her sapphire gaze scanned the area and eventually she spotted one of her cousins hacking away at one of the sparsely planted palm trees. Her head tipped to the side with a bit of confusion as she watched him from a distance, hiding behind one of the other trees as she moved a bit closer to get a better look. She supposed there wasn't a bad way to train and practice as long as it worked, but she did wonder why he didn't just use some of their grandfather's training dummies if he wanted to fight something that wasn't another wolf. When he stopped and sat back on his haunches she gave it a minute to try and hide the fact that she had been spying on him before she began to walk over to where he was sitting. "Hey, Ansem," she greeted once she was close enough to speak comfortably over the crash of the waves. "What're you up to?"

"Wynter Carpathius"

Art & Code © Rex/Witchdogtor DO NOT USE WITHOUT PERMISSION

Honestly, he wasn't expecting anyone to be out here this early. So when he heard a voice addressing him, he startled a bit and turned around, finding one of his cousins approaching him. Crap! He hoped to whatever gods were out there that she hadn't seen him fighting a tree...that would be embarrassing. After all, they had plenty of resources he could use to practice with, but he had wanted to do it away from potentially prying eyes and avoid questions should they notice his lack faltering balance and the way he was struggling these days. Instead, he decided to try and play it off...even though his paws were screaming from the force he was going at the tree with, and he was feeling a dull ache in his teeth. "Oh uh, hi Wynter...I was just..." Just what? What excuse could he come up with? "I figured I'd c-c-ome out and get an early s-s-start on looking for some herbs." Not true...but hopefully it was enough to get by with.



"Speech!"

Ansem getting startled by her approached ended up startling her a bit in return, making her jump slightly as he jumped and turned toward her. She chuckled at herself while she looked up at him curiously and innocently, being careful not to give away the fact that she had been watching or that there were obvious marks on the tree he had been fighting that gave away what he had been doing. She hoped maybe he'd just explain what he was doing in case there was some benefit to using a tree as a sparing partner that she didn't know about, but instead he tried to cover his tracks. He seemed pretty nervous or embarrassed by it so she wasn't going to bring it up, but his excuse wasn't all that believable either. Still, what kind of cousin would she be if she made him feel worse or poked into something that he clearly didn't want to share?

"Oh, okay! Cool!" she replied with a grin, her tail wagging gently behind her. "I don't know a ton about herbs, but I could help you look if you want. I can recognize the ones I've seen my momma gather before at least. I have a really good memory," she assured him and then started to look around at the cove. "Is there a lot of herbs out this way? I always figured plants liked to grow in dirt, not in sand." She didn't want to point out the obvious holes in Ansem's explanations, but she also didn't really wanna go on a wild goose chase for herbs that wouldn't be growing around here anyway. She looked expectantly toward her cousin, wondering if he'd come clean or surprise her with some kind of unknown herb stash she hadn't noticed.

"Wynter Carpathius"