Well, her babies were yearlings now. It was strangely sad to realize that the three little ones who had managed to worm their way into her heart were old enough to go off on their own and do their own things. They could, if they chose and Valentine-as-alpha allowed it, leave the pack entirely and go start their own. Old enough to make their own decisions, but young and inexperienced enough to be taken advantage of. Just over a year ago she might not have even cared, just "ok, have fun, do whatever you want to" and let them go off without a qualm. Now though, she knew that if anything happened to her children it would matter. There were a lot of things she didn't worry about as much, thanks to Valen and her consistently alternating training. They had all been taught the basics of hunting, so they wouldn't starve. They all knew how to fight, so they could protect themselves. They even knew basic first aid. Physically, they could take care of themselves. But she'd seen Mercy. She'd always known that adults were capable of terrible things. She had spent most of HER childhood looking over her shoulder, just waiting for an adult to jump her - either to kill her, steal from her, or rape her. Maybe it was that very caution, that survival instinct, that natural cynicism that protected her. She didn't need anyone, so she'd never been taken advantage of. It wasn't until Mercy admitted that she'd had sex with Kyarst Armada that it had really struck her that an adult even in this safe place would take advantage of a youth's inexperience and naivety like that. Well, her kids weren't going to go out in the world without knowing. Lifting her muzzle, she called her three children to her den where they could be private and comfortable. It was far past time for The Talk. ""

Curiosity reeled him in and like a fish, Angelus had no idea what was in store for him. He trotted onto the scene with a swing in his step. Oh, ho, ho! What was this? Had he beaten Vana here? Ooooo, he had! She'd LOVE that. He was sure of it. Maybe she could show some of that love in a spar? Surely that's what they were being called for. Or maybe a hunt? He could go for a hunt and he could make a competition out of that too. As he squeezed into the den his eyes immediately went to Cascade and his eyebrows rose in a silent question as he tried to figure out why she'd called him and his siblings in. It wasn't an unusual request, but they kind of just came, went and mingled as they wanted, so all of them being called promised something. "Hey, mom." She didn't look unhappy so he didn't think they were in for a lecture, but why the den? Why not outside? He grinned suddenly. "I beat Vana here." That was important and worth noting. His grin grew sly. "Think she'll have something to say about it?"

With them being yearlings, their mother didn't really call them all together very often anymore. They were in charge of their own time, except for training and some meals, though the meals were more of an invitation than a requirement, so it was unusual to hear Cascade calling for all three of them at once otherwise. Still, Evangeline had not outgrown her competitive nature and though it was Cascade calling rather than Valentine she still rushed with the intention of beating both of her brother's there. It was the principal of the whole thing. If she was first, she was clearly the best, and she would rub that into her grubby older brothers' faces every time she won the impromptu contest. But... No! Angelus had beaten her there! Vana was outraged. But of course she couldn't look outraged because then that would give Angel the satisfaction of knowing he'd gotten her mad. So instead she skidded to a halt, drew herself up to every inch of her height, put her still-lanky body in as regal a stance as she could manage, and lifted her sharply imperious muzzle in a haughty gesture as she drifted along the rest of the distance between her and her mother and brother as though she hadn't been hurrying at all, as though she didn't even notice Angelus. "Hello, mother," she said in as stately a manner as she could manage, then 'realized' Angelus was there, as if she wouldn't have been able to see his galumphing form a mile away, and greeted him in an icy, disapproving tone. How dare he beat her there. "Angelus." ""

SERAPHIM IMPERIALIS His mother's call would ring out, faint and distant. Phim froze midstep, worried for a moment that he had somehow found his way into trouble, that his mother knew, because like many young males he still feared her seeming omnipresence. But no, he thought, relaxing. He was older now, no longer as bound to her wishes and wills. He was given free rein, more or less, and was doing his best to contribute in his own way. Soon, he told himself, he'd know his Daddy's lands better than anyone! There wouldn't be an enemy anywhere who could slip past him, or sneak in undetected. He jolted suddenly, realizing that his mother's call wasn't just food for thought. She actually wanted him and his siblings to come in, like now. He spun on his heels and took off through the low brush, barreling blindly through it and cursing as it tugged at his mottled coat. When he at last careened into the den site, he realized first and foremost that he was the last to respond. He threw his weight backwards and skidded to a stop, tucking his chin to give his chest a few hasty licks as if that would in anyway calm the disaster that short sprint had made of his coat. Twigs pockmarked the otherwise blue pelt, sullied with dust and debris and tangles. He slipped into the den with a quiet cough, trying to look even a little bit less out of place. "Fancy meeting you all here," he quipped, addressing each and every one of them with a beaming smile. Part of him wanted to unhinge his jaw and verbally vomit out every last detail of his adventures over the past few seasons, but he knew it wasn't the time. He could only hope that whatever his Mother wanted from them would be important enough to not get a lecture about the state of his appearance. "Talk" "You" Think

OOC: changed the rating to M because SEX TALK and thought some people might be uncomfortable with it.

The first to arrive was her eldest son, and he was clearly pleased to be able to say that he'd beaten Vana there. Cascade winked at him. "I'm sure she'll have something to say about it." But Vana, who appeared next with as close to a stately, dignified appearance as she could manage, was clearly doing her best to not say anything, and Seraphim pranced in with all his usual enthusiasm and verve. Her three beautiful, wonderful children. Well, time to get to business. "So," she started off nearly as soon as Phim had made his disheveled appearance. "I'm glad you all made it, because I called you here for a lesson." She paused in case anyone wished to voice displeasure, but quickly continued on anyway. "This is a life lesson, and an important one." She settled herself and used her tail to brush flat a patch of dirt between her and the three children. "Now, you're all yearlings. You're fully grown, you're old enough to leave the pack if you really wanted to. Hell you're old enough to lead your own packs. But you're still maturing, physically, and there are a few things I neglected until now to tell you because it wasn't really necessary. But you're of an age now that it's going to start being very important to you to learn, because there are wolves who will take advantage of a young wolf and if you don't know what they're doing, you may not realize the dangers of it. So... let's talk about sex." She found herself suddenly very glad that Valentine would not be here for this particular conversation. If he asked what prompted it, would she have to lie to him? Her loyalty to Valen was absolute, but she had promised Mercy she wouldn't tell anyone. It was a sticky situation, no doubt, and she was glad not to be facing it quite yet. Though the thought of Valentine sitting through a sex talk with their children was hilarious to her. Well, she wasn't going to dumb it down for them to make it more comfortable a lesson for either her or them - they were going to be having sex someday, as little as she wanted to think about that, so they would need to know. "You know the basics. Boys and girls are built differently, and if a boy and a girl mate they make babies. But I've never really gone into the details, and it is important for you to know. You are old enough now that there's really no point in pup-safe euphemisms for your parts, so we may as well start there." Using one blunt claw, she doodled a simplistic stick figure of a wolf. "So, we may as well start with females because let's face it, our exteriors are a bit simpler. A female's exterior sex is the second thing down on their rear under their tail." She raised her brow at them with a half smile. "You all know what the first thing is for since everyone has one. That's the anus - a female's sex is under that, and is called the labia." She poked at the stick figure to make a dot in approximately the right spot. "A male's sex is a little more complicated, or at least there's more of it visible." She drew two circles between the stick figure's hind legs. "These are the testicles. They're what makes it so that mating will actually make babies, instead of just being sex. They make the semen that helps make pups." She drew a line on the stick figures belly. Her tone brisk and business like she continued on with her lesson without sparing a thought for anyone's potential embarrassment. "Males have a furry little pouch on their abdomen called a sheath. We've all seen it. But inside the sheath is something called a penis. When a male is ready to have sex the penis swells and the sheath is pushed back, and he puts the penis inside the female and... well, at that point instincts going to take over and they'll copulate and the male's body will release semen in the female and if she's in heat she'll more than likely get pregnant. Females can get pregnant even if they don't seem like they're actually in heat, so it is important to be careful. I wasn't in heat when I got pregnant for you three, so it's a very good thing I was in a position to be able to take care of my pups and that you had a father who wanted and loved you as much as I do. Not everyone has that, and not every wolf who says they want to have sex loves you. A lot of them will say it just to get the sex they want and then drop you... and when there's the possibility of pups that makes things very, very difficult." She brushed her tail over the dirt again, wiping away the stick figure, and fixed them all with a very serious stare. "I'm not telling you this so you'll go and do it. All three of you are way too young for sex. Your bodies, and your minds, aren't fully mature and it's physically and emotionally dangerous for you to do this right now, but I don't want anyone to trick you into it because you don't know how it works." She held their gazes for a beat longer, then relaxed. "So... any questions?" ""

Angelus' forehead scrunched as Cascade's lesson wrapped up. It all made sense and to an extent he'd already known - albeit very, very vaguely - some of that stuff. This conversation also cleared up some of the questions he'd been having. So that was what those buffalo had been doing. He'd just thought that's how buffalo wrestled and been really unimpressed by their efforts. The boy wasn't embarrassed by the talk, although if he paused to think about it having his sister there made it a little bit weird. As did having his mom tell him about it, but not once did either of those thoughts cross his mind. Instead his train of thought took a more thoughtful turn. He did have some questions, actually. Thinking about how he was built, Angelus tried to tackle to subject of female anatomy. He assumed that girl parts were a part-for-part equivalent of boy parts, and this confused him. The boy knew what he looked like and he knew how he worked. If girls were like boys and they peed out of their...what had she called it...labia?...then he assumed it was a tiny hole. With that in mind he tried to mash the parts together...and it didn't work. His frown deepened. Maybe, like what came after the male sticking his penis inside, instinct was involved? This was really complicated and the more he thought about it the more questions he had. Finally his expression cleared and his eyes popped up from the ground where they'd been firmly fixed while he thought. Time for questions. "Girls have parts you can't see, right? What are they? " Angelus hesitated as his thoughts veered off onto a different path. Again his brow scrunched and his gaze darted away for a second as he carefully considered the question that was forming. "Ummmm..." He started thinking about anatomy again, trying to put other parts together. His gaze darted back up to cascade. "What about if boys like boys or girls like girls? Can they have sex or is that just for boys and girls?" At this point Angelus had started to notice wolves his age. He hadn't put his interest in them together with the subject of sex until now, but that might explain some of his feelings.

As soon as Phim had appeared, their mother immediately launched into a lesson. Evangeline hadn't been expecting a lesson, let alone the content of it. Her nose wrinkled up in a vaguely disgusted grimace, but she was intrigued. Her mother had begun this lesson with her the night the Destruction slave was castrated so it wasn't entirely new to her. Angelus piped up with a question - did girls have hidden parts? Evangeline, who as a girl felt she ought to know this very pertinent information, added impatiently, "Yes, where do the babies even grow?" She knew they weren't like birds to lay eggs and have them hatch out fully formed - she knew babies grew somewhere in the mother and then were born as squirming blind things. She'd been old enough to remember Ashmedai, after all, even though she hadn't ever seen his mother before he was old enough to go see. She sent Angelus a puzzled, sidelong glance at his second question, though. What was he getting at here, boys always liked boys and girls liked girls, what girl in her right mind would like a boy... but then she realized, as he continued, that he was talking about liking them that way and her mouth formed an o of realization, and her eyes darted to her mother. Could they do that? If they could why did girls ever bother with boys at all when they could just have babies with each other and be done with it? ""

SERAPHIM IMPERIALIS Phim was... a bit flabbergasted. He hadn't even caught his breath and all of the sudden his mother was talking about... about... Well. As her lesson progressed his ears would flatten and flatten against his skull, and his eyes would grow wider and wider until they resembled two blue moons. He was feeling quite queasy all of the sudden. His coat flushed with embarassment and all at once he realized that Vana and Angel were taking things quite well, all things considered. Internally he scoffed. They weren't that much more socialized than he was! Sure they spent time with other wolves, where as he preferred the company of actual birds and bees but... still! He did his best to compose himself. And now Cascade wanted to know if he had questions? The poor boy could barely remember his own name! He wracked his brain. This was his family after all, he was supposed to be able to share anything with them! The thought of two boys or two girls wanting to... be with each other wasn't something he'd ever considered, but as Angel expressed his own curiosity about that so he didn't really feel the need. "What about... Oh, I don't know," he began in a slightly strangled voice. His mother mentioned that wolves would do these things even if they didn't love you, but that just didn't seem right! "Wolves can just do that with anyone? I thought they had to be like you and Dad, at least!" I mean, he wasn't completely naive, he knew that some people went out of their way to hurt others, but the idea of there being some sort of gray area inbetween didn't seem right at all! Mates, he decided, were complicated and just maybe he didn't want any of that at all! "Talk" "You" Think