Valdís eyed the remnants of the Soulless Forest. The volcano had done its work in the heart of Boreas, its wrath leveling grasslands and turning forests into somber monuments of charcoal and ash. She worked her way past them as the evening sun's light turned a pale amber. It was hard to say when prey species would return to their full numbers again. She hoped it would be during her life time but it was difficult to say. Valdís gazed down as she felt Jynette brush against her leg.

"What a mess," said the fox. Valdís nodded in agreement, but as far as she knew they would be returning to Legion's old territory and thankfully it was a bit west of the forest and had suffered less damage though not by much. Even now there was stlll a hazy effect in the sky that seemed to tint the light.

Valdís began to stretch and Jynette eyed her for a moment as Embla landed next to them. The raven turned her head to preen for a moment before stretching her wings. "I intended to train some more. Do you two care to join me?"

Torrent had kept herself basically secluded from the rest of the pack since the disaster the night the volcano erupted. She didn't want to talk about it - ever - and she just knew that if the other pups knew they would want to know every sordid detail with ghoulish pup curiosity, and she just couldn't. She'd cried when she told Chaos, and she couldn't ever, ever cry in front of them and if she had to talk about it she knew she wouldn't be able to help it. So she'd stayed out of sight, hoping to likewise stay out of mind. Just her and Asriel, who had for inexplicable reasons stayed long after he'd led her back to safety. She'd been convinced he'd leave as soon as he could, his promise to take care of her being effectively dissolved by Enrico's death, but he'd stayed with her, and didn't even seem to blame her for his former companion's death - though Torrent knew in her bones that it had been her fault, that she'd been weak and stupid and that's why he'd died saving her. What if next time it was her brothers in danger because of her? Her father? Her uncles? She wouldn't ever be that weak again.

That was why she followed doggedly behind Valdis when she'd left the pack's temporary lands, even though the journey had been long to get here. Valdis was the pack's best warrior, other than Torrent's dad of course, and she wasn't - quite - family so Torrent felt a little less guilty about bothering her for her help. Being a Legion wolf she practically was family, just not blood, so she fit neatly into the category of trusted adults, a category that for Torrent was an extremely narrow one.

Asriel ghosted along behind her while she trailed the older warrior, and when Valdis stopped the two of them froze, waiting. Torrent kept her focus on Valdis so that her gaze didn't get pulled to the sullen glow of the volcano, so much closer than she was comfortable with, but she felt the draw of it, the itch beneath her pelt that kept her hackles rising and falling restlessly. "I intended to train some more. Do you two care to join me?" The words pricked Torrent's ears, and she prowled forward to come up beside Valdis and her companions. She towered over Valdis by a good two paws' width, though compared to the older warrior she was a weedy, awkward thing yet. Her thick, flat fangs she was still getting used to the length they'd acquired with her adult teeth growing in recently, and the general ungainliness of her overall appearance made her feel childish and scrawny beside Valdis, so she did her best to hold herself with an aloof gravitas. "What training are you doing?" she asked, in her surprisingly low, faintly gravelly voice. The question may have seemed abrupt, considering she'd not yet spoken and had skipped entirely over the normal pleasantries that she'd never quite understood the need for, and her mismatched eyes didn't quite meet Valdis' despite the intensity of her gaze, but she'd always been a little... off, so perhaps that was excusable.

Word Count: 536
Total Word Count: 729

The male had gotten awfully scruffy lately. His fur hadn't been as well kept as he would have liked, and he was often coated in layers of soot that practically hid away his intricate coloring, but he was also too exhausted to take a bath and the last time he tried to find a spot, the water was still dirty and not yet clear of debris and stuff from the explosion. So, he simply went about his days cleaning what he could until his fur got dirty all over again during his hunting and investigation trips. So now he constantly looked like a shaggy black dog with oversized teeth, but he didn't mind so much. Once the world went back to normal then so too, would he. And hopefully, the pack.

Honestly, he didn't like how stressed out his dad and the pack as a whole were. The world had been thrown into chaos and they were left to deal with the aftermath. He had kept to himself most of the time, hunting on his own and bringing back the scrawny prey he could find for the rest of the pack to eat before going and getting something for himself. He wasn't your typical selfless guy, but for his family, he'd do anything. And he did care about them more than himself, so he did what he could to try and ease his dads load.

He ambled through the area, eyes peeled for signs of prey again before he crossed paths with Valdis & Torrent. Ears perked up and he was curious as to why they were here, so he followed a short distance until he saw them through the brush and heard Torrent asking Valdis a question. "Hey Val, sup Tor." He greeted casually as he emerged from the trees. He knew Valdis' skills in battle, saw them first hand. Of course, he had also been on the receiving end of that, too, so he definitely knew what she could do. He didn't say much else and instead, waited to hear her answer to Torrent's question.

Word count: 347
Total: 1,076

Before her companions could answer movement caught her attention and Valdís turned to see Torrent standing there, asking about what kind of training she was planning to do. Valdís smiled gently at the yearling. Torrent tended to keep to herself and, so far, had gotten into far less trouble than her brothers. She was surprised the girl had been following her and she wasn't quite sure what to say so she just figured she'd answer the question. However, at that moment, Ares wandered into their midst. He was looking scruffier than usual but she couldn't blame him. The volcanic eruption had been hard on everyone and even though it was seasons after it still had a terrible effect on the lands as well as the wolves themselves.

"I was just planning to do some training using the terrain here." Despite her experience Valdís was used to fighting on even, flat terrain. The Range and Knolls were relatively devoid of obstructions and of course, so was the battlefield. Valdís slipped behind a tree, then peered around it at the two younger wolves. "Trees can be useful shields and also a terrible hindrance." She stepped out from behind the tree. "If I were to charge right now at Ares at my full speed and he were to move to the side I wouldn't be able to stop in time. I'd slam right into that tree and probably hurt myself. This is why it's good to get an idea of how to fight in different sorts of terrain."

She looked about herself once more before turning back to the youths. "Look around, what other things do you think would be important to keep in mind when fighting in a forest?"

WC: 287
Total: 1363

Ares - Chaos' son, so her... nephew - meandered up with a irreverently casual greeting that had Torrent simply blink slowly at him expressionlessly. She'd never quite known what to make of him, so she just arched her neck and tilted her muzzle to stare down at him without reply. She didn't know if he was a fighter, though with his father being who he was she couldn't imagine he hadn't at least been trained in it, but if he was that would make her the least trained and experienced of all of them and she wouldn't be happy if he managed to disrupt her opportunity.

Valdis at least seemed eager to share her knowledge of battle, which held Torrent's attention riveted to her so it couldn't wander to the volcano. Her mismatched eyes tracked the older warrior with interest when she began demonstrating what use difficult terrain could be in a fight, ducking behind a tree and back out again. When she asked for input, Torrent let her eyes rove around them thoughtfully. "Tree roots," she said slowly. "They can trip you, or catch your paws." After a beat of thought, working through what Valdis had said and extrapolating about being able to use trees against your opponent, she added "If force your opponent to back up over tree roots they could stumble and give you the opportunity to strike."

Word Count: 231
Total Word Count: 1594