With her shoulder and side bruising effectively keeping her on "light duty" so to speak for at least a few days, she had been lingering around her den for most of the morning. She had fixed up and cleaned up the furs that lined her small den, she'd fixed up a few loose ends she had noticed with how she had reinforced the walls, she had given herself a bath in the river near by, and had laid in the sun to dry... and it was only just turning noon. She was beginning to wonder how Resin had possibly waited out the injury she had without going absolutely bat shit crazy. She could still move around without too much trouble, it was just uncomfortable. She was sure that something as strenuous as fighting would certainly be off the table, but... maybe she could just go see some of her pack mates? One in particular came to mind and she smiled as she started making her way further into the plains. She moved a bit slower than she normally would and there was the slightest limp to her steps, but she was at least able to keep a wince off of her face so that felt like a win in her book. A few more days, maybe a week, and she'd be back to normal. At least that's what she kept telling herself just to give her a bit of hope. This was just making her realize how much time she actually spent during the day on her training. Without that to fill the time she was just bored to tears. The scent of her favorite winged young man caught her attention and she paused, her eyes scanning the area around him as she tried to spot him. You'd think a wolf as big as he was with wings of all things wouldn't be that hard to find, but she was certainly having a time of it trying to find him. "Mortis?" she called, hoping perhaps he would appear if she summoned him. "Talk" Think

He watched the little black wolf approach, and his tail wagged quietly behind him. He anticipated how he might pounce her, and surprise the woman. When she called out his name, he realised she had gotten his scent, and froe, waiting for discovery. Instead, she looked about herself in confusion. He giggled softly in amusement. Of course, most wolves looked at wolf-height when searching for a pack mate. They never thought to look at the trees. Digging his retractable claws harder into the bark, he leaned forward, but his laughter had likely already given the game away. Shifting his weight, he spread out his wings, and jumped lightly from the branch. However, as always, his heavy wings did nothing to catch him. Not that he expected them to. He landed on his paws, bending powerful knees to absorb the impact. He shook off the last tingles of his landing, and bounded a few steps towards her. “Hey Tammy!” "Mortis"

She almost didn't catch the giggle that gave that silly boy away, but her ears had been perked and listening for him so when she heard it she knew it had to be him. She looked around again and was confused when she still didn't see him. His scent was obviously somewhere near by and that had definitely been his voice, so where in the world was he? Just as the thought crossed her mind she could a rustle from the tree ahead of her and right before she looked up he came falling down from one of its branches and landed directly in front of her. His sudden appearance startled her and made her jump back a bit with surprise, sending her heart racing from a nearly adult-sized pup practically falling from the sky. She sighed and chuckled as she shook her head in disbelief at how much energy this boy always seemed to have. She didn't consider herself old by any stretch of the imagination, but sometimes he made her feel that way. "Mort!" she scolded between exasperated giggles. "Why were you in a tree?! How did you even get up there?" she questioned, tipping her head up to look at the branches he had appeared from. They were impressively high up, but that just made the protective, overly concerned nature in her even more worried about him. "Talk" Think

He gave a sheepish smile at the worry in her expression. He raised first one forepaw, and then the other. Reminding her of the cat-like claws he bore beneath his feet. “THese and my wings help, i’ve been practicing” he explained. Climbing in and out of his tree house had helped. Then there were the times he had tried to get one over Malalia and win a spar against her. Surprising her from tree top had been one of the tactics he had employed. Getting down for a tree was a constant difficulty. A wolf's body wasn’t made for flued backwards motions. That was why jumping was his preferred method of getting down. But the getting up parts were easy enough. He couldn’t scale a tree trunk, he was too heavy, but he could climb from branch to branch. “Maybe i’m part bird” he added cheekily to the family-like woman. "Mortis"

She looked at his paws as he raised them to demonstrate the unusual claws he had and the expression on her face changed to one of understanding, as if silently saying "Ah! Of course." She kept forgetting about the special traits that Mortis and his siblings had. Of course it was hard to forget about his wings, but the claws were slightly more subtle and if she didn't know about them then she may have never noticed them. She would have never dreamed that would would come across wolves with things like wings, retractable claws, paws like a bear, saber cat teeth... But here they were. Tam grinned and shook her head with a sigh when he insisted that he might be part bird. "You're going to be the death of me, Mort." She wasn't sure when Mortis had stopped just being Zee and Sirius' son and had started feeling more and more like her own family. If she was being honest the wolves in this pack had felt more like family than her own blood relatives almost from the very beginning, but Mort in particular had a soft spot in her heart. In a moment of curious exasperation, she nodded toward the tree he had just appeared from, saying, "Well, go on then! Let me see what you've been practicing!" "Talk" Think

The worry seemed to dissipate once Tammy had seen his claws. He was, if just a little bit, made for climbing. “I hope not Tammy, I rather like you” he returned back, knowing her words were that of a concerned parental figure. Being raised as the son of the Alphas, surrounded by adults. Sometimes it felt like he had a hundred parents. Not that he minded, he did love them after all.

When she encouraged him to climb, he pulled his expression into a thoughtful frown, and looked back at the tree he had jumped from. “Alright then” he said, expression bursting into a grin. He raced back towards the tree, and found the lower branch he had climbed earlier. The bark was already scoured by his sharp claws. He scrambled up awkwardly. He might have the caws of one, but he wasn’t quite as flexible as a cat.

He hopped onto the next branch, and wiggled out onto it, keeping his center of balance low. He spread his wings out on either side of him, like a nesting bird. “Wanna join me?”

Him telling her that he liked her made her feel a bit more emotional than it probably should, but how could she not when he even gave her a nickname? She smiled and tried to remind herself that Mortis was a loving soul that liked pretty much everyone in the pack. It still made her feel loved so she just let herself enjoy it either way. Even though she had been part of the Armada for a while now she still couldn't quite adjust to the fact that others seemed to genuinely like and appreciate her. It was a new feeling for her and was one of the things she might have had the hardest time adjusting to. She chuckled at the grin that spread over his face when he agreed to her insistence that he show her how he got up into the tree. He was a pup through and through and she watched him climb the tree in the same way the "fun aunt" of the family would - with an amused amazement for him doing such a thing while still being just a little bit concerned that he might fall. She grinned and tipped her head back to look at him while he settled on the branch like a very large bird. Tam chuckled at his question of if she would like to join him, quickly shaking her head in response. "Noooo, no, I think I'll leave the tree climbing to you. I'm definitely not made for it like you. I did a little bit of tree climbing with Natha when we were exploring the north and that was more than enough for me. And those trees were slanted! I don't think I'd stand a chance with a normal tree." "Talk" Think

He let his wings drop lower, inadvertently shielding the branch from view, and stretching out his paws in front him. The image of a content tree-cat. If such a cat was also winged, and shaped like a wolf. And unusually coloured.

“You knew Natha from before, where did you guys meet?” he asked, curiously. He didn’t know much about Tam from before she had joined. She knew his mother had invited her into the pack, and that because of Zee’s love of Tam, Sirius had welcomed her with open arms. From there, her own merit had seen her climbing the ranks of the Armada with swiftness.

“Did you wish you had the right tools to climb? You get some pretty wicked views from these heights. And, of course, the greatest bonus of all. Leaping at wolves from above.”

Tam settled down on her haunches so she could look up at Mortis a little more comfortably once he started giving her some questions to answer. "When I first got to Boreas I was exploring around the north and I happened to bump into Natha on an island up there that was made up of a dormant volcano - very interesting place," she added as a side note even though it didn't really pertain to the question. "We ended up exploring all over the northern part of the continent together for several days. I honestly didn't think I'd see her again after that since Boreas is such a big place, but then she ended up joining the Armada not that long after I did!" She chuckled at the fact that even though Boreas was so wide spread it still sometimes felt incredibly small. At his next question she tipped her head to the side with thought and examined the tree that he had climbed just moments ago. "I could see how it would be useful... And I do enjoy seeing sights like that sometimes." A slightly more wicked idea popped into her head and she couldn't help the grin that pulled at her lips. "If I could jump down from trees onto other wolves then maybe I might stand a chance at beating your father in a spar!" She laughed lightly at the idea, imagining jumping down from the tree tops to pounce on Sirius' back. It was silly and ridiculous and certainly not something she should be trying to do, but it still made her giggle all the same. "Talk" Think