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He was just about to jump in again when he caught a whiff of the older pup. He hadn’t seen her before, though since he had never been to the mansion he assumed she lived there. Nat wagged his tail happily, glad that there were other puppies in the pack that he could play with. Wraith could get boring after a while, and Auntie Tali’s pups were only a few days old. Maybe there were even more puppies in the mansion, and they could come and play with him or watch him jump into the river and cheer for how brave he was.
“Hiya!” he barked in greeting. “Wanna come an’ play wiff me?” But then the girl said something that confused Nathaniel: It stinks. “What stinks?” he asked, looking around at the forest and sniffing wildly. “I don’ smell anyfing. Whaterya taw-kin’ abow?” There wasn’t anything that smelled bad as far as he could tell, though the female could have used a bath. Who took care of her, anyways? Her mommy? Her daddy? Her auntie? He told himself to ask either Talitha or Valkyrie once he got back to the caves. But then he remembered that he should probably ask what her name was.
“Hey, what’s yer n-?” The rusty-furred pup stopped when he realized the girl was pushing him towards the edge of the cliff. She was going to push him into the stream! “Hey, stop dat!” he growled. “Whaterya doin’?” He didn’t understand that the girl thought he was a trespasser, since he thought he was more than half-coyote, with both Hybrid and his disappearing mother being mostly coyotes themselves. He shoved roughly back at the smaller pup, not caring if he hurt her. If he did, it would just prove that he was as strong as his daddy Hybrid, the trained warrior.
Image courtesy of Staura@Flickr; table by the Mentors!
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