Coming footfalls made Skoll reluctantly abandon his glaring at the underground tunnel and the hiding ball. He wagged his tail once as he recognized the tawny-red coywolf, Terra, and he hopped up onto all fours in time to witness her shift into her two-legged shape. The puppy recognized the optime form as something that belonged to grown-ups, and grown-ups were more or less supposed to be listened and paid attention to—though he didn’t always take this advice to heart. A more submissive cub might have shown their belly to the adult, but he only boldly watched her transformation with a curiosity he couldn’t quite name. Born into luperci society meant that he was familiar with the shift, and it was one of the very, very few burning questions he didn’t feel comfortable asking.
After she had shifted, gaining a lot of height on him, the boy watched attentively as a dark hand reached into the hole. His tail wagging increased in frequency, a metronome going almost a hundred beats a minute, and he eyed the sphere in the woman’s paw.
She asked if he wanted to play, and Skoll let out a wordless yap as the answer. He was tensed up as he waited, and when the ball bounced down to earth, he jumped and chomped at it without hesitation. Catching it in his jaws, he landed and whirled around, staring at Terra excitedly.
“Play a game?” Skoll asked, butt wiggling with the force of his tail wags. It seemed redundant, but he did not have the vocabulary to ask if she meant a proper game like catch or just some random fun. Whether a clarification came or not, he knew that he would have a lot of fun.
His mind backpedaled then, and with a somber expression, he recited politely, “Thank you fer gettin’ ball.”
Word Count → 307
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