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Can this be forwards a bit, maybe the 10th-11th?
There was always one weaker than the others. As the temperature dropped enough to set frost into heartwood, the odd tree that was past its prime would weaken and split: perhaps even giving up the ghost completely. Caspa was not nervous of much, but the sight of a building collapsing in the human city very recently had given her cause to glance upwards once or twice with no good reason. When, while heading towards the cellar to check up on the smoking meat, she saw a tree leaning precariously upon another, a great torn rendered down its centre, she flinched back from passing beneath. If the remaining fibres of wood gave way, the once-tall chestnut would lethally crash down. The Courtier sidled by, treading very lightly indeed, then moved on to the King's cellar. There was nothing coming from the chimney of the smokehouse, but she had been certain a few carcasses had been butchered for preservation. Moving inside, she found the woodpile rather lower than last time she'd been here. Her thoughts turned back to that nearby tree. She guessed this was the kind of thing that wolves kept horses for, but she would still never see the use. One could haul the lumber over pretty easily, but if she cut it up where it lay, she could carry it here herself piecemeal. She took a crude axe which seemed to be kept for this very purpose, and retraced her steps to the half-fallen chestnut tree. A moment's scrutiny told her where she could cut through to allow the weight of the trunk to slowly bring itself down, and moving closer tentatively, Caspa swung the axe to make the first few cuts, ready to leap away if it moved.
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sure :3
000+
It had been a week or so since little Lottie had played with her brother Skoll in the snow and now she was searching for him again she couldn't find him. Her small regal voice echoed through the house only to be answered by either silence or her mother's soft tones. Hati and Skill were hiding from her again, it wasn't fair! They should want to play with her not run away, she was their sister. So the girl was a little sad that her brother's wouldn't play and she eventually wandered outside into the snow although even the white cold couldn't cheer her up.
The sounds of thumping though caught her interest and the child quickly padded towards where she could hear the sounds coming from. There was a woman there, tall and willowy and white colored with a few dark patches. Her ears were strange and didn't stand upright like her daddy and mommy. Charlotte's still flopped over partially but they were on their way to standing upright. Charlotte twisted her head with a confused expression,
"Wha' doing?" Her blue eyes were alight with curiosity as she stared up at the tall doggish woman, her curled tail wagging behind her.
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As she retracted her arm for another rather feeble - but that was really all necessary - swing, Caspa heard the small voice pipe up behind her and whirled in concern. "Please stand back! I am cutting down this tree, although the ice has already done some of the work for me. It will fall down at any moment, so stay right away from all these trees," she warned, a no-nonsense expression on her severe face. The cluster of trees formed a little copse with the fallen one towards the middle. But her warning came a little too late, as just then the tree seemed to decide its time was up. A slow but final creaking sound came from the splitting timber. Caspa sprang backwards, realising it was going to come down by itself. "Hurry!" she yowled and dashed for cover, heading towards the girl so she could lift her to safety if she was not quick enough on the uptake to move away herself.
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ooo danger danger  plus playing a pup is so hilarious XD
Her eyes widened as the woman turned on her and ordered her back away from the tree, the girl may be young but she was not stupid and had been raised sensibly thus far so when the woman told her to move her away she skittered back hastily, her claws scrabbling at the ice and snow covered ground. Lottie ended up once again tripping over her own paws into the snow but was far enough away that the tree did not fall on her. The poor girl's heat was beating so fast it felt like her little chest was going to explode from her body and for a second the shivered from the adrenalin coursing her body.
"Tree no like Lottie?" Her voice contained an echo of fear and trembled a second before somehow amazingly the whole situation became undeniably funny to her and she burst into peals of excited laughter. "Ha! Haha, Tree fall, tree silly, no fall over silly tree." She pulled herself out of the snow she had fallen into and shook it from her with a little shake of her cream and reddy body. The girl dashed forwards and batted at a few of the small twigs that had come loose and fallen away from the main body of the tree.
She yipped and yapped at it as though chasing off a fearsome enemy.
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Neither of them were very graceful as they beat their retreat. Caspa was trying to choose the best direction to move, not run into the puppy, make sure the puppy was moving away too, not drop the axe on the puppy, and not slip on the ice. Her arms windmilled, attempting to keep her balance. The tree's creak grew louder and louder as it halved itself, the whole crown coming thundering to the ground with a great many splintering branches, some of the roots rising into the air and bringing a great clod of earth with them. Caspa skidded to a halt to stare at it, sure now they were both clear, but her stop was too sudden for this treacherous frosted ground and her feet went from under her. She landed in the snow near to where the pup had also tripped and tumbled down, and lay flat on her back, panting and looking at the cloud-covered sky. When the girl spoke up, her voice plaintive, Caspa turned her head. Lottie was the name spoken, and she could only assume it belonged to this child. She was a similar size to the golden princeling, Skoll: certainly a sister. Caspa had no idea what comfort she could offer to a puppy who believed a tree didn't like her. Thankfully, it wasn't necessary. With a string of nonsense pouring from her mouth, the child bounded forward, back the way they'd run, torrent of words changing into a torrent of playful barks. Caspa let her head collapse back into the snow again. She'd come very close to squashing a Cour princess. She could not quite digest this fact.
When the excited noises became too much to take lying down, the snow-coloured dog got unsteadily to her feet, picking up the axe too. She appraised the scene: the fallen goliath, the tiny girl challenging it with her youthful tones. Many of the smaller branches had come off by themselves. They could be hauled back to the smokehouse as they were. This would save time, so she could spend a few moments recovering from the near-miss and no harm done. Caspa leaned on the axe. "Careful, Lottie, if you scare the tree too much it'll run away and we won't have any wood left to burn." she jested with a smirk reserved for puppies alone.
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The girl turned back to the lighter colored woman as she slowly got up out of the snow, her curled tail wagged back and forth. This was so excising! Maybe she would let her help with what she was doing. Lottie was only still small so she hadn't been allowed to help any one much yet. Her icy blue eyes took in the entire length of the tree, it was very sideways tall now instead of up tall. She sniffed at one of the branches that lay in the snow, it smelt like old, like most of the house did,
"Tree is sideways tall now, no up tall." She felt quite smart as she said that having figured it out on her own. Her face darted to the still unnamed woman and her mouth dropped open at the words the other said, the Tree would run away? Suddenly she was a lot more wary of it and of barking at it,
"Tree run away? Lottie catch? Lottie no bark no more" The child said in total seriousness, believing what her pack mate said to her abut the tree running away. "Lottie no see Tree run before." She said slightly suspiciously though once she had thought on it, Skoll sometimes told her things that were not true,
"'Koll say that fairys fly in snow, Lottie see no fairys."
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Caspa was certain that not all children had the ability to utterly believe in fantastical things: but that was probably only because she herself had been an old head on young shoulders all her life - and her shoulders weren't getting any younger either - but both of these Haskel children had shown the same imaginative belief, so perhaps it wasn't so crazy. This girl was certainly suspicious of Caspa's words, though, as well she should be, given the content. "Don't believe everything you hear, Lottie," she said. "Trees can't really run away. This one wouldn't anyway because it's dead now. I'm going to cut off its branches for firewood. Will you help carry the sticks?" She moved along the tree now, still holding the axe that looked rather large in her slender fingers, looking for a branch thin enough to lop off. "Between you and me, I'm not sure about those fairies either. The only things I've ever seen flying in the snow are snowflakes."
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She nodded to the doggish woman's words, and from that moment on she swore to herself in the forever lasting way that children did that she wouldn't just believe everything that somebody said. This was her first true experience with death even if it was only a tree. She only understood the very basics of life and death and really only understood that life was when you moved around and did things and ate food, trees still did that but not like wolves and dogs did. Even at her young age Charlotte was showing signs of the very smart woman she would become in future.
"Ya! I help carry.!" Again her curled over tail set to wagging, this time instead of with hyperactive excitement it was the happiness at finally being able to help with something even if it was only carrying a few small twigs. She giggled as Caspa said she didn't think the fairy's were real either, her brother was so silly sometimes with his fairy's and magical things that didn't really exist. The small girl reached forwards to pick up a small stick when she realised that she hadn't even asked for this woman's name, she looked up with a tilt of her head,
'You name?" Despite her future genius she was still young and learning about how to say things.
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Here was a situation that could have been turned into a parable, if Caspa was that sort of creative person. The smaller twigs were as useful as the larger, because they were the ones that you used to begin even the largest of fires. Like Charlotte, who was only a tiny thing but one day would be a full-grown Courtier. The happy little pup wanted to help to carry the sticks, which Caspa was pleased about, as the company would help her job go quicker, as well as cutting down the number of twigs to haul. "I am Caspa," she answered. "It's very nice to meet you Lottie - you are just as charming as your brother." There was a third one, wasn't there? She had not met the other child yet, nor heard mention of their name. "How is he, and your parents?" She hadn't seen much of Vigilante since the aftermath of the AniWayan battle. She thought politics must be continuing to occupy a lot of his attention, as it probably forever would. She had quite a bundle of sticks in her arms now, and made a movement towards the smokehouse, but hesitated a moment to let the little girl catch up.
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"'Aspa?" Yeah she had a problem pronouncing 'K' and hard 'C's' but most of the time her words were understood. The cinnamon girl shook her head and tried again "Aaaaspaa, Caspa?" Third time was the charm apparently and she smiled with pride. Her small face was scrunched up in concentration and she huffed. Blue pools again took in the dead horizontal tree and her head tilted to the side before turning back to the wispy dog that was her new acquaintance. Not once had Charlotte asked about the woman's strange floppy ears, by now her mind had ticked over it enough to come to a reasonable conclusion as to why it was thus so. Lottie's own ears were still limp mostly and eventually they would stand up straight she guessed but Caspa's had never stood straight and instead just dangled downwards like they were now with the fur growing long over them.
Satisfied with her obviously logical conclusion she smiled up at Caspa,
"'Koll is appy an good. Daddy is busy lots, he play wi' Lottie. Mama is good. Hati push Lottie over!" Her moment of genius ended and she was once again a normal child. She grabbed up a few small sticks on her jaws and followed after Caspa.
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The optimism of the young child was faultlessly reassuring, and Caspa learned the name of the third child, Hati. The pair continued their uneven way towards the smokehouse, Caspa treading sedately upright with her top-heavy armful of wood not leaving room to lean sideways to any degree whatsoever. She kept a very close eye on the little puppy underfoot, knowing that a trip right now could lead to quite the minor disaster. "I'm glad you are all well. Why did Hati push you over?" she asked quietly, just for something to keep the conversation going. She could never find that puppy-exuberance within her to go along and be really engaging company, but she had endless patience and enjoyed acting as a kind of sounding-board, being a careful listener.
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maybe is time we wrap this thread up? It's been going for a while XD -picks off flakes of crust-
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White stockinged paws sunk into the likewise colored snow with ease as they cavorted with childish joy after the equally doggish woman that was now her friend, whether she liked it or not. She made sure to stay well away from the long furred woman so that she wouldn't trip her up and could be well out of the way if she did actually trip up. She looked up at the woman as she answered, not looking where she was going and almost stumbled herself but managed to stay on her feet only just,
"Hati push Lottie over cause he meanie boy. He mean to Lottie, Lottie bite his ear so he gets ouch back." Her smug grin told novels about her feeling for her managing to get her brother back for pushing her over. They finally reached the place where they were going and Lottie dropped her small stick next to the pile that Caspa deposited.
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Ah yes, but you forget it is sosu now. So, I'ma dustbust this thread and conjure EPIC POST OF DOOM!
The sound of the voice coming from the out of eyeline youngster was helpful as it prattled, revealing to Caspa where her new acquaintance was scampering. She couldn't see much past the stack of sticks in her arms. It would have surprised anyone looking on how big a pile she was carrying. Caspa was stronger than she looked, all lean muscle. She didn't have any weight advantage, though, so even now she was swaying and staggering quite a lot. Finally reaching the smokehouse, she sent the pile of wood crashing to the ground in a twiggy cascade next to the girl's stick. "Two wrongs don't make a right, Lottie," she admonished almost automatically. "You shouldn't hurt anybody unless you have to, to save yourself or somebody else. Even if it is your brother being a meanie." She supposed an argument could be made that to retaliate was necessary in order to teach the out-of-line other that all actions had consequences, and thus prevent them growing up a real bully or savage. But that was really his parent's job, wasn't it? Not a fellow puppy. And there was no chance of the King's child growing up a barbarian, surely. Then, she swiped a hand across her face, chasing away a few pieces of bark as she gave a muffled laugh, even though only in the presence of a pup she was still wary of relenting her dignified exterior. She was mocking herself - how seriously did she seem to take everything? It was only a childish game, between siblings who certainly loved one another deep down and knew it didn't mean a thing what they did to each other in play. She could hardly apologise to Lottie now, the girl would have no idea what she was talking about and had probably already forgotten the stern speech. Caspa was sure she had not endeared herself to the child, though, and rested hands on hips, wondering what to do now. She settled for a little praise. "Thank you for helping me, it was a good job we did there," she said very seriously. "Now we can make the smoke-house fire come back to life and your kindling is the most important part of that. Bravo." Perhaps she was laying it on a bit thick, but she did mean it. The girl was like her older brother Liam - eager and willing, although she was still so young. They were good young blood to have around - the prospects of the pack looked brighter every day.
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