Welcome to Gaia! ::

Serenity Moon didn’t always choose to train every morning—sometimes she’d muuuuuch rather sleep in—but the summer heat was starting to ramp up, and the noise of birds and other creatures stirring awake made it hard to ignore. Once the sun had angled just right to hit her in the face, she was forced to a grudging state of grogginess, grumbling under her breath as she stretched. Well, maybe she could catch her own breakfast this time, Serenity consoled herself. She was big enough! She totally didn’t daydream when hunting lessons were going on!

Although it was hard not to. Sometimes the pup wondered about her missing family. Did she have a sister? A brother? Multiple siblings? Did they look like her, or did they look more like Mom? She couldn’t really remember, just a vagueness of white and black, darkness and light and warmth, all which only really began sticking in her head during the trip back to Dawnstar with Dad. Had the moon blessed them as well? No way Mother Moon wasn’t watching over them, wherever they were...

I’ve gotta train, Serenity Moon thought and shook off her sleepiness. One day, I’ll find them!

Her paws had taken her much further than she thought, and the pup paused to take it in. There were more rocks here than before, so she was probably closer to the base of Bluestone. Then she heard brush breaking, moving further away, and her curiosity was peaked. She caught glimpses of red fur as she darted from shadow to shadow, thinking grassy thoughts; her pale coat made her stick out against the foliage, so she tried to be extra careful when moving. The figure looked familiar, but she wasn’t quite close enough—

Snap! Serenity stepped on a thin fallen branch and yelped. Wait, don’t let the situation start awkward!! Own it!! “Hi hello who’s there?” she called, as if she hadn’t tripped over herself in surprise. “This is Dawnstar Border Patrol!”

Oh, good, he was standing on a rock. Much easier to make a grand entrance when she knew where to look. Serenity cleared her throat importantly and leapt onto the scene with the air of an adult who totally knew what she was doing and not just tripped two seconds ago.

“Halt, Red Leaves Falling!” She struck a pose. “You’re about to—wait, you’re from Dawnstar. Um.” So she couldn’t pronounce the whole “invading pack territory” schtick. Serenity relaxed momentarily, frowning in thought. “Hold on, I had something for this...”

...

“Um...Okay.” Back to posing. “Halt, Red Leaves Falling! You’re about to leave the pack territory!” Serenity proclaimed, drawing closer. “Which would make a lot of wolves worried! So don’t do that!”

...So, uh. This was not how it was supposed to go. Serenity stared at the space Red had occupied, stunned. He was supposed to say something along the lines of aw shucks you got me there and together they would have gone back home, easy peasy. The nerve!

She pouted at the empty air before giving chase. “You come and take that back!” she shouted. “I’ve been working really hard on those!” They were supposed to look cool to the good guys and intimidate the bad guys. Sure she was barely three stones tall right now, but just you wait!

Of course, a chase involving two clumsy pups could only ever end one way. Somehow, via one’s attempt to shake off versus another’s attempt to head them off, the two ended up colliding. Serenity fell flat on her rump and pouted some more after helping. “Where are you even going?” she asked petulantly. “It’s dangerous out there!”

“I’m standing as tall as I can!” Serenity whined, doing so to prove it. She was too young to really show the leginess she’d grow into just yet unfortunately. And lifting a paw to squash things...hrm...She held one up and frowned down at it for a few seconds before shaking her head. What if Red was trying to distract her so he’d run away again? No sir!

She cleared her throat. “I am the pretty moon guardian, Serenity Moon!” she declared proudly. “Here to make sure you don’t get in trouble!” Because if someone like say Stonerooted caught them this far out, they’d get herded into a cave for the whole day as punishment. And the day just started!

“How about we explore while we head back?” Serenity suggested. “I mean, it’s pretty out here, yeah. If we make a path we can come back later?” Being lost was the real problem, but she tried not to look nervous.

The pup huffed indignantly. "Ugh! You're so rude!" she whined with a stamp of her paws. She had a pretty name!! And cool poses!!! Serenity had half a mind to just leave him if he was going to be a pain--only, that was exactly what Red wanted. And she couldn't in good conscience just walk away if he really did get lost. (And she was sure he would, whatever he was saying, if they weren't already in the middle of nowhere.)

"Fine!" Serenity Moon tried to look as annoyed as possible at the prospect, sarcastically adding, "I'll follow your lead, Mr. Explorer. Don't get us even more lost please." Because if they ended up in the spooky woods like he had mentioned, they were in so much trouble... "Just hurry up so we can get home!"

Are we lost. Are we lost? Serenity glared at him and held back the longest growl of a sigh. ...No, see, this was fine! Everything! Is! Fine! Because she was sure if they just turned right around, they could find their way back! He even apologized! This was fine!!

She took a deep breath and shook her head. “Okay. Let’s just turn around and follow me,” she said. “If we retrace my steps and follow my scent, we should be good.” Right? Serenity could pick out her own scent at any rate. But she waited until Red trotted back to her before she made a move to lead on, still leery he might run away again at a moment’s notice. Sigh, being responsible was hard.

“You should stay more aware next time,” Serenity chastised him as they walked. “What if you seriously get lost next time? Then you’d get in super trouble and won’t get to explore anything ‘cause you’ll be grounded. And your mom and dad’d get worried.”