The boy emerged wide and bleary-eyed from the den, stumbling over the lip of the entrance as his pale eyes adjusted to the light. There was a certain sort of confusion from waking up so suddenly that he couldn't easily shake, his mind felt muddled and his movements awkward. But he wasn't about to sleep through the adventure that his mother had planned. Though he was odd in his own ways, the pup was still very much a child, and the prospect of adventure was too tantalizing to let it slip away. And so Salem stumbled forward towards his mother, his mouth opening in a wide yawn, bushy fur unkempt from his evening nap. "We gonna go soon?" He blinked up at the towering form of his mother, before glancing from side to side and seeing that they were alone.

His head dipped to the ground, sniffing around for his brother and sister, but perhaps they were off doing something. Without him. The nerve! He only took a nap because he'd stayed up late last night, watching the moon rise over the forests of Taviora, where his father lived. Salem would not characterize him as an absent father, because when he did come around he was very loving and all that, but he wondered why his parents lived so far apart. They were affectionate with each other, but never said 'I love you,' and at the end of the visit their father always went back to his home in Taviora. It was a mysterious place. What exactly he did there was unknown, though mother had said he was an advisor of some kind. Salem, pressed against his mother's tall legs, wondered if his father would be coming with them today.
Salem
some speak of the future