it was not often that ziva was alone.
almost always at least one sibling could be found by her side - the triplets were close, after all - and as they were still young they spent their days playing together. if it wasn’t asmund and qiturah, it was her parents. her mother was almost too protective at times, and though it bothered ziva she wasn’t adverse to spending time with her at all. there were times when she’d wriggle away from seraphina’s affections, of course, but it was nice to get the attention sometimes. and ziva adored her father absolutely. she spent as much time with him as she could, when she wasn’t with her brother and sister and when her father was available. so for ziva to be alone… well the feeling was unusual to say the least.
that wasn’t to say that it was a bad feeling; just weird. ziva wasn’t sure where her siblings were (she hoped they weren’t off playing without her, pouting at the mere thought) and her parents weren’t in the den. she’d learned a little bit about tracking, but ziva’s focus had been more on everything other than the trail at the time so nothing had really stuck. she didn’t yet know how to swim, so that was out the picture. and there were no other pups in dierne hrof. all in all, ziva didn’t know what she could do without searching for someone in her family. sleeping was always an option, she supposed, but ziva was too high energy for that. she couldn’t sit around when there were things to do! glancing around for something to occupy herself with, movement to her right caught her eye and ziva perked up. it was roughly pup sized. could it be…
it was not, in fact. a moment later and the thing moved again and revealed itself as a rabbit. ziva put on her nastiest (read: adorable) scowl. what fun was a stupid rabbit? rabbits were fun to eat but you couldn’t play with them. the girl was well aware of her lack of hunting skills, so she wasn’t even going to think about that. maybe …. maybe she could just follow it around and see what rabbits did. and she could hop around like it. yeah, that was it! ziva gave the rabbit space so she wouldn’t scare it off - though she was hardly an imposing figure - and started after it as it began to hop off. hop, stop, sniff. hop, stop, sniff. repeat. look around and twitch your nose. munch some grass (ziva didn’t like it very much) and hop away. if the rabbit minded being followed by the pup, it didn’t act like it.
so caught up in her careful mimicry of the rabbit’s exact moves, ziva didn’t even notice that they’d left dierne hrof. she wasn’t supposed to, not yet and most certainly not alone, but she hadn’t even realized it. she wasn’t one to break rules on purpose. not usually. solely focused as she was, ziva did not register the new scent that filled her nostrils. one she didn’t know well, but had tinges of something that reminded her of her father. it wasn’t until the rabbit suddenly darted away and ziva tried to run after it, surprised at its sudden spooking, that she ran head first into the haunch of someone large and white. blinking, ziva stumbled back and looked up. she probably should have been more scared than she was. an adult wolf who she didn’t know and had just run head first into? it wasn’t a far stretch to imagine they’d be angry. but ziva simply puffed out her cheeks at him and twitched her tail in irritation. “you scared away my rabbit!” she barked indignantly. if anything was going to get ziva in trouble someday, it would be her mouth without a doubt.
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