a large head neared her own until the brute was staring at her head own. ziva furrowed her brows at him, but quickly began to feel uncomfortable under the scrutiny and turned her head away, squirming under the intense gaze. it wasn’t good manners to stare at someone anyways, especially not someone who could hurt you without a second thought. as the male’s voice rumbled out, ziva’s blues shifted to watch him.
“i am terribly sorry, little one. it was not my intention to do so - had i known i would have certainly planned otherwise. you are vladimir’s daughter, yes? i am aindreas, his brother.”
“you don’t look like daddy...” ziva tried to recall if her father had ever really talked about this aindreas, but she couldn’t remember hearing anything about him. perhaps the name mentioned in passing, but not much else. certainly not that the two were related. after all, wouldn’t it make sense for her to have met her uncle before? there was another brother whose name had come up a few times - never directly to the pups of course - but she knew asmund had once been named in honor of him. but cassius was nowhere near aindreas, so this was not the brother, ziva decided. she sniffed at aindreas, as though that might somehow confirm that the brute was truly vladimir’s brother. while she could not, of course, she could smell dierne’s scent on him and decided that that was good enough to trust him. packmates looked out for each other, didn’t they? “but i guess I don’t look like my siblings either.” she smiled brightly at aindreas, losing her wariness instantly.
“were you hunting the rabbit? or playing with it? you know, it is not polite to play with your food - it is cruel to them.” ziva looked at aindreas indignantly.
“i wasn’t playing with it! i was following it; i wanted to see what rabbits do all day. i don’t know how to hunt yet…” the last part was quiet and trailed off. should she already know how to hunt? was that normal for a pup her age? no one had told her that. “but i want to learn! i want to help you!” even if she was small and young, she could be useful. qiturah always wanted to be the fighter, but ziva didn’t like stuff like that. hunting seemed much more her speed than fighting did.
“if you would allow me, i could pick you up and carry you, so that we may chase it down together. and once we are near to it, you could hide in the bushes and make a terrible noise, make the caribou think that it was surrounded. it would help me a lot, and then you could get first pick on what to eat. promise.” ziva’s body practically vibrated with excitement. her first hunt and it would be with a caribou. she couldn’t wait to tell qi and asmund all about it and impress mommy and daddy. “what is you name anyway?”
“i am ziva!” she wagged at aindreas and bounced to her feet. “let’s go get that caribou mr. aindreas.”
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