Niyol might have had a good nose and a good sense for being followed buy Kaliban? Well, usually he might have but at that point, he'd become too enthralled by all the new sights and smells to really pay attention beyond his immediate surroundings. Besides, having been raised in Asteraia tended to give a wolf an innate sense of safety, a natural confidence that made them perhaps a little foolish at times. Or so, Kaliban would surely some day learn.

Niyol, it seemed, was going to the be the one to teach him, or at least the one to get the lesson started. Kaliban wasn't so much as...startled but rather, taken aback, quite literally. When Niyol burst up onto the rock, Kaliban stumbled back a step or two and having been using the tree to support most of his weight, it resulted in him nearly falling backwards completely. It was, shamefully so, difficult to make it look like a graceful move, or even an intentional one at that. He'd never had to wear embarrassment before and he instinctively turned his ears back, his hackles flaring up along his back as he shot daggers at Niyol with his eyes. If he'd been anything more like his mother, he might have leapt forward with teeth bared from the insult but no, Kaliban wasn't Sekhmet. Kaliban was more Kweku if anything, and even then he was less Kweku than Runihura. So instead, he puffed up but couldn't help himself from tilting one ear forward to actually listen to the boy despite his blunder. Curiosity was, after all, a powerful force even when fighting against embarrassment.

Most of what he said didn't really make sense though. Kaliban's eyes moved from Niyol to the tree he had been leaning up against with a skeptical look. "What are you talking about? Leaning on a tree doesn't hurt it! It's not bad." He snorted, but the first part of what Niyol had finally sunk in. Bones to pick. It made both of Kaliban's ears prick up then as he tilted his head. "And what about picking bones? You need some girl to handle it?" His lip turned up into a sneer, or teasing thing that eased his posture as he slunk forward a step and puffed his own chest out. "I'm better at picking bones than any girl. If you need one picked, I'll do it." Forget the trees and that the strange boy had practically made a fool out of an Asteraian prince - he'd mentioned bones! He could have tackled Kaliban right on over and into the dirt and the mention of bones still would have eased Kaliban's frustrations immediately. He was still a child, after all, and one who had been raised by a father who often gave him bones to gnaw open. Sure, he took the marrow once Kaliban had succeeded but still...it was fun! And it seemed this strange boy needed somebody to get some marrow too.