four months | Svajonė or Vidarr likely nearby/welcome to join!

The dream had been...scary. Reid knew Vidarr and Mama would never let anything happen to him. They'd defeated a bear! But the visions in the dream had still been frightening. And now, a faint blue light could be seen illuminating the low-hanging clouds in the deep hours of the night. It made Reid a little...nervous. But not nervous enough to stay cooped up in the safety of the cozy den for very long. Wary of catching yet another cold, he huddled in the cuddle-pile of Ma and Vidarr until the light at the mouth of the den indicated the sun was as high as it would get for the day, even masked by the clouds.

Then, the boy freed himself. The days of stumbling paws were almost behind him. He didn't have any siblings to play-fight with to improve his motor skills, but he had two very involved parents who would gladly put up with the robin's rough-housing and non-stop chatter. Reid's lung capacity probably rivalled a whale's with how practiced he was keeping up a stream of conversation during whatever energetic activities he put his mind to. Today, he wanted to see if the daylight would let him get a better look at the scary blue glow. The snow was a staple of his life and Reid traipsed lightly across the powdery snowfall with ease, tail stiffly arched behind him to keep his balance and in response to his determined excitement.

Pine trees swallowed his silhouette up, their bristling needles dusted with frost. The alpine wind pressed Reid's thin coat slick against his skin as it picked up, wailing as the gust coursed down the mountainside. The boy braced himself against the force, wrinkling his muzzle into a grin when he was not bowled over. A little further wouldn't hurt!

Snow crunched nearby to alert the robin to an approaching creature. He expected Vidarr's dark visage to appear from between the trees, and plopped his rear into the snow to attentively wait for his guardian to appear. An elk cow gracefully entered into Reid's view instead - dark eyes reflecting the boy's dumbstruck awe back at him as the elk regarded the tiny pup. Leaf-shaped ears swiveled back, then forward. A plume of condensed breath snorted from her muzzle, and this prompted the beginning of a building giggle from Reid's throat.