Gaara, AW for Tuksha'at wolves! —

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The girl sat at the edge of the den entrance, hovering in the shade as the sun above drifted higher into a cloudless sky. Despite the evenings that were finally growing cooler, today seemed to hold promise of a blooming late-summer heat.

Gavi's back foot lifted from the ground, scratching awkwardly at the base of her ear. Her tongue drifted out of her mouth, eyes half-closing as she rattled herself with her own momentum.

And then she would yawn.

After another moment, she would take her little puppy teeth and start pulling at the fur on her forelimb, pulling out loose bits of sand and debris from her thick, dark coat. Her sharp fangs would work gently at her tender baby flesh, her little body practically vibrating with the inability to sit still.

Finally, her eyes would lift, squinting against the sun as she pressed her bat-sized ears forward. The wind would gently blow, sand and heat lifting from the shifting dunes. And finally, the girl would take a step forward, instantly feeling the scorch of the desert through the base of her paws.

And then she would leap, taking a few extravagant bounds through the sand, barking at the breeze.

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skill: warrior

There were a great many pups in the den. Some of them looked very different from their two brown parents. Some looked all coy, some looked older. One was even a badger. If Gaara didn't know any better, he might have thought some of them had been stolen from their parents or maybe all just wayward children taken in. After all, hadn't Gaara come into the fold the same way?

Either way, Gaara didn't know any better, nor did he really care. They were Hati's babes and so he would protect him in the same manner which she had protected him.

He would have been laid in his usual place along the mouth of the den, so that they had to climb over him to get out, but at the highest time of the sun, he was now settled in the slivers of shade a gangly mesquite tree might offer which was situated just a bit from outside the den. At noon and the few hours which followed, it was not wise to meet the sun directly.

Chewing on a piece of root, when he noticed one of the pups exiting the den, he drops the root and woofs for the pup's attention, hoping either she would scurry back into the den or take to the shade next to him.