"Maybe this was just practice, and now you'll get to show your skills for real? For many of the herds of out there you're a familiar face. You'll help the family find its way around", Ruddy tapped Edmont on the shoulder, his turn now to have a beak wide open with smile. In trying to lighten up Edmont's mood, Ruddy lightened his own as well. Then he heard Diver and Mara speak.
"Our time? What are you guys over there talking about?", Ruddy said calmly. He felt things were finally falling into place. They were definitely going to have a test of coming of age, but how and where he didn't know. He suddenly felt an urge to go over to his mother and ask more, but Mara's antics brightened him up and calmed him down.
Mara. As a whelp he underwent quite a lot of "torture" from his older sister, even more than he did from his older brothers. But since there was no way to get away from them, he had no choice but to harden up. And so he did. Just a few days ago while he was grinding some aromatic plants he had been gathering all day for a special meal mom was preparing, he suddenly felt a stab in his lower back. It was Mara stabbing him with a pointy stick. He would grab a stick himself and try to stab her back, but she was faster and would always keep her distance from him while trying to stab him again. Then he would invariably grab a heavier and longer stick, which Mara had some trouble wielding, and then there would be a stand-off until both got bored. After that particular stand-off she told him he was no fun at all and that she would rather play with Sonar, Edmont or Tooele instead. But a few moments later, she was helping him prepare the plants, as she was quite interested in herbs herself.
And when he and his brothers, and Mara as the only girl, played "prey", a game where one sibling was prey and two were fast biters trying to get him/her to the ground and "bite" the prey's throat, Mara was perhaps the hardest prey. She wasn't strong enough to throw any of her brothers off, like Sonar could from time to time, but her limbs were as hard to bend as entangled wood, and reaching for the throat would usually result in having to push skull to her very hard skull. And when she was the fast biter she would jump for the throat, resulting in a fast "kill" or a desperate attempt to get out of her clinch.
"And when mom stumbles upon a game of "prey", she always laments about what she has done wrong to deserve children like us", thought Ruddy with a chuckle. After Ducky, Mara was the sister he loved hanging out with the most, and the one he felt the most comfortable at fighting back in a game, as it was mostly physical, not verbal. He quickly thought of something to throw her way: "Hey Mara, I sure hope you'll get to kick butts outside of the Valley, cause thanks to you, fresh butts are getting hard to find here! And speaking of butts, would any of you care to get your well-respected behinds over here?"
As he waited for an answer from the bunch on the other side of nest, he overheard Sonar.
Sonar's direct question pierced his ears. It wasn't unexpected from Sonar to be so blunt, a trait Ruddy often admired about his strongest sibling, but in this situation it felt out of the blue. Any urge Ruddy might have felt for confronting his mother was completely gone now.
Ruddy anxiously awaited his mother's reply.
