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Post by Alma on Mar 9, 2020 0:17:56 GMT -6
Of course, nipping a bone was nothing like nipping something that lived, and though the houluh was more than happy to kill the grubbles during a hunt, Haix wanted to make sure the houluh knew that the command applied to more than waved bones. The lot they were on lacked anything in the way of roaming grubble, and it took several lots worth of walking before she found one digging into a trashcan, its rear hanging off the side.
She grabbed the grubble and dropped it by Tin before the grubble could test its teeth against her scales.
Tin watched the grubble but, already having been given plenty of treats that day and with her nose no longer hurting, she did nothing else. Then came the command to nip, and Tin looked up to see that Haix was pointing at the grubble in front of her. Tin obeyed, and found that the grubble’s reaction to being nipped was a great deal messier than that of the bone.
Haix commanded the houluh to keep nipping at the grubble until it stopped moving, pleased that Tin had seemed to have learned it already. ((Nip-End? Tin-33.0 Haix-197.0))
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Post by Alma on Mar 9, 2020 0:18:10 GMT -6
The grubble’s corpse was left to cool near the trash can as they walked back to the current plot. Haix had plenty of time to think about the next command, one that she felt she should not have needed to teach the little houluh in the first place. A quick sweep of the bone over the runt’s head was enough to prove why she had to as Tin dropped away from the rib despite it having been swung a good foot above her.
Once they were back on the lot Haix instructed the houluh to remain where she had sat. Haix plucked another handful of treats from the sack and walked over to where the houluh was waiting. In truth, there was something to be said in favor of the houluh jerking away from quick movements if they were rushing at her, but she refused to let the houluh spoil a hunt just because an izer took wing nearby. ((Accept Sudden Movements-Start))
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Post by Alma on Mar 9, 2020 0:18:25 GMT -6
The bone was swung once again over the houluh’s head, and once again the slave hound cringed away from it. But unlike the times before, Haix jerked it back the way it had come until her arm reached her limit, then reversed direction again. This repeated as the houluh laid down on her belly, cowering as she whimpered at the movements. Tin made no attempt to stand or even open her eyes at first, clearly prefering to pretend the thing swishing overhead was not there at all. Haix was worried about this, for she did not know how long her arm could keep swinging the bone around before she would need to swap them.
Gradually, the pace of the bone slowed until it was no longer a blur, more the sort of swing play actors would use that was just fast enough to be impressive while doing little damage if it connected.
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Post by Alma on Mar 9, 2020 0:18:39 GMT -6
Haix managed to keep that pace as she spoke encouragingly to the houluh, the words perhaps a tad insulting but the tone was kept light nevertheless. In return the houluh slowly opened one blue eye, then the other to watch the thing still swinging overhead and doing not a whole lot else. She still had not moved from her prone position, though that was something Haix hoped to easily fix.
Haix’s other hand had been planted on the ground for better balance while she swung the bone wildly. Now that it was slower, she had no issues lifting it from the ground with a treat held between two fingers and pushing it into the space between Tin’s head and the waving bone. A few words of encouragement later saw the houluh, though still cringing and slow, move upright into a sitting position to nab the treat. Haix gave the houluh a pat for it as the slave hound ate the treat.
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Post by Alma on Mar 9, 2020 0:18:54 GMT -6
There were a few more seconds of patting beforeHaix drew out another treat. The houluh’s blue eyes flicked between the waving bone and the treat, clearly torn between cringing and obtaining the tasty treat. So Haix decided to sweeten the deal for the houluh, and began to move the treat around as if she was playing with her.
The houluh went for it pouncing after the treat and scooting after it, her frequent glances up to the bone growing less common as the treat proved to be more elusive than it had ever been before. No amount of chasing or barks seemed to slow it, and more than one she hopped at the arm only to see it passing by underneath her. No longer did she spare so much as a glance for the bone, not even when Haix forced herself to resume waving the rib around in the air even faster.
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Post by Alma on Mar 9, 2020 0:19:05 GMT -6
With that, she dropped the treat, the playful houluh hopping onto it immediately as though she expected it to move on its own. The bone was transferred between hands, that of the tired one now picking at the treats to hold a few of them. Now the bone was smacked down onto the ground, the first strike startling the houluh into a small jump. But when Haix continued to beat the earth like a drum, the houluh grew less responsive to the strikes, no matter how long Haix waited in between making them.
When she grabbed the rest of the bones and resumed beating and waving the ribs, ending up throwing two of them as hard as she could past the houluh. Tin ignored these as she had ignored the rest, even as the second throw wizzed from behind to bounce in front of her. It looked as if sudden movements were not taken as something to panic over any more for her. ((Accept Sudden Movements-End? Tin-34.0))
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Post by Alma on Mar 9, 2020 23:51:08 GMT -6
Haix wandered around the grassy plot, picking up the ribs as she found them. They might have been useless for the next batch of training, but she was not going to leave the perfectly good bones laying strewn across the park. She would always give them to Tin later and let the houluh learn on her own how to chew on bones like vulticus did. Or she could just toss them to the rakai when they returned to the kennel after the last bit of training was finished for the day and see what it did.
Tin watched Haix stroll around the grass picking up bones, then glanced down at one that lay on the trimmed grass a few feet from her. She stood up and walked over to it, giving the rib a sniff, then a lick. A quick glance at Haix showed the ssashirk was still not looking in her direction, and so, bored, the houluh began to chew on the bone.
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Post by Alma on Mar 9, 2020 23:51:23 GMT -6
It was not the great bone cracking crunches that a full grown vulticus or rakai would have made that Tin chewed on the bone with, not even knowing of the marrow hidden within, but with the same little force she could put into her nips. The rib did not break under this chewing, only becoming shiny with drool. Tin tried biting another part of it, holding the bone between her paws as she chewed. Her teeth scraped against the tough exterior as some instinct sent her searching for a weak spot in the bone, some crack that she could sink her teeth into and wedge apart.
Though the exterior of the rib was rough, her teeth failed to find anything to catch on, so she turned it over and tried the new side instead, too busy with the new toy to pay attention to Haix as the ssashirk wondered where the last bone had gotten to.
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Post by Alma on Mar 9, 2020 23:51:38 GMT -6
As Tin attempted to break open the bone, her teeth clicked against it with each bite, the noise at first ignored by Haix. The ssashirk had gone back to the sack to recount the ribs she had brought with her, once again finding that she now had an odd number of bones. She knew she had an even amount before she had begun tossing them around the plot in an attempt to unnerve the houluh. That the houluh had stopped caring was a great thing in that she could hope the houluh would not panic when she used her bow and arrows during a hunt.
That did not help her in finding the last bone though, and it was as she turned from the bag that the clicking of teeth against bone finally grabbed her attention. It seemed as if there would be no need to give the houluh a bone later to find out if Tin chewed them like the other furry things like her did.
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Post by Alma on Mar 9, 2020 23:51:50 GMT -6
Haix walked over to where the houluh was enjoying the rib, watching silently as the creature proved just how weak the houluh truly was. Perhaps it had been a mistake to train this one, connected to the soft-skin godlings or not. There were plenty of creatures just as strong, or stronger than the runt. Still, feeding the formica their most expensive meal yet did not quite appeal to her, if for no other reason than just the sheer amount this one had cost her.
Tin knew none of what her master thought, too concerned with chewing on the bone to do much more than spare Haix a wag of her tail. She had found something, some minute flaw in the rib and was working away at it as relentlessly as wind on a tree, though hopefully she would have more to show for her efforts than a few tiny chips of bone scattered like leaves.
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Post by Alma on Mar 9, 2020 23:52:12 GMT -6
Haix tried to take the rib.
To the ssashirk, it was not a motion without plenty of warning, Haix slowly crouching down to look at the houluh and the bone for half a minute before she reached out to take it. To the houluh, the first she knew of the attempt was something in her peripheral vision speeding towards her, and she had bit harder down on the bone, growling. Then she recognized the voice snapping at her and ceased, now even loosing a single growl as Haix grabbed the bone. The ssashirk then pulled, not a playful tug that would have signified this was to be a fun thing, but a violent yank that might have pulled one of the houluh’s teeth out had they found a groove or crack in the bones surface.
The bone was wiped on the grass to remove most of the drool, but it was still a little slimy as Haix stowed it away. ((Tin-35.0 Haix-198.0))
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Post by Alma on Mar 9, 2020 23:52:28 GMT -6
She had decided there would only be one last trick for the day, the houluh’s newfound endurance having outlasted her patience for the weak little cursed runt, but the plot they were on would not make it easy to train. The grass was thick and resisted being yanked upwards out of the ground, and there were no dirt patches nearby with which to start off in. The plots adjacent to her and across the path did not look much better, each a flat, perfectly green that suggested no one had trained on it recently and weakened any of the grass covering them.
Tin did not know what she did wrong, or why Haix had taken the bone from her. It didn't matter to her anyways as she followed Haix as the ssashirk paced around the plot. The ssashirk was looking into the distance, but the houluh had eyes only for the bag and the toy she knew had to be hidden within.
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Post by Alma on Mar 9, 2020 23:52:40 GMT -6
Haix moved between the nearest plots, scratching at some of the grass with her foot and confirming that the grass in this part of the park was alive and too well to easily remove. With the slave hound’s weakness, she doubted the houluh would ever scratch the top layer of the soil so long as the grass remained a barrier. A glance down at the houluh dancing and hopping near her brought a snarl to her lips, but she could not tell the thing to stay put and leave Tin behind while she looked for other plots. Some opportunistic soft-skin would come by and take it, and she would be lucky to see the houluh pop up in some trading stall. So she tolerated the antics of the small creature as she carried the sack around on her back.
One last circuit was made of the plots, then Haix began to cut across them, houluh in tow.
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Post by Alma on Mar 9, 2020 23:52:55 GMT -6
The first lot they came upon that was not just a flat expanse of green grass leaning away from the soft breeze had a soft-skin in it. This forced the pair to make their way to the main paths rather than continue cutting across the plots, the detour costing them some time due to the plot’s size.
Tin did not mind though, and she had forgotten about the treat hidden away in the bag. She was just happy now to be out with Haix, so happy that she kept running towards other plots and forcing Haix to call her back. After the third time in which the houluh had apparently been curious how fast she could get killed and she had scampered towards a plot containing a wiurn, Haix dropped the sack and called her back to tie the rope lead on her once more. Tin had only wagged at the return of the leash.
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Post by Alma on Mar 9, 2020 23:53:13 GMT -6
Tin was happy, but she was not at the same time. It was a bright day with so many things to sniff, and she was out with her master, but something felt wrong. Her master was not happy, and so she tried to bark at the things she saw to scare them off until she was to be quiet and was not allowed to bark anymore. And when she tried to sniff a patch on the ground, just for a second, the thing on her neck tightened and dragged her forwards. Tin was still happy to be out with Haix though, and hoped they would stop and play again soon.
Haix was growing tired of the cursed runt, the way it kept digging in its heels and stopping to look at every piece of trash. She just wanted to find a nice patch of dirt and finish the last command so she could chuck the houluh back into its cage.
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