Wingu:
Today was not his lucky day; he'd been bested by a bird. Dumb bird. Stupid creature.... thing, with feathers. What was wrong with the universe? Didn't it know it was supossed to let him win? At everything? Always? And if posible, let him win with GRACE? Geez.

The universe seemed to have other plans for the lithe ela boy, for when he'd pounced the bird, the creature had taken flight ("HEY THAT'S CHEATING!!!", and Wingu had landed in a pile of mud. He padded back home, sulking profoundly.

Nekoda:
Nekoda, or as he liked to be called- Kody -was gnawing at a shriveled root that refused to leave the small hole he'd dug it out of. Of course, he had to choose a tree's root. The stubborn knotted thing proved to keep his attention, however, giving him something to pull, claw, and gnaw at while his other siblings entertained themselves or slept.

He glanced up from his 'game' at the now very muddy Wingu and grinned around the stick in his mouth. He was an expressive cub, and rarely had to say anything right off. His amused expression and narrowed eyes got the point accross well enough.

Wingu:
"What are YOU lookin' at?!" came the snapped reply from the white boy as he paused to glare at his sibling, a deep, deep scowl written all over his features, "Tree boy..." the last words were muttered under his breath as Wingu dropped himself to the ground and settled into a rather magnificent sulk. After two minutes had gone by, his pride seemed to point out that sulking while he was still muddied, would just NOT do (What if Palia came and SAW him?!), so he settled for grooming and sulking. At the same time. It took skill.

Nekoda:
Kody watched his brother until the cub plopped down. Only then did he release the branch and watch it spring back into place. He brought a paw up to wipe at the bit of slobber that had collected in the corners of his mouth before padding over towards his brother.

"Well did you get in a fight with the mud and loose or are you just trying to make your pelt look as nice as mine?"

Wingu:
"It was a dumb bird, alright?!" he snapped defensively, glaring at his much darker brother, then turned around to look away, "Bloody, stupid thing... flying away's cheating," the words were grumped as he continued to groom himself; he'd wanted to snatch some feathers off from it. Was that too much to ask? Some stupid feathers? The bird had millions of them! It could've spared a few!

Tell truth, he'd wanted to gift the feathers to Palia, make a necklace for her somehow or other, but that didn't mean he had to tell his brother THAT, "Ye got a lil drool," he snort, "Right 'ere," he pointed at his own chin, then rolled his eyes, obviously trying to announce the fact he was irritated to the world on the whole. Fact was, the world had already noticed said fact and was, amusingly enough, having a blast snickering in the background.

Nekoda:
Kody crossed his eyes and rolled his tounge around until he'd cleaned up his maw. "You need to loosen up. You can't catch anything but a cold if you're always dragging your bum around like you do." He glanced back up to the tree. "If you learn how to climb, I bet you can catch birds."

He walked himself up to the bark of the tree and treated himself to a good scratch and stretch. "And I don't think a bird threw mud at you."

Wingu:
"HEY!" he stiffened and stood up, bristling, looking rather ofended, "I do SO not drag my bum around!" he stopped and glowered, "This from the cub that was CHEWING on tree roots!" still bristling, he shook himself off, as if he could rid the offended feeling with such a subtle move, "And I wasn't trying to CATCH it, fer yer information!" a pause, a sulk and grumble, "I just wanted some feathers... I wanted to make a stupid necklace thing..."

His intentions as to what he wished to do with the necklace were obscure, but anyone that knew him, or otherwise lived with him, could have guessed rather easily, "D'uh!" he snorted, "I FELL in the mud, you dumb.... o," he obviously corrected himself from cursing, growning, not wanting to attract his parents' glares.

Nekoda:
Kody chuckled and gave the tree's trunk a long rake of his claws. It felt great on them, and he'd seen the adults doing it from time to time. "Hey, chewing on the roots makes my teeth stronger. I had a piece of dinner stuck waaaay back in there." He pulled his mouth back and pointed in. "SHEEE ACK DERE!"

Wingu:
What'samacallit?" he looked honestly confussed by his brother's last few words, the scowl melting into a frown as he turned inwardly, trying to figure our the words in his head. Failing, he returned to glaring, for it seemed to him like it was more manly than frowning in confussion, "Dude, you can't talk with a freakin' paw in yer mouth. Vocalise," said the cub with a tendency to talking in a weird accent.

A snort followed the words, "Bones are bloody healthier AND they don't taint yer teeth GREEN. Yeh look like a waterbuck," he rolled his eyes and groomed his paw; the white refused to show through and he sulked. His mother would have to bathe him, "I don't WAAAAAANNAAAAAA!" he whinned to no one in particular

Nekoda:
Koda ran his tounge over his teeth and looked up thoughtfully. Bones huh? He'd have to try that. Besides, tugging and clawing at the root had been fun, it had given him soemthing to do.

The whine from his brother got his attention again. At first he just starred, then a slow grin started to creep onto his maw followed by a roaring laughter. What a big baby!

Wingu:
At the laughter, he scowled at his brother, gritted his teeth, dug his paw into a mud puddle near by and lung a large amount of wet, soggy earth in his general direction, "Shut the hell up!" he snapped, "Yer barking like a stupid hyena's gonna attract Palia over!!" and he swore, if she saw him like this, he was murdering Kody in his sleep. Honest to god. He was. He knew where he slept, he added mentaly as a threat; the threat in question would've had more force behind it had he been a stranger, and were not two freaking inches tall. Well, okay, he was taller. but he was two inches tall compared to 'father' whom would not be pleased if he tried to murder Kody in his sleep.

Grumping, he haunched himself over and wished the earth would eat him right on up.

Nekoda:
Kody laughed as the mudball made a 'splurt' sound right inbetween his eyes. He reached up to wipe it off, which resulted in a muddy smear along his face. Not that he really seemed to mind it. His fur was already kind of a muddy brown color, the most it did was make it damp.

"Well calm down." He walked himself over and offered his brother a lick on the top of his head. "I'll help you get some feathers. Can't be all that hard. Birds put them in their nests sometimes. All you gotta do is get to them."

Wingu:
Again the cub grumbled, then very slowly, VERY softly, he murmured, "Can't bloody climb," under his breath, almost as if the admission that he couldn't, in fact, do something, were catastrophic. It was, indeed. At least for Wingu, whom prided himself in doing everything right (or at least tried to). A twitch of his lips hinted a small smile as Koda licked the top of his head, but as was required, he shifted to place a paw against the brown male's chest, pushing against him slightly, "Dude, stop that! It's gonna be all soggy now!" soggier than it was, he meant; some of the mud had dired off, but all in all, poor Wingu looked like he needed a bath.

He sulked again, "I don't wanna bath... stupid bird. Stupid Palia. Stupid tears, why do I care. Doesn't matter," grumping incoherently, he lowered his paw, "And by the way, birds should SNOT be allowed to fly. It's ********' unfair."

Nekoda:
"Then I guess we shouldn't be allowed to have claws." He rolled his eyes. "Come on... use what you got you know? They can fly but we can jump and prowl. I've seen some spotty cat things jump up real high and smack birds out of the air! I dunno what they're called but I bet we can do that."

He shoved at Wingu then walked himself back to the tree, "I've seen the adults climb. Shouldn't be too hard. I'll go first and if I make it up, you follow. Easy."

Wingu:
"Birds have claws!" he scowled, obviously thinking himself in the right. Arching a brow, he looked at his brother rather duviously, as if he not quite trusted his words, then wrinkled his nose, "We're lions though; momma said we can't climb well, and we should be careful of not getting stuck up there," he frowned, but closed the distance with the tree, "THat we should only do it on extreme circumstances," a pause, "I dun think making a feathered necklace for Palia counts as an extreme circumstance - I think she was referin' to an attack, hyenas, or .... god knows what."

Nekoda:
"Well how are we gonna know how to climb in an extreme case if we don't practice in not-so-extreme cases?" He countered with a cocky smirk, "Birds don't fly on their first jump, we don't climb on our first go."

He pushed himself back, haunches lifted in the air. "Okay...here it goes."

With that he lept out and caugh the tree with all four of his limbs, each of them spread as far apart from the other as possible. "....well...I'm on the tree..." he looked around, "Yup. On the tree...be the tree..."

Wingu:
He frowned; Koda's words made sense, but somewhere in the back of his mind, Wingu whuined; what if they got stuck up there? What if they couldn't come down?

Now scowling again, grumping under his breath, he moved to place his paws against the bark, "If we get stuck up there and we need to get pulled down; it was your bloody idea. And you're an idiot," it felt nice to say that and the white (now brown) male, let out a sigh as he sunk his claws into the bark, dragging them down experiementaly, then he turned his attention to his brother.

A twisted, half smirk, half... something, spread across his face, and he couldn't help but snort, "BE the tree? Where'd you get that crap from?" despite this, he mimiced his brother and pounced, hugging the tree, "I'm hugging a tree," oh good lord, no one better come to SEE them doing this moronic stunt.