couldn't stay out here forever. Kalgorn would get impatient, like he often did, and come out here to question her. So, turning around she filed inside and sat down opposite Kalgorn.
"Mom-" Kalgorn started, but he was cut off by her before he could ask what he'd intended to. Instead, he just had to listen. He got the vibe from the way she looked at him, that he had to wait until she was done explaining to ask questions.

"Look, Kalgorn. . . your father. . . well, he isn't coming home." Gosh, one sentence and her eyes were already beginning to grow moist. The confused look Kalgorn gave her grew fuzzy as tears welled up in her eyes.
"Why? Where is he?" Kalgorn blurted out before he could stop himself. He could sense that something was wrong, but he couldn't figure out what. One minute she had been headed toward his dad, and the next, she was turning away and going back. What could she have seen that she didn't want him to? While he waited for her to continue, he bit his tongue to keep himself from asking anything else. At least for right now.

Mist sighed, trying to decide how to explain this to Kalgorn. "In this world, there's alot of good things to life. But there's also some bad things. You see, every thing that lives eventually dies. Their spirit leaves their bodies behind and the move to a much better place. Your father wont be coming home, because his spirit has left and gone to this better place." She wasn't sure if Kalgorn would understand this much, but it was the best she could do to explain this to him.

Kalgorn did his best to understand what he was hearing. Not all of it was clear, but one thing stuck out to him more than anything. Your father wont be coming home. . . "Does this mean dad's not going to train me to fight?" he asked, looking up at his mother.
Mist was having a hard time not breaking down in tears right about now. She shook her head at Kalgorn and pulled him close to her. "No, he's not Kalgorn."

Kalgorn didn't know exactly what this 'die' meant, but from the connections he was able to make, he understood it meant that he wasn't going to see his dad anymore. He bowed his head, feeling his mother pull him closer to her . "Will I die too?" the thought had just come to him, but even so, he asked it without thinking.
She couldn't answer that question. That was one thing she didn't have the heart to say. It had been hard enough explaining Hiro was dead to Kalgorn. Instead of answering his question, she layed down next to Kalgorn and licked his muzzle.

 *  *  *

After three months after Kalgorn was born, Mist had already taught him most of what she could. He was surprisingly quick at learning. After teaching him more on scenting, he was able to track down things extremely fast for someone only three months of age. Because he was doing so well, Mist decided to test him, if he passed it then she agreed to move on to the next step. What she did was nothing too elaborate. She just caught a hare and dragged it's body across the ground, winding around, cutting across the path in a different directions, and several other tricks that she didn't think a hare would be capable of before she finally tucked it beneath a bush.

What Kalgorn had to do was follow the path until he finally located the hare. If he didn't manage to find it, the training in hunting would be post-poned to next week. Now, Kalgorn being the impatient wolf he was, wasn't willing to wait another week to learn how to hunt. So he had a bit of motivation to find that hare. There was no surprise at all when he found it only a few minutes later. So, after a quick lunch, in which Kalgorn ate the hare, Mist gave him his first lesson in hunting.
We already know that Kalgorn learned how to track scents extremely fast, so it shouldn't come as any surprise when he excelled in hunting too. In that first lesson, Mist took him out to a field and told him to track the scent of an animal. Simple and easy. He did so without question and picked up a scent. She then told him the technique of disabling the prey by going for the throat. After a brief explination of this, she told him to track the animal down, and kill it.

The first part, tracking it down, was easy. The second part. . . not so easy. He had located the scent of a small mammal called a beaver. As soon as he found it, the creature ran from him. Obviously it knew he was approaching. What did he do wrong? He turned to his mother for an answer. "You got to approach it from a direction so that the wind doesn't blow your scent toward your pray. Also, you might not like this, but you've got to be patient. Sometimes hunting is about timing and choosing the right moment to strike."

After tracking down another animal, this time another beaver only this one looked a little bigger, he made a mental not not to make any noise at all. Treading lightly, practically crawling with his stomach to the ground, Kalgorn approached the furry creature. He'd already made sure he was downwind of his prey so there wasn't any chance of it smelling him out. The only problem he faced now, was when to strike. He didn't know what he should be waiting for but he watched the beaver move around still.

After a minute of so of seeing nothing, Kalgorn decided to just wing it. He jumped up and ran towards the beaver. Immediatly, the furry animal scampered away and into hiding, At that same time, Mist stepped out of her hiding spot and shook her head. "Kalgorn, you've got to be more patient if you want to ever catch something in your life."

So, the first few lessons didn't go so well. But eventually Kalgorn started to catch on. Whenever he got impatient, he tended to make mistakes. The only way for him to get over this, was to keep his attention focused entirely on the movement of his prey. After about a week, he finally caught something. It wasn't a beaver, but it was a hare he'd gotten all on his own.

After a couple more weeks of practicing this, Kalgorn had it down. He was getting stronger too. He'd taken down things that were nearly twice his size. But, as a wolf, you know he's carnivorous. However, wolves will eat grass to purge their digestive systems when they have eaten something that does not agree with them. They will also eat wild berries and other fruit as a minor part of their diet.

Something Kalgorn had eaten just didn't go down right or something, but he began to experience 'belly aches' and after eating a bit of the grass surrounding him, it did help. He was completely over it by the end of that week. It was also at this time, that he started to learn about plants. His mother told him everything she knew about the subject, but Kalgorn didn't pay attention. He just looked at her, not really seeing her, but still making it seem like he was. The results of his spacing out became apparent as soon as his mother asked him a question about what could a certain plant help cure. "Uh. . . upset stomach?"

He never cared to know about plants. He didn't intend to eat them much in the future. The only time he'd do that again would be if his stomach started hurting again or he was about to die and eating them could save his life. He was grateful that she didn't know much about them either so there wasn't much about them that she could teach him. Not that he was even paying attention.

At three and a half months of age, Kalgorn had grown quite a bit since he'd last seen his father. He stood several inches taller and he weighed several more pounds. He'd reached the Juvenile Period in his development. At this time, he was growing at a much quicker rate, gaining about a pound and a half each week. He'd continue to grow at this rate for the next three months. By that time, he'll be nearly just as tall, if not taller, than his mother.

 *  *  *

The next three months came, and then went so fast it seemed like he was going to sleep one night, only being a few months old, and when he woke up, he was already half a year old. Being a male wolf, he had grown to the same size as his mother now. Yet, he still hadn't changed that much. His tracking and hunting skills had only grown more honed over the time. He no longer fed entirely off small mammals he managed to catch or his mother caught. They both tracked down a descent sized prey, usually elk and occasionally caribou, and took it down. Kalgorn would sink his fangs into the struggling animals throat, then its body would become motionless.

There was just one thing odd about Kalgorn. He was perfectly normal and strong, but the only other wolf he'd ever known, was his mother. For a brief month, he'd known his dad, but after that incident, it was just him and Mist. It was nice because it gave Mist more time to train Kalgorn. She knew he had everything she could teach him down, but he still had trouble with one small issue of his he had trouble getting over. His impatience was his downfall almost everytime he tried to go after prey. He got it right every now and then, but he'd get too confident and slip up. Going after the animal too soon or attacking it even after it started to run from him.

"Kalgorn, when are you going to learn that you have to be patient?" Mist sighed, sitting down near a frustrated Kalgorn. He didn't reply to her question. He just dragged a claw across the ground, growling. He'd just messed up again for the third time in a row. There was nothing wrong with his technique in taking out the prey or taking it down, he just had a problem in the area of waiting for the right time to go for it. "I'll try and explain something to you" Mist started, turning to her son. "This kind of thing, it can't really be taught. All I can tell you, is that this is instinct. You have to wait until you feel something inside you to tell you when it's the right time."

These words brought a sigh out of Kalgorn. He shook his head. Letting himself fall down onto his haunches. Mist noticed this and decided on something. "Come on, we'll try one more time then I