Roleplay- 15th of November

Ninja sees Fly emerge and glances over at her quickly to give her a brief greeting. He can't have his eyes away from the pups for too long or they could end up slipping away under his radar. Ninja looks back at the pups and is relieved to see them playfighting and not wandering off. Out of many litters he's babysat before, this litter is perhaps the most mischievous he's been incharge of looking after.

Conker bats and kicks at his littermates whilst still rolling around in the sand.

Duke is unaware of his and Aliya's most recent litter causing havoc at the burrow, and peacfully forages near his mate.

Aliya smiles at Duke whilst eating a scorpion.

Emzio finds a skink and quickly eats it.

Tmiya isn't sure. She's bored, but she hates playfighting. She looks around and spots a tortoise is the bush. Curious, she carefully snuck away and climbed on it's hard back. Then it walked forward, and she wobbled and lost her balance, rolling off it back.

Conker becomes bored with playfighting also and glances at Ninja with a sly look. Unfortunately, he's still hawking him and his siblings so trying to slip off to go on an adventure won't be happening any time soon. Conker spots the tortoise and cocks his head. What's that? He's never seen this creature before. He follows Tamiya to investigate the tortoise.

Ninja watches the pups very closely. He allows them to investigate the tortoise but keeps a vigilant eye on his littles charges. He doesn't want them to wander off and get killed by a predator. He's determined to keep his care giving record clean and not let Duke and Aliya down.

Cactus squeaked in protest as Ninja stopped giving him a "bath". Unlike his brother, Conker, he liked "baths". It felt cool in the hot desert sun. Cactus spotted a lizard in the bushes and bounded into the brush to check it out. Unfortunatly, he strayed a little too far from the burrow. Thanks to his curiosity, a Martial Eagle circled overhead, waiting for the right time to strike. Cactus does not see this winged predator, as he is aborbed in the lizard, which was now trying despertly to crawl away, but it just isn't happening. Cactus has got it in his grasp.

Duke eats another millipede and chooses to rest, sitting next to Aliya. He's oblivious to the threat of the martial eagle at the burrow.

Ninja looks up seeing the martial eagle's shadow pass over the burrow and spots the martial eagle soaring over head. He sounds a panic striken chirp and runs around the burrow to gather up his litte charges. He ushers them into the burrow then peeks his head out of burrow to keep a close eye on the eagle. Unfortunately, he's unaware that Cactus is missing.

Conker looks up and sees the eagle. His mouth goes agape and he freezes terrified. The terrifying predator looked huge and intimadating. He's relieved when his reliable caregiver Ninja comes to the aide of him and his siblings and helps to get most of them into the burrow safely. He curls into a ball whimpering, frightened. He doesn't know that his brother Cactus is still out there, extremely vulnerable.

Cactus looks up from his prey, giving the lizard time to crawl away. When Cactus sees the threat, he tries to run off. Too late. The deadly Martial eagle swoops down and grabs the young pup in it's sharp, fierce talons. Suddenly, the violent predator loses it's grip on it's prey. Cactus lets out a squeal of fright as he plummets to the ground, helpless. The eagle tries to pick up Cactus again, but accidently slashes him dangerously close to his eye, failing to get it's prey back. Cactus finally hits the ground. Thankfully, he's still alive, but something's missing-his eye. Not to mention a noticable scar across his missing eye.

Ninja picks up the faint sound of a distant squeal. It sounded exactly like the squeal a meerkat pup would make. He gasps and head counts the pups fearing the worst. Tamiya is here...so is Conker...but then he realizes Cactus isn't present. His heart begins pounding out of his chest. Frantic, Ninja takes a risk and bounds out into the open to find the missing pup. He's unaware that the martial eagle has already used it's deadly claws on the helpless little pup.

Conker squeaks scared and is confused to where Ninja is going. He's still ablivious to his brother's disappearance.

Cactus's entire body was hurting. Wait....why is one side of my vision blocked? Why am I gasping for air? he thought. When he got his breath back, Cactus cried out in pain, confusion, and fear.

Ninja frantically runs around the burrow searching bush after bush for little Cactus but there's no sign of him on burrow grounds. He fears that he had wandered away from the burrow so he takes the risk of expanding his search for Cactus leaving the vulnerable pups to face their fear alone at the burrow and leaving them vulnerable to any oppertunistic predators that may just happen to pass by. He takes off into the vegetation, thoroughly surveying his surroundings for any signs of Cactus. If something bad had happened to him Ninja will be held responsible and Duke and Aliya may lose trust in his caregiving abilities. Suddenly, Ninja hears the cries of a pup and hurries off in the direction where it came from. It's mostly likely Cactus and from the sounds of his cries, it sounds like he could be hurt.

Duke grooms Aliya. Little does he know, they will come home to a surprise far from good.

Cactus keeps on crying, hoping to get help. Sadly, his cries were getting weaker as time ticked by.

Ninja can hear the cries getting louder and when he jumps into the open from a small patch of grass, he's greeted by a horrofying sight. It's Cactus but he's badly injured! Ninja rushes to Cactus' side and pulls him over to him to give hime some needed TLC. Ninja wrenches his eyes tighly, guilt stinging his body. How could he have let this happen!? He should've been paying better attention to the pups. Even though he was doing his best to watch over them, it seems like it wasn't enough to keep them ALL safe.

Duke grooms Aliya some more and sits next to her.

Ninja looks around nervously. The martial eagle could still be in the area so he doesn't waste any time in gently picking Cactus up by the scruff and trotting in the direction back to the burrow. He's on high alert as the martial eagle could launch another assault at anytime. He's also spent too much time in his opinion away from the burrow and must hurry back to protect the pups before a predator siezes the chance to wipe out the litter.

Conker cries out for Ninja, confused and scared. He has no idea what's happened to his trusted caregiver and is still unaware of Cactus' plight.

Aliya is unaware of what just happened to Cactus and is grooming Duke back.

Suri grooms herself and decides to start foraging.

Emzio looks around with interest.

Fly smiles and peeps at Tamiya, who she sees as an adoptive mother now, since hers is dead.

Ninja safely arrives back at the burrow with Cactus gently clenched in his mouth. He places the frightened pup down and wraps his body around him to try to calm and comfort him. He looks at the burrow entrance and sees some of the pups looking out appearing to be confused and frightened but are thankfully safe.

Conker squeals with relief to see Ninja return. He bounds out of the burrow and nuzzles against his side. Then he sees Cactus and gasps in horrofied shock when he sees that one of his eyes is missing. He looks away cringing. It was too much for him to see at his age.

Cactus nuzzled deep into Ninja's fur, hiding his missing eye and shaking uncontrollably.

ooc: I think im going to make Cactus a little like Yossarian. That's why i added the scar and Cactus has a missing eye because i still want him to be a little different than Yossarian.

Ninja begins grooming Cactus hoping it'll help to calm him. He gets a glimpse of his injury and winces his eyes wrinkles nose and grunts squeemishly. Seeing such a horrofying injury especially on a pup effects him greatly.

Conker whimpers and also tries to comfort his littermate brother.

ooc: Ok.

ooc: Tamiya is part of Aliya's new litter. xD But i like the idea of them being adoptive sisters!

Ninja gently grooms around the injury to Cactus' eye to soothe the pain and stop the bleeding.

Conker peeps worried. He fears Cactus could die even though the unjury isn't life threatening unless it becomes infected.