Hideaway Strath the teeth of the eye of a storm

Most of the time, Mallaidh sleeps. It’s easy. It’s literally the easiest thing she has to do. When she wakes up, she has to find her way to a teat she can’t see. Sometimes she gets help, sometimes she doesn’t. And then! She has to suckle and put effort into that and sometimes she stops eating because it’s way too much work. Eventually, her stomach will go on strike and she quickly takes back to the teat until she’s swollen because, let’s face it, bitches gotta eat. Then she wails until Lotte works her tongue and relieves her of her discomfort—something she has yet to control—and she snuggles back into the warmth-machine.
 
Sometimes, like now, she’s pointed toward a sibling and the faint movement of Roarke suckling keeps her from falling into sleep. She moves, awkwardly and slowly, until she bumps into something soft—much softer than her mother but not entirely unfamiliar—that she doesn’t quite know what to do with. Her mouth opens and she surges forward, taking the first bit of flesh she can latch onto and takes him by the flap of the boy’s closed ear into her mouth.