Hideaway Strath here for evermore

Ceallach was restless. In reality his world had blossomed from faded blooming thought to the next, the darkness quiet and the sensations new as they spread across his body. His mother and father, his siblings, all older than he, were only vague notions. He was not aware enough to know if the others slept or were awake with him, there was little difference in the world. He stretched out, little paws briefly battering some soft plush thing, but in his world it was all soft. He let out a loud yawn, shuddering as he touched another soft and was happy. 

Mallaidh had been sleeping rather soundly. The activity in brain—dreams—never translates when she wakes, unable to put words and sounds and sight to what’s going on in her head. What she does know, however, is the feeling is far from ideal. The touches of her brother with one little paw sets her into as much of a nightmare as her tiny little mind can produce. She whimpers quietly when she’s touched again but this time she’s startled into reality. Her head bobs, her little form shaking, and on uncoordinated limbs, she tries to move closer to the sweet scent of milk. Hungry is the last thing on her mind in that moment, but the comfort envelops her, and ultimately she gets as close as she can—including bumping up a little closer to Ceallach.

His prodding had apparently found a target and he'd disturbed his poor sister. The youngest child didn't realize it, his head bobbing a bit as he looked around with still sealed eyes, trying to find something but he didn't know what - he just kept bobbing around. Once he realized that something was closer to him the little puppy stretched, giving a soft sound as he in turn nuzzled closer. It was nice, but it wasn't the same soft feeling as his mother with her thinner fur and warm skin, but this wasn't bad either. 

The very thing that caused the nightmare, even though she isn’t aware of it, is the same thing that gives her enough comfort to forget about. She feels the bob of his head once it’s close to her and her head lifts again, bobbing in a similar fashion. When he’s close enough, he nuzzles in closer and she isn’t entirely sure what to make of it. Mallaidh goes through the same process every other time she’s awake, searching her world around her and rediscovering one sibling after another. She lowers her head to the ground and finds one of his front paws. While she’s able to determine it’s not something to feed her, she still latches her gummy mouth on the paw.

Lotte is humming this kulning by Jonna Jinton, just the melody.

Lotte watched the “bookends” with fond amusement. Her firstborn and lastborn — blackbird and sparrow — were beginning to explore their world in earnest; it warmed her heart to watch brave little Mallaidh snatch sweet Ceallach’s paw up into her tiny mouth, for they tussled in a way that reminded Lotte of her relationship with her kaksonen. “Mallaidh, Ceallach,” she sang in a soft lilt, punctuating each name with a gentle lick. It was too early for the wee bears to recognize the syllables for what they were, but Lotte talked to them all the time, mixing up the language of her tundra home with the common tongue of the Teekons. It was instinctive for her to warm the babies to her voice as much as her touch and her scent. They would hear her long before they would see her — and hopefully, when they did see her, she was less fat. She had naively assumed that her sides would flatten after the birth of her children, but that was not the case.

She hummed the tule kotiin call of the tundra — a haunting melody that she would one day be forced to use when her children, long of limb and most likely willful, wandered too far from home.

Nothing really sticks with him until Mallaidh does, and it is literal - she gums his paw and he can't figure out the feeling and what it means. It is not right, of course, it is a new thing from the comfort of nursing, or sleep, or even the relief he feels from being stimulated by his mother. He wiggled a bit, moving from one small spot to the next but he did not make much progress. Still his sister grip him hard and he could not make her loosen her hold - above him, there was another range of sensations. Sounds, ones he did not hear but felt in vibrations and he turned his little head towards his mother without realizing it. He'd completely forgotten his sister's suckerfish treatment of his appendage, he was too caught up in the attention bathed upon them. 

Last post from me. :)

There is movement from the paw in her mouth and her nose wrinkles, rounded muzzle tightening her grip to keep it still while she investigates. It is short lived as she feels a low hum vibrate her body, releasing the appendage from her mouth as her head bobs back, trying to find the source. The sensation is not necessarily new but she forgets it often, remembering the comfort she feels each time. One paw shakily lifts and turns closer to the warmth of her mother and she slowly follows suit a moment later. Her facial features relax and a quiet sound comes from her muzzle, feeling the pull of sleep in the back of her mind.

He'd found there were a couple things he enjoyed habitually. Well, he hadn't found them - he was so lost in his thoughts that nothing else made sense. He was too little for it to form completely and so everything was a vague notion. It crackled in his consciousness, it vanished when he was unconscious. He learned it all over again, over and over every cycle of his sleep and wakefulness. He made a little sound as he was released, only aware that his paw was no longer a plaything. He wiggled and writhed, snuggling closer to Lotte until he had bumped against her soft stomach and suddenly his mouth gummed at her until he found a teat and began to feed yet again.

Breezing through Lotte posts. I am sorry for the lackluster quality!

New idea to give each child a song. Molly’s is “In Country Sleep” by Dylan Thomas.

Lotte watched with rapt amusement as her firstborn daughter drifted seamlessly into slumber, and the first notes of a song came to the smoke and shadow bard. It would be forever memorialized as Mallaidh’s song. She hummed a few bars, sussing out lyrics, and meandered through them on a test run.

“Sleep, good, for ever, slow and deep, spelled rare and wise,
my girl ranging the night in the rose and shire
of the hobnail tales: no gooseherd or swine will turn
into a homestall king or hamlet of fire
and prince of ice
to court the honeyed heart from your side before sunrise
in a spinney of ringed boys and ganders, spike and burn — ”

Her thoughts were pulled toward Ceallach as he latched on and began to nurse, and a fond smile crossed her lips as she bent to press them to the boy’s fragile crown. “Ceallach,” she murmured, crooning to him in a loving growl. As often as possible, she used the cubs’ names in association with tactile displays of affection. Eventually they’d come to know her voice, her touch, and their names in one fell swoop — at least, that’s what Lotte assumed. At this stage of the game, although she chattered to them in the language of the tundra as often as the common speech of the Teekons, she was careful to speak their first names clearly and slowly, with as much significance as they could muster. They could learn about their middle names later.

Though the sounds Lotte made were soothing and gentle Ceallach couldn't profess to know the difference between what was said for him and what was for his siblings - it was all one thing. Sensory skills all together, it was mostly asleep, wake, some feeling, some smells, somethings that he could assume and figure out. There was little in him that knew, yet, and Ceallach kneaded at Lotte's teat until a little trickle of milk had slipped from his maw; he'd drank his fill and then some. 

Here, have some displaced love! :D

Ceallach’s song had yet to come to Lotte, and so she sang him a common lullaby of the Enok Tundra, whisking his masked face free of milk as she curled around him protectively. “Sweet baby,” she crooned, “wee bear.” It was fortunate for Lotte’s children that her grieving process was taking place while they were still too young to see, hear, or understand her fully. A tightness grew in her throat as pressure mounted in her chest, but her eyes were dry as she wrapped all four of her children into a ring formed by the clench of her ribs and the stretch of her neck. She missed Dagfinn and he’d scarcely been gone a day. Part of her privately wished that he would get lost, give up the endeavor, and circle back to her — but she couldn’t muster any of her usual optimism. Not this time. He was the laughter, and although she could — and did — still experience joy without him breathing down her neck, searching for and feeling that joy was a work of effort. “I love you so much,” she whispered in her home-tongue, speaking to her children but talking to her twin.