Ravensblood Forest you've cat to be kitten me right meow

For Mom! Dad and sibs are welcome, but please note that anyone who joins other than @Olive consents to being skipped for the sake of time. Just for this thread :) And we will give you a day or two before we skip you.

Sirius wasn't a great sleeper. He'd nap fitfully for a few minutes, but never for more than an hour or two before he was up and squalling, or squabbling, or scrabbling once more. There was just so much to experience! He already knew how warm his siblings were, and how tastey mom's milk was, and how awful bathtime could be. He wanted to explore!

And he was exploring right toward the mouth of the den on this day, wiggling as fast as his little spaghetti legs could wiggle him. There was something Big and Bright up ahead, and Sirius wanted to find out what it was!

Already, he was becoming quite the scientist. Anything the tiny little boy could reach was soon being examined by his tiny little mouth. What does it taste like? Does it wiggle around? Can I eat it? Does it hurt? These were the questions that young Siri was answering, intent on figuring out this Big Giant World for himself.

spaghetti legs ;___; so amazing
going to assume dad is away on this trip 

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Motherhood suited Olive.

However, the past few days had been full of anxiety — for Olive was facing many new realities, including experience an all new sort of devotion and unending need to protect of her family [from those who wished to harm them], as well as learning to be a mother in general. It was all new, all the time — and quite a bit overwhelming. When the veil and euphoria of birth faded, Olive had been left with nothing but questions. Questions that she would have loved to ask her mother; ask anyone, really — ever since her and Dakarais demotion [albeit justified, she had come to realize], the family treated her differently and she didn’t converse with many others. There was tension so thick you could cut it with a knife; and now Dakarai was off scouting with Arturo and Chusi, which made her uncomfortable but also made her feel incredibly vulnerable. She was still weak and recovering [and though there were now plenty of strong, dedicated members to patrol their forest], she felt unnervingly exposed. Perhaps she felt this way because the stakes we much, much higher now — and Olive’s responsibilities were much, much more. There was so much more to lose.

But all of these were uncertainties were nothing in the face of such filial love. Olive wasn't entirely sure her babies level of consciousness yet, as they were all something like little potatoes [if little potatoes had legs and moved about constantly. She marveled at them in their first few flickers of life and was enamored when their sparky personalities surfaced so soon. All of the three were so different; Sirius with his daring personality, Aries with his silly antics and lovely Cassiopeia’s tenacity. Olive would often lay with her head against the earth, eye level with her babes, and attempt to figure out their fledgling thoughts. Did they know who she was? Did they know where they were, what was right from wrong, and how to tell evil from love? It was a beautiful, heady miasma of bliss and fulfillment and dedication... and Olive now knew that she would have gone through any trial in the world to feel such bliss and to feel her babes suckle at her breast and hear their little noses snore away, tangled amongst her limbs.

“Come here, little one” Olive murmured in her rosy-colored voice. The new mother reached a pale, twiggy limb forward and hooked her paw around her little boy [making an unceremonious break for the entrance of their cave], pulling his small, downy body back to her own. She cradled Sirius’s small body into her arms, small tongue darting out to plant a garden of kisses upon his chest. More often than not, Olive could be found kissing and licking and drinking in the scent of her babies — and she wondered if she would ever be able to stop kissing them… or if she would ever want to.

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All too soon, the boy's adventure was ended by the overly-attentive Olive. A squawk of surprise was forced out of him as his mother hooked him with a paw and pulled in back into her suffocating embrace. As soon as his breath returned to him, Siri filled the den with more cries of indignation, berating his mother for her insolence.

You are the enemy of fun! he thought, though not in so many words.

Even when her tickly kisses grew pleasant, he still fought against her, unwilling to let the woman have the final word. He pushed back against her muzzle with all the puppyish strength his little forelimbs could muster, and when that did not work, he opened wide his tiny maw and attempted to consume the woman's nose.

This, of course, soon turned to an attempt to feed. The texture of his mother's nose was not quite the same as her teats, but beggers could not be choosers!

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Oh, her son was so defiant! A laugh tinkled from Olive’s lips as the small boy pushed against her lips with his little paws. They were so small and as sweet as candy and each of his four feet fit so nicely upon her narrow maw. Her laughter tickled his chest but still her rosy tongue wouldn’t stop kissing and licking him — only the recipient of such torture changed! The mother’s tongue wrapped around each of his , counting his toes with her tastebuds. How was it that he tasted so good?! Olive had not developed a spontaneous craving for meat [which thankfully subsided after she birthed her babies], but her children tasted so good in same way that babies smelled good — it was a scent perfectly attuned for her and her biological makeup; the most divine of perfumes. This babe that sat cradled against her willowy forearms was hers, hers, hers.

and she would never not be amazed with that fact!

Olive returned from her reverie to a shocking nip on the nose — Sirius’s milkteeth were small and only days old, but her nose was sensitive and the mother had to physically restrain herself from wresting her muzzle away from her child! As immediately as the pain had been brought did it disappear, for everything melted when she could feel Sirius’s jellybean tongue against her nose as if attempting to suckle. “No, no, my stardust” she cooed at the child that fastest upon her nose. Holding his downy grey body between her milky paws, she slowly freed herself from her son’s onslaught with nothing more than several microscopic scrapes to show for it.  “Are you hungry?” she questioned, certain he was just wishing to play despite his insurmountable rooting reflex. Olive was new to motherhood and sometimes felt as if she had not fully grasped it — were they hungry? Were they cold? Did she need to bathe them? Were the eating enough to grow big and strong? “Here,” she offered, nudging him to her breast. Better safe than sorry.

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Though Sirius had been appreciating the cool, slimy texture of his mother's nose, he was just as happy to receive a nipple instead. He hadn't been hungry, but he began to suckle with a ferocity that his mother was surely familiar with, by then. Hungry or not, Sirius took his nutrition very seriously. He rarely wasted an opportunity to drink deeply from his mother's teats.

He was especially pleased to be alone, with no siblings to push aside. He loved them dearly, of course, and they were great fun when he wasn't eating - but Sirius disliked fighting for his meals.

a small bit of pp, happy to change it if you’d like <3

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Her firstborn latched easily, just as he was made to do. The pulling and the suckling and grasping of her sore teats within his gummy mouth was not the most pleasant of sensations, but Olive would never know it to be such. A rumble of beatitude formed deep in her chest and she watched him — a peaceful suckling like which she had not seen before. The absence of his siblings allowed him pacifism in the act, and the noises that came from his sweet nose and obstructed mouth were sounds of ease and pleasure. Olive laid her head upon scanty paws and watching her son feed with a wonderous, sidelong glance.

In the future, when distance prevented mother from congressing with her ebon offspring, she would grieve moments like this. 

He was a newborn babe and as such, Sirius remained blind to the world. As he finished feeding and his belly protruded with her sweet mother’s milks, Olive pulled him and forth and picked him up gently in her mouth. The awning of their grotto-like den was open to the outside world and it was clear that Sirius inherited his mother’s insatiable curiosity about what lay just outside his comfort zone. This was a quality she would happily nurture, even if it meant breaking the rules of motherhood a bit [sure, not every mother took their newborns out the den... but Olive was not like most mothers]. Olive took several steps forward, covering a distance that might as well be miles to her picayune boy, and set him down underneath the stone awning. He may want to nap after drinking his fill, but there would be time for sleep later! The druid gave his face a kiss, hoping to ease the adjustment of his blind little eyes to the sunlight. “Go,” she urged him softly, giving him a telltale nudge onward. The mother wanted him to explore [explore the few inches of ground his nascent little legs would take him], to understand the world and never know fear; and she would start teaching them this from early on.

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The day only got better and better. While he suckled, Sirius also slept - it was a skill that almost all puppies possessed, though they and their mothers scarcely discovered the fact, since sleeping puppies looked very much like simply resting puppies, and the resemblence did not end until later on, when the skill was as lost to the pup as blindness and milk teeth.

Milk-naps were always fine affairs, but then, something amazing happened. While he'd been drowsing in and out of sleep, his mother had picked him up and carried him into the Great Beyond - the place he'd been aching to discover since he'd realized his legs were meant to take him places. But he needn't have worried about strengthening his legs, because his mother was strong enough to carry him - to pluck him off the ground and place him into a land brighter and more beautiful than Sirius had ever seen.

There was light everywhere - and shadows. A shadow that stood tall and willowy before him, a black wraith against the red of the world.

She was beautiful.

Sirius curled up and began to snore.

I love this lil dude. Good to end here or continue, you choose!

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Sirius was a small babe still and Olive did not need a big reaction from the boy to know that she rocked his small, innocent world. The mother wished she had retained memories of the first time she became aware of the outside world; unable to see it, but able to feel it from the sun on her back to the feeling of turf underfoot. Olive watched with captivation as he came to the same realization, was feeling it within ever fiber of his little being. The mother stood above him and looked down lovingly at the dove grey cub and let chime a bright laugh when the most her son could muster was another map.

Perhaps the greatness of the world was too much for his nascent mind, but it wouldn’t be for long. Oh, how excited Olive was to rear her children amongst such beautiful idolatry. The druid would teach them about the plants and the life contained by both flora and fauna, of the movements of the stars and how to scry the universe’s will from their endless alignments. They would eventually know it all, but such a breadth of knowledge would come with him. For now, Olive curled her greyscale body around Sirius and tucked him underneath the crook of her elbow, close into her narrowset breast. She felt their heartbeat as one, settled her head upon the sunwarmed slate and promptly fell asleep.

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