Hideaway Strath oh there's a great big beautiful tomorrow
dressed like a deer kills like a lion
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All Welcome 

The youngest of the five Fearghal children had so far in his days of life done little more than squirm and sleep. Occasionally he whimpered and whined, but rarely did he call out as he bobbed his head to and fro and worked his paths out. He was starting to become aware of some things - the bigs and the smalls. His siblings, his companions, were smalls and his elder sister and parents were bigs. They felt different, the bigs were vibrant in other ways - they moved more, he found, and they vibrated. Of course he couldn't hear them properly yet but it was as best as he'd come to understand with the limited brain power of a fuzzy slug that he had. 

It was on a warm spring day that the little fuzzy slug wiggled to close to his father, pressing against Arturo rougher than normal. It was enough to pop the seal of his eyes, bringing a squeal from him as a new sensation entered the game. His vision was hazy and blurry at best, but he was amazed; who else knew about such wonders?! With a few more bleats he bobbed his head about again - trying to find another small, trying to work out what this all was. There was fear in his cries and a need for reassurance, the child had no clue that everyone had to face the same challenges eventually.
he's raised on the edge of the devil's backbone
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Ceallach presses against him much more rough than he ever had before. It startles the gangster who peers down at his mini-me with mild concern in the fiery depths of his twin sun gaze and a furrow to his brow. A high pitched squeal erupts from his last born son and Ceannsach shifts his weight, mindful of his other young children whom seem to be progressing the way they should despite their early delivery into the world. They are more active than they have been previously, wiggling blindly about the birthing den. “Ceallach,” The gangster coos in a smoky rumble to his youngest, drawing his tongue across the boy’s back in a familiar gesture of offered comfort only to realize as he pulls back that his eyes have opened and deduces that is likely the cause of the young child’s distress. Milky blue eyes stare though Arturo knows his sight is not yet what it would become. Arturo does not remember anything of his own time spent as young as his son (for that was many year ago) but he cannot exactly be called a stranger at puppy development.

@Lotte,” Arturo croons to his gangster queen, as he watches Ceallach wiggle away and towards his siblings. His gaze touches them all and snickers quietly as he takes in the pudgy cream puff whom is sprawled out lazily, his back foot twitching in his deep seeded slumber. “Ceallach’s eyes have opened.” He takes on a softer tone in the confines of the birthing den, not wanting to overwhelm his children with too much noise, but his words are pitched alacrity at the development of their youngest in the hopes that his love will share in the excitement of it with him.
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wreathed in iron and in fire
i bare my bloody teeth
and only pity makes my strike so clean
we don't need another ruler
all my friends are kings
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Cameo post. Tag me if needed!

Mallaidh’s ears wiggle and her paws rock back and forth, kneading the tender flesh of her mother’s breast. She’d become fussier with each passing day but the pain in her mouth as tiny teeth pierce through—something @Lotte has been sure to notice—is more than she bargains for. Suckling warm milk into her belly is enough to often to settle some of the feeling in her mouth only by pressing the beginnings of teeth into her mother’s soft skin. She’s disrupted after a moment of quiet eating as her brother makes a wailing for her to separate from her teat. The girl groans as she tries to sway and bob back to return to her usual routine. Her eyes have not been granted the freedom, except for the slight separation of her lids in the corner of her right eye; something that may take a few more days before they are ready to open.
i'd give anything to hear you say it one more time
that the universe was made just to be seen by my eyes
hämähäkki, muodonmuuttaja, satakieli
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Breezing through Lotte posts. I am sorry for the lackluster quality and for bad mood Lotte!

Lotte had spent another exhausting night alternately rejoicing Eirlys’ continued survival and mourning her inability to thrive. The flicker of irritation she felt toward the tiny pancake of a cub from time to time was unbidden and involuntary; it filled Lotte with guilt to admit that she truly believed, in her darkest moments, that the weak little girl would be better off dead. It wasn’t that she wanted Roarke’s twin to die — but, honestly? There were days the colorpoint bitch thought it’d be better for the snowdrop to just pick a side: live or die. This terrible in between stage was emotionally and mentally draining.

Startled out of her dark mood, Rakas,” Lotte answered softly, resuming her current task — bathing the tiny snowbear who was at the root of her turmoil. Eirlys didn’t protest during bath time the way her twin did, but she didn’t seem to enjoy it, either. She just…existed. Frowning, the young mother redoubled her efforts in an attempt to get a reaction out of the girl, stopping only when Eirlys squeaked faintly in protest. With her nose, Lotte guided the small blossom toward a teat, unsurprised but frustrated all the same when she nursed fitfully and weakly. Lotte had noticed the teeth, but the pricks of discomfort from Mallaidh’s eager nursing were balm to her weary soul. It took a few more prodding licks and nudges, but eventually Eirlys latched as she was meant to, and Lotte huffed out a cleansing breath.

The frustration engendered by Eirlys’ predicament bled over into Lotte’s feelings about Ceallach’s eyes opening; she was absurdly jealous that Arturo had been the first to see it when she had been the one to push the boy into the world. Her black-masked visage was guarded and taut when she looked up at the Fearghal patriarch — and as always, the sight of him, especially when he began to snicker quietly at their pudgy son, melted her insides to butter and stole away her every reservation. “Ceallach,” she crooned softly to the boy, humming a few notes of the tule kotiin call to drum it into the children’s developing brains, using the repetition to soothe the troubled boy. She leaned forward to add a caress of her own to the tiny child’s spine.

“Mallaidh is the fiercest and Roarke is the laziest,” she said fondly, though she’d never name these superlatives when the cubs were old enough to understand them, “but surely Ceallach is the handsomest. He looks like you.” Conspicuously, she didn’t mention Eirlys — but it wasn’t intentional.
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Eirlys, similarly jostled by her littermate, responded with unusual vehemence: she squealed displeasure at the soft pop! of her tiny mouth being bumped away from the teat and decided to vent her frustration by attempting to latch onto her brother’s nearest appendage. Her sweet, milky muzzle swung wildly to and fro as she blindly sought him, gaping wide in preparation to gum to death whatever she came into contact with first, and her tiny turtle flippers eagerly paddled at the ground. Little grunts and squeaks poured from her in a litany of good-natured abuse. She wasn’t fattening the way her siblings were, and she tired more easily, but Eirlys was the daughter of a Fearghal gangster and an Ansbjørn soturi — she wasn’t giving up anytime soon.
dressed like a deer kills like a lion
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His mother and father both fawned over him for a moment and their combined efforts were enough to quiet him down. Every once in awhile he still whined, forgetting that he'd already discovered vision and the world was so bright - so much! In the coming months as the children grew it would be this sort of attention to detail (blatant, here, but let's give the kid credit for trying) that would fuel Ceallach and his desires to learn. The mini-me peered up at his father before his mother's crooning hum drew his attention; her vibration pattern was different than Arturos - his father shook the earth it seemed! 

His star-bright sisters moved and responded, the darker figure the same inky color of the night sky and the lighter the stars that adorned it. When Eirlys struggled against him, he pressed his head against hers. It wasn't a move made of anything but instinct, something deep rooted in him to try and tend to her. 
he's raised on the edge of the devil's backbone
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Arturo notices the dark look he is given by his wife despite that it melts away as quick as it crosses her visage. She does not elaborate upon it and he does not bring it up. Though he cannot necessarily sympathize with her on the aspect of being a new mother he remembers Duana and though the two could not be more different in temperament and personality he keeps his first experience with a new mother in mind to inculcate patience. Even the gangster himself must re-learn how to be a father to newborns. It isn’t necessarily something one simply forgets but it has been over a year since he has sired newborns last and the more recent memory of raising Chusi cannot be used as lessons for she’d been at least three months old (if he had to guess) when he’d taken her beneath his proverbial wing. A soft smile tugs at the corners of Arturo’s lips as Lotte mentions that Ceallach is the handsomest of their boys because the boy resembles him closely. “I hope his features are more wolf than mine,” Arturo admits after a stretch of silence as his fiery gaze settles upon Molly for a long moment even as he speaks of Ceallach. It slides, then, to Ceallach who has pressed his head against Eirlys’. “I do not wish for my children to suffer the oppression I have endured.” Even into adulthood there are wolves who raise their noses at him, look down upon him as if he is their lesser because he is coywolf. What Arturo lacked in physical strength he made up for in sharp intellect and ruthless execution. The gangster lapses into silence for a long moment, content to watch his children before his gaze rises to seek Lotte’s moonbeam own as he bends his muzzle towards Ceallach with the intention to brush it against the boy’s spine before he aims to the same to Molly, Roar and last Eirlys. “Eirlys is the strongest.” Arturo ruminates deciding that it is only fair she bears a superlative, too. Even if she does not survive to see her first year the fact that she lives still and for as long as she has proves there is strength to her spirit.
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wreathed in iron and in fire
i bare my bloody teeth
and only pity makes my strike so clean
hämähäkki, muodonmuuttaja, satakieli
310 Posts
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“She?” Lotte repeated uncertainly, a note of incredulity in her tone. “She is fortunate for this climate; she would not have survived the tundra winds.” In that moment, the worry she felt for her littlest bear club eclipsed all the frustration that came along with it. Just as Arturo drew away from brushing his dark muzzle against the snowdrop’s spine, Lotte snaked her own lips toward him to catch him with a soft kiss. “Ceallach is the only one who lacks a second name,” she murmured, nosing softly at the boy’s shoulder. “I have been thinking — Mathan. It is from a story. Mathan was a great hero to his people, but he was known to outsmart his enemies as much as defeat them in physical combat. He was the folk hero of a small collection of tribes, not quite a demigod, but regarded with as much respect. It was said that he could overcome any trials he faced. That is what I would wish for any son or daughter of mine.” She smoothed her tongue gently across the brow of her little brown bear.
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Last post from Eiri!

As if in confirmation of Arturo’s words, the snowdrop began a furious wriggling. She moved in the direction of his touch and did not stop until she bumped into some part of him. Then, piping softly, her tiny muzzle gaped in an exhausted baby yawn and she reached out with both forepaws, gripping whatever she’d managed to reach and curling her body around it as a human baby curls her father’s finger in her fist.

In no time at all, Eirlys was asleep.
dressed like a deer kills like a lion
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[table width=80%][tr][td]The gentle lull of his parents was enough to apparently soothe Eirlys into sleeping. Ceallach only could tell that they were talking; making their noises that came only as vibrations. He drew out a deep breath, letting it out in a little coo of a whine. He curled closer to his sister, seeking the comfort of her closeness and the warmth that they both shared. It didn't take too long before he'd closed his eyes again - the darkness a warm, welcomed old friend, and joined his sister in sleeping with his head protectively across her back.


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