Dawnlark Plains winter waning

Den-digging! Open to anyone from Morningside or Maplewood.

There was an odd feeling deep in Easy's chest. Daddy had put her in charge of something. Her. Not Dawn or Pema or Dauntless, but her.

And she didn't like digging. It was a pain, it was dirty, and the mud got under her fur and made her cold, but he'd given this task to her, and she wasn't going to let him down. She was going to dig until her paws froze off, and they were going to have a new den for Catori in no time at all.

Large, powerful paws scraped against the frozen ground. Easy's breath came out in puffs of silver-white as she worked, digging a narrow channel up into the side of a tall hill. She'd thought a den was something you were meant to dig down for, but Daddy insisted on up. When the snow melted, he said, a den dug downhill would flood. That made sense, she supposed.

But it was still a pain, and she hated it. "Stupid mud," she muttered under her breath.

 

Catori Corten had never done anything in halves and in her pregnancy, she did not fail her standard of living. She thought a few times she'd felt a kick or a twitch of muscle, something not hers and yet absolutely hers from time to time. She was feeling more antsy, anxious in a sense of what she was doing and more accurately what she still needed to do. Catori had visited with Grayday earlier and learned of his tasking Easy to the densite. She'd decided then to part with her husband for the sake of adding to her own den too - there was something deep and instinctive in her that said it was important that she dig the den she'd bring her babies earthside in. 

When she found Easy the girl was deep in her task and Catori didn't say anything for a moment, just overwhelmed emotionally by the sight. It was something else to see the older siblings preparing for the younger, from @Sunny offering food often and making a point to hunt for her and now Easy physically digging a den for her it just hit her and for a moment she was dumbfounded. What a strange emotion for Catori who almost always had words to offer. After a bit she finally got herself together, brushing her shoulder against Easy's before she set to the task to help the girl with the digging. "At least it won't show up as much on your coat - I'm going to really miss the hot springs when I try and get this mud off later." Catori said with a little laugh.

Easy's digging waned at the sound of another's approach, but when she realized that it was Catori watching her, she continued on as she had been. It was important to her that Catori saw that she was working toward a common goal; like her brother before her, it was in Easy's nature to make proud her parents, and like her elder sister, Easy felt a deep, burning need to do for the sake of doing.

But the tension in her shoulders broke at Catori's comment. She laughed, and turned to face her pseudo-mother with a wagging tail. "I'm gonna miss the catfish pond," Easy admitted, looking around the open, empty landscape. It was breath-taking in its starkness, but something about the landscape made her feel oddly alone as well. Daddy had assured them all that there would be good hunting in the summertime and that the brush around the area would make itself known as the snow melted away, but for the moment, Easy wasn't quite sure how to feel about the plains. "But the ocean isn't far, either. And there are river and streams to the east."

Did Catori know these things? Easy wasn't sure she'd ever been out this direction. In this way, she began to feel slightly older than she had previously felt; it was strange to have knowledge that her parents did not.

Easy turned back to digging, shuffling to the side so that there was room for Catori in the narrow opening. A bit too narrow, perhaps... "Does it look okay so far?" she asked, feeling a little anxious, all of the sudden.

Pema was walking though the territory when she heard the sound of a conversation. As she got closer she could recognize that the two voices were comming from Easy and Cat. She came up and saw Easy digging, what Pema assumed to be a den, into the side of a hill with Cat supervising near by.

She walked up to the pair right at the end of Easy's question. "Hello ladies." she said with a smile standing next to the two. Pema was no stranger to making dens and often prefered them to sleeping in the open, especially when she needed to treat over night patients. "Are we making a den?" she asked a bit rhetorically. "I was thinking of making one for myself, but I could help you two out before that if you would like." she offered with a smile. It wasn't as though she thought Easy or Cat couldn't do it themselves, but Cat was pregnanct and more paws was always quicker when making a den.

 

Catori felt her heart warm at Easy's assurance that they hadn't lost all their waterways. She smiled at the girl, tail wagging behind her a few times. "You'll have to show me around, I haven't gone too far." Catori admitted easily. It was just how things had ended up; she hadn't avoided it but at the same time she felt distracted by the world itself right then. When Easy moved to let her see the entrance Catori squeezed herself a bit into it, grinning at the girl. She gave a bump of her skull against Easy's shoulder. "I think we'll make it a bit bigger for your dad," She hummed before starting to dig again. "I won't mind but it might be easier for Gray to have more space."She was guessing but if she didn't have her full vision going into a densite might make her more claustrophobic if she couldn't see properly. 

She continued to dig until she heard Pema, looking back over her shoulder with a smile. "Easy got a head start," She said proudly, but she certainly wouldn't have shied away from the task. "If you'd like to, we could make some more headway and then scout out space for you - or at least a cache for your herbs if you'd like." Catori wouldn't mind helping out and keeping her mind off things, she'd been far more anxious since they had moved and she expected it had to do with the pregnancy more than anything.

Easy backed out of her digging a second time to greet Pema, her tail wagging as she regarded her mothers with an air of satisfaction. They didn't often hang out together, but it always made Easy's heart do a funny little flip to see them standing side-by-side. She had to stop and squint, however, when Pema brought up needing a den of her own.

"Are you going to have puppies, too?" she asked, wondering if she'd be getting a double helping of younger brothers and sisters. The thought caused her tail to start wagging once more, and she looked excitedly between the two for confirmation, ignoring Catori's words about making this den bigger completely.

Pema smiled in Easy's direction when she heard that the girl had taken the initiative for the den. Always eager to help, like Lavender, but with an entirely different level of drive that Pema admired. Cat accepted Pema's offer to help and seemed very willing to help Pema with her own den. She gave Cat a smile, but was definatly more eager to help her with her den then to start on her own. "Thank you very much. But I'm not even going to think about starting my den till yours is done. After all, you're going to have some very important company comming soon." she said refering to her unborn children.

Pema remembered a time when she wasn't quite sure about Cat. She seemed to have appeared out of nowhere and developed this close bond with Day so quickly, Pema wasn't sure how to feel about her. But now there was no doubt that she was a member of this family. Pema was really excited to see the new litter of pups to come, but she also enjoyed the idea of spending more time with Cat in the process. 

Rather then try to squeeze into the small den in progress Pema thought to work form the outside. Starting with the door that seemed a bit small in Pema's opinion. From there she could help scoop out the dirt pile that was being made by Cat and Easy as they worked on the inside.

She smiled and laughed a bit when Easy asked her question. "No hun. I'm too young to be having kids. Plus I don't have anyone to have kids with. I just want a den to sleep in and to keep my herbs." it would also serve as the packs medical center if need be.