The Sunspire Had to have high, high hopes for a living

With each day that passed, Remi and Breccan and Deshyr became acquainted with their sense of sight, exploring the den in greater capacity with strengthening limbs, and Wisteria went on and on, never opening her eyes or sharing their adventures. Oh, she moved all right and her body was growing right along with theirs, but her eyelids remained plastered in place. If Rannoch and Liffey hadn't been concerned at first, they probably were by now, although Wisp couldn't really say what her parents thought about her failure to meet her first major milestone. For her part, Wisteria wasn't concerned at all.

That is, she wasn't concerned until they finally did open, over a week later than the others, and revealed what she had been missing all along. Only unlike her siblings, who had expressed a wide range of emotions but primarily curiosity and excitement, Wisp's prevailing sensation was fear. She wasn't ready for this. The den was too bright, the world too big, the room moving too fast, and it made her head spin. She squeezed her eyes shut—a very different look from when her eyelids had just been lightly closed, and very obvious to any witnessing eyes—and cried out loudly.

Remi was taking a shit.

Rump in the air, tail wiggling, Remi was bent down nose to nose with a shrew that had tunnelled into the den. It was a brief encounter; her sister's loud cry sent the rodent back down its hole nearly as quick as it had come.

The silver pup made a strained sound of distress as she hurried to her sister. But several lengths away, she slowed her pace and slid to her belly. Remi then chirped and squeaked soft soothing notes as she tentatively crawled nearer to Wisp, stretching out a paw so that the tips of her tiny white toes touched her sister's paw with the delicate lightness of a feather.

She tilted her head as she studied her sister's face. Her eyesight was still developing and she was not sure what was tripping the something is different sensor in her mind.

More was happening in the pups' development than just sight. Besides all four of them growing rapidly, for her siblings, who were on track, noises were beginning to register as well. Not for Wisp, though; she heard nothing of her own distress, nor Remi's soothing whispers. She would be predictably late to that party as well. What made her unfocused eyes pop open was the gentle brush of toes against hers, but all she saw was a shimmery swirl of lighter hue in front of her, blurry and without shape.

Though her ears were presently useless to her, they began to wave up and down slowly as her breathing grew more rapid and her pupils dilated. Wisp found some comfort in it, but not much; she was rapidly becoming overwhelmed, and hyperventilation quickly set in, transforming into burbling whines that grew in pitch while her eyes darted around the black room.

Remi understood what had been different once her sister's eyes opened. It excited the silver pup to see those baby blues and her tail wagged enthusiastically for all but a moment. Wisp's reaction was not at all joyful, and an uncomfortably tight and buzzing sensation filled Remi's chest as she watched her sister's ears move, saw her eyes dart around the room, and listened to her breathing quicken. Feeling the upset, Remi sat up and whined.

The little girl had only a few different tools in her box with which to comfort her distressed sibling or attempt to mend any other problem. She did not yet have the capacity or experience to reliably know what would work, especially when it came to her sensitive sister. Hoping for the best, she scooted forward. She cooed as she gingerly placed her paw on Wisp's chest and leaned forward so that their whiskers touched.

I'm here. It's okay.

The longer Wisp's panic attack went on, the faster her ears flapped, until finally she started to calm down and they abruptly stopped. It coincided perfectly with the moment that Remi's whiskers brushed against hers, sending an electric thrill through her nose. What might have been ticklish and uncomfortable for another pup was comforting for Wisp, and she blinked her blurry eyes up at Remi's silver nose, vaguely pensive in her expression.

The pressure on her chest was comforting, too, in a stabilizing way that allowed her breathing to come back to normal. Once she was settled a little more she chanced a glance to the left, her eyes sliding slowly to the out-of-focus wall of the den. It was dark with only the faintest suggestions of light, but the change unsettled her enough that a quiet whine whistled from her nose. A question, of sorts, for Remi.

Remi smiled warmly at her sister, feeling her own chest loosen and a sense of calmness spread from the back of her skull and down her spine, like a blanket being draped across her, as Wisp started to calm down. The pup's tail quivered with excitement and relief. She wanted to bury herself into her sister out of sheer joy, but even at this young age, she was intuitive and sensitive to those around her, and she had learned that that was not always the best way to behave around Wisp.

The silver girl sat back and tipped her head to the side as Wisp whined, her own eyes following the line of her sister's gaze to the den wall. Oh? That? She drew her paw back from Wisp's chest, and padded toward the dirt. Remi glanced back over her shoulder with each step, smiling reassuringly, as she hummed soothingly. When she reached the wall she placed her paw onto it, and wagged her tail.

See? It won't hurt you!

Her head jerked 'round when Remi moved away, as if she couldn't stand to be left there in her current state, and one of her paws seemed to reach out of its own accord. But Remi was leaving, departing the narrow field that Wisp was granted, and her whines grew louder until the silvery fuzz at the edge of her vision stopped next to the faint smudges of light on the wall.

Squinting, the frantic cub rolled to her belly and propped herself up on stumpy paws. She stumbled forward, hind end moving faster than her front and jack-knifing around her in a spectacular display of bungled coordination. She didn't notice this until Remi came into focus again and she found she couldn't stop, ultimately slamming right into the wall. She flopped back onto her ass with unfocused blue eyes zoning accusingly onto the now-sharp edges of the den wall, and then she screamed.

She watched with a warm hopeful expression as her sister got to her paws. Yes! Wisp, come! Unfortunately her sister did not have much for grace. Wisp stumbled and her rear quarters were not at all in sync with her front half, as they blundered forward at a pace that outmatched Wisp's leading paws. Remi tucked back her ears and cringed as her sister screamed after colliding into the den wall. Oh, no, no, no...

Remi fought the panic that buzzed in her own chest as her sister's energy fed into her, her mouth drawn down in a pained expression. She hated to see her sister so upset. She reached out — hoping that what had worked last time would work again — and put her paw on Wisp's chest. Closing her eyes, she bowed her head and hummed soothingly, attempting to calm herself and reassure her littermate that everything was okay.

As the two sisters would learn throughout their life, things were never going to work out as planned. The best intentions could go into it and it would still end with someone slamming into the wall, or falling into a never-ending pit, or bouncing down the mountain. Life was laid out in a series of mistakes and misinterpretations for Wisp, and Remi was along for the ride, empathetic as she was. Breccan and Deshyr were lucky that they were (presumably) neither as sensitive to the world as their golden sister, nor as sensitive to others as their silver one.

She loosed another screech just before Remi's paw found a perch on her chest, and her sounded nubs of ears tried to turn in her littermate's direction. This time she was disconsolate, and continued to hiccup and whine until at last it became all too much for her and she went into system shutdown. With a sniffle she curled in on herself and squeezed her eyes tightly shut, and finally succumbed to sleep from the exhausting ordeal of experiencing a world for the first time that everyone else was already acquainted with.

If Remi's will alone could have helped Wisp, the golden girl would never have fussed another moment in her life. Unfortunately, it could not, and the silver pup's best efforts were not enough this time. She continued them anyway, for it kept her from turning into a bubbling mess like her sister. Then at last Wisp was quiet; curled in on herself and asleep.

Remi felt exhausted too. More so, she was subdued emotionally, heartbroken that she could not console her sister, and feeling partially responsible. She sat vigil over Wisp for a while, and then with a sniffle and a tear collected in the corner of her eye, she lied down with her muzzle next to Wisp's. Eventually, she slept too.

It would be some time before Remi would come to terms with not always being able to fix things for her loved ones.