Verdigris Ravine ~Seeking the sun, feeling the sand….~

All family, and other pups welcome! This is time to explore their world a bit more.

Chisa, now finally old enough to explore outside the den a bit more wandered to the entrance where the sun reached in. The morning was warm, yet cool inside the confines of the den. She carefully climbed out to the sand and sat a moment catching her breath and taking in all the sights.

She made a noise, “wow” in awe of everything, she smelled the air for any scents in particular. She smelled aunty @Koa, she smelled Andi, and various other things. She also smelled mama still nearby.

She made a yip, friendly and beckoning for someone to play with, she tried to speak a name…. Hard as it was she managed to get out “Koo-aah.” Aunty had brought toys previous day, she liked aunty. 

Birds and plants caught her eyes, distracting her for a moment. They chirped! She brought her attention back to looking around for someone. This was her current mission.

S'ari watched her daughter, Chisa, hover at the entrance of the den. They were getting older, day by day, and walking on surer legs over time. She came and sat beside the girl, looking out at the world from the mouth of the den. Chisa, she said softly, what do you see? Mother sees something up there. She pointed with her snout, looking up into a nearby tree, a squat little thing with waxy leaves. In its branches was a bird. What is that, Chisa? Do you know the word?

She looked up at her mother, listening…. She thought about it, “bi-rd?” Then looked back at the feathered thing, with more surety “bird!”

Her tail wagged a bit, happy at her accomplishment and having mommy here with her. What else was there to see? She could endlessly wonder, “more?” Everything was still new to her, just as it was to her siblings. It was fun.

Ko'a had always brought little toys and trinkets and chews to the pups, having come to take much enjoyment in watching their first interactions to the things she brought which they had not yet seen before. Today, she holds a rattle snake's tail and when she sees Chisa outside the birthing den, she shakes her head back and forth, causing the snake tail to rattle. 

Coming close, she nudges her cousin's shoulder and settles down the snake tail. Chis-aah. Ko'a speaks back with a smile and playful wrinkle of her muzzle.

Her ears perked up and her attention now turned to the rattly noise maker. She walked up to Koa and sat looking up “Koo-ah.”

She sniffed the object then picked it up and gave it a gentle shake, it rattled softly, then she shook it a bit more and it rattled faster. How very interesting! She let out a happy yip, enjoying the snakes tail. It also could be thrown up in the air, and it landed with a plop. She crouched, then jumped for it, to play with it yet again.

S'ari is skippable for the remainder of this thread, but please forgive me if I have her jump in every now and then.

S'ari lay down at the mouth of the den and grinned at her cousin, watching silently. Watching her daughter play with Ko'a, interact, speak in her broken, dragged-out way, making vowels long and lingering, like the sun's heat baked into the sand.

Ko'a would teach Chisa to hunt, perhaps. She spoke up then, past her daughter, to Ko'a herself. Be sure she understands that the snake is prey--not a friend. It was her only warning, for she did not wish Chisa to think that a snake's rattle was a happy, fun thing. Snakes were common in the desert, and dangerous. The sunlings would have to learn early that they were not to be played with--unless they were, of course, dead.

Her mother spoke then turned her attention away to speak aunty K’oa, and she listened intently. She put the snake tail rattle down to listen. Mama was signaling caution, that perhaps this was not a joy object but instead food? It didn’t seem delicious, yet it did make a nice sound to her. Was that what she meant.

“No toy? This- one like rattle sound.” She wagged her tail a bit, which then ceased to focus. “Food?” She wondered what prey meant for a minute.