maybe
@Alder? father son bonding? :)
Today, the small boy had woken up early, and after drinking his fill, began waddling forward, eager to explore his surroundings once more. Clumsy as he was, he managed to bump into several of his siblings in his eager attempt to escape, though he couldn't care less, and continued forward, plowing through the bodies. His eyes were narrowed and he squinted, blinking furiously as he tried to make sense of the objects around him.
Then, just as everything was going so well, Hawthorn tripped, lost his balance and fell face first on the floor.
Why was everything on its side?
*Snatches the first thread where a puppy isn't a complete potato*
Alder was immensely proud of his children. The Chaspen Brood were up and walking, eyes open - this was further than most of his first litter had ever gotten - and the King couldn't wait for the day that they all could really talk. And not the senseless babbling and shit they learned to repeat, he couldn't wait till they could really talk! Unfortunately, that day was like three months away - he'd have to be patient till then - and for now he settled on bringing their mother food.
He was bringing another hawk for Aspen that morning, but when he poked his head into their den to survey, it was the youngest and darkest of his first Brood that drew his one blue eye. Hawthorn Charley Pryor - unfortunately, the first time his father got to see him walk, it was accompanied by the boy tipping over and falling onto his face. Alder couldn't help but laugh, tossing the hawk towards his wife before lowering himself in front of his son and reaching out with his muzzle. He moved to nuzzle the boy upwards, to right him and give him another chance at walking - there was only one way to learn, and that was to practice.
At first, Hawthorn was confused. A moment ago, everything had been fine, but then suddenly, the world was tilted and lying flat on its side, and he couldn't seem to move anymore despite the effort he put into flailing his tiny limbs. Confusion soon turned into annoyance, as it always did with little youngest Pryor child, and so he opened his maw and wailed, screaming his frustration out for the entire world to hear. He couldn't care less if he woke his peacefully sleeping siblings, or his mother. Sure, he loved them, or he would grow to love them eventually, but right now, the boy was selfish and ignorant, as every baby was. Perhaps, Hawthorn would grow out of it eventually, but right now, nothing was going to stop him screaming his heart out.
Or so he thought. Another large body, a wolf he would soon know as his father, nuzzled him gently and softly nudged him back upright. With a small whine, the potato stumbled and struggled, but managed to get back on all four paws. Blue eyes narrowed in determination, and the boy continued his mission to walk once more, except this time he had a goal. Hawthorn was going to walk all the way over to the furry mountain (Alder's paw) and sit on it.
With renowned purpose, the youngest pup took several clumsy and shaky steps forward, face scrunched up cutely in concentration. The furry hill was growing closer and closer now!
Then, obviously, Hawthorn fell on the ground once more.
This time, however, the boy did not cry or scream or whine. He was silent, utterly silent, as he struggled to get back on all four paws. It took sometime, but he made it. And when he did, Hawthorn simply stood there on wobbly paws and blinked up at his father, blue eyes bright and curious.
The boys flailing limbs pummeled Alder's muzzle, but nonetheless the King got his son standing - now he looked like an heir. Big, strong, adventurous: not tiny and albino, screaming all day long and pissing off his dad. Truth be told, he only loved and cared for Rowan because he was his son; he'd have killed the runt as soon as he was born if he hadn't already lost a litter in his life.
Hawthorn whined at him, waddling towards Alder with eyes narrowed - Alder couldn't tell if he had a plan, or if he was just trying to see better - and the ruler felt pride bursting the seams of his being. He was thrilled to lay there and let his son stumble his way to papa - his wide grin never once left his maw, even as again his ginger-hued child fell forward. Alder reached forward to help Hawthorn to his paws, but it seemed he was doing fine on his own - with a shining blue eye, the Pryor father watched his biggest son pad up and turn his baby blue eyes on Alder as if he were saying "what now?".
A whine of joy broke through Alder's throat, and he placed his head level with his boy before reaching out to nuzzle him. His hushed words were for the child alone, unaware if or how well the dark spot could hear, but proud nonetheless.
"Good job, Hawthorn!"
Hawthorn tilted his dark head to the side, still looking up at the strange face and those bright blue eyes - wait, it only had one eye. He frowned — unlike the wolves he'd vaguely seen before, this creature, his father bore not eyes, but one eye. Hawthorn blinked, then almost instantly forgot his previous train of thought and simply grinned a small, toothless, yet nevertheless, still cute smile at his dad - an occurence that would grow rarer and rarer as he aged. The smile faded away into a confused frown as a muffled whine sounded through the air, and the large wolf lowered his large head to him.
Confusion, and just maybe, a bit of fear coursed through him (though he would never admit it). He lashed his tiny tail, brows drawing together in a frown, and jaws opening to reveal a toothless mouth. Hawthorn's fear vanished however when the large man nuzzled him gently and whispered sounds to him, sounds that were soothing and appeared to have meaning, but sounds that he simply did not understand. Hawthorn still smiled, however, although, as always, it went away after a mere second, changing instead into a look of concentration.
Bored, the youngest Pryor child gave up on standing and fell on the ground, rolling onto his back so his pudgy belly showed and as he gazed up at the one blue eye, he let loose a whine and a whimper and yet another toothless smile.
His boy looked up to him with a twist of confusion - at what, Alder could only guess - but the King barely cared. This pup seemed to like him: that alone put a lot of his fears to rest. This was proved by the grin that copied from his face and pasted on the younger Pryor's - should Alder have known that it would be one of few, he might've savored it a little more at each flash of that gummy mouth.
Hawthorn didn't seem too pleased when Alder first reached out, but his words soothed the boy - the ruler knew they weren't understood, but the tone was understood. The dark child revealed yet another grin that faded swiftly, and then seemed like he was over standing - the boy plopped ungracefully to the stone floor, rolling onto his back and showing off his chubby belly.
Alder took the whine and smile as a sign of playfulness, reaching down and aiming to lick the boy on his dark chest, to poke and tickle at his sides with gentle nails.
The large wolf who he would soon greet as his father understood Hawthorn's silent invitation to play and reached down, licking at his soft underfurs to which the boy responded with approving yips and whines of delight. When the tickling started, however, Hawthorn attempted to turn his large and pudgy self over and scurry away from the evil that was his father's nails. In his eyes, there was no worse torture than whatever those nails were doing to him. Gone was the playfulness that'd inhabited him just a mere second ago. Now, the boy was upset and he opened his maw to wail his displeasure to the world, face scrunched up and eyes screwed shut. He flailed his limbs in the air, and hoped his mother, his mother whom he'd always trusted to get him out of sticky situations would save him. Yes, she annoyed him sometimes, picking him up and depositing him in that prison of paws, but he still loved her, because in a way, he appreciated the bit of alone time she gave him. So, Hawthorn called and screamed, hoping it would get her to come to his rescue somehow.
At first, Hawthorn was happy to play -- but when Alder started to tickle him, the dark boy turned from playful to almost fearful. At once, the King stopped, keeping his paws to each side of his son but flirmly on the earth.
"Sorry! Sorry!"
Confused, the father could only give Hawthorn a wide-eyed and amazed look of "what the actual fuck is going on". When the flailing began, and Alder realized he had to do something, he decided to reach down and lick softly at the boys face, ears, paws -- Aspen's grooming seemed to calm them, right? He didn't know what the little lumps wanted, even if he had done this before. They were so much different than Lily.
His father stopped immediately when Hawthorn showed signs of discomfort and his paws - those instruments of torture - fell to either side of him. Still, the boy was scared. In his mind, while the large wolf had stopped his torture, he had now imprisoned him between those large mountain-like paws and if anything, he was even more scared than he'd been a moment ago. Words poured from the man's mouth, but neither could he hear clearly nor understood, and so he shot his father a glare, fierce but mixed with fear and tilted his head back to wail as loudly as he could.
When the male leaned down he screamed even louder until his father began to softly groom him. Then, and only then, did he tone down on his cries. However, Hawthorn was still stiff, and when he met his father's eyes, he narrowed his eyes and shot him another one of his famous fierce glares.