The sun shone heavily on Blacktail Deer Plateau, causing the air in the distance to shimmer with heat. While the black-furred pups and even Pura rested in the shade of the den's mouth, panting, Saēna was able to stand the heat and played alone in the dry mud caked at the entrance. The sun didn't bother her like it did the other children, though she was much too young to understand why. Her ears and tail were warmest, and even that paled in comparison to the discomfort Osprey and Tytonidae must have been feeling.
Peregrine stood sentry over the pups, lying in the shade himself. It had been decided the cubs would play outdoors while Hawkeye and Kisu attended to duties that needed their immediate attention. No amount of play bowing or tail waving could entice her black-coated siblings to join her under the sun, so she romped on her own, tongue flailing and tail limbs whipping around as she frolicked in place, pretending to be a unicorn... Or an adult version of herself, more likely.
Her attention was snagged by a small black thing roaming on the packed earth, and suddenly Saēna was pursuing it, clapping her broad puppy paws down on either side of it and giggling everytime it skittered in another direction. Her rump flew into the air and her tail quivered stiffly as she continued this game, ears shoved forward as though the tiny spider was somehow speaking to her and demanded her fullest attention.
Even though the heat had been keeping Ty in the shade, with Saena looking that excited at something, the young Redleaf-DiSarinno could not simply sit back and watch. Springing to her feet, tongue lolling about, she trotted over to her cousin-sister to see what all the fuss was about. “Oooooo,” came her small voice, eyes wide at the little black thing that skittered across the earth. She glanced back at her father, as if to make sure this was okay to look at. He did not seem particularly concerned, and so she set about observing it more closely.
“Eeee!” she screeched when Saena jumped on the creature again, and Ty felt into a fit of nervous giggles. This new thing was strange, and she was not quite sure how to feel about it. She peered from just behind her cousin-sister, still not quite ready to touch the little black thing herself.
Saēna was so enthralled by the small, skittery black creature that she didn't even notice Tytonidae until the dark-furred girl exclaimed excitedly right next to her face. Her hair lifted into an alarmed crest, then flattened again when her bright blue eyes locked on her cousin and recognition conked her young brain into calming down. Her tail whipped faster and she yipped some sort of puppies only greeting, but in that span of time the spider began to make its heroic escape.
Saēna's peripheral vision, which had steadily been developing into something more and more useful, snagged the black thing and she whipped her head around to pin it with heated eyes. “Naaaaah!” she shrieked in a war cry for the ages as she bounced toward it again and smacked her paw down on top of it. Eeeee went Tytonidae, and the little Virtúte girl responded by doing an excited little puppy jig with her front paws.
When she stepped away from the spider, she saw it was no longer moving, but had curled up into a ball of legs. Dropping to her tummy, the girl wriggled toward it, snuffling noisily and eagerly awaiting its movement, which would almost certainly make her jump with shock and glee.
The little creature seemed to have stopped moving, and Ty inched closer, butting noses with her sister-cousin in the process. “Nnnnn,” she sounded, ears pricked forward in keen interested in the arachnid. She then breathed so hard on the creature that her breath caused it to move a few short, fast inches, and Ty leapt backward, squeaking out, “Oooooh!” as she stumbled backward. She landed on her rump, and since the spider was now out of sight, it was suddenly out of mind.
What was in sight was Saena's tail doing a pendulum right in front of her, and Ty watched it with rapt attention for a few back-and-forths before making a grab at it with her tiny needle teeth. Nothing like some tiny puppy teeth on your tail to start the day off right!
Her beady little eyes watched intently for any signs of life. She was just about to give up on it when the spider suddenly twitched, sending the girl bouncing to her feet with an excited shriek of delight. The spider was quick to make its escape, and Saēna prepared to give chase when suddenly a sharp pain shot through her tail.
“Oooooowwwwwooooo,” hollered Saēna, who turned around to throw a wolfish punch (or awkward bat to the face that sent her stumbling to the side) at her cousin. Employing her latest tactic for communicating with her family, the girl sucked in a huge breath, puffed out her cheeks, and let it out in an ear-splitting scream.
Ahahaha. All these girls are going to be such terrible brats growing up together. I feel kinda bad for Pura. :P
Saena's paw connected with Ty's face, though the dark girl was quick to mouth her cousling's paw before it went too far away. It was the
scream that really stopped Ty in her tracks, though. Her ears flattened backward, and she drew her upper lip in a menacing (for a puppy) snarl at the lighter-colored girl.
Suddenly disinterested in Saena (and her decidedly unlikable behavior), Ty waddled off a few feet away to chew on some grass. She wasn't sure why she liked the taste of it, exactly, or even if she
did like the taste of it, but it was instinctual. And if the pup knew anything, it was how to follow her instincts.
Action and reaction were still shaky concepts to Saēna, but she was beginning to understand that things she did had an effect on those around her. Specifically, screaming loudly at her den mates tended to cause them to back away, if they were her peers, or caused them to discipline her, if they were her parents. This combination of effects would soon manifest in two-faced behaviour, but for now, Saēna was only interested in the immediate effects.
Suffice to say, Tytonidae wasn't getting away from her extremely noisy cousin that easily, even though she shrunk back from the dark girl's snarl. Saēna followed behind her when she turned to the grass, and when she decided the moment was right (which, given she was a baby, was the second she grew bored), she let out another piercing scream, followed up by a bout of giggles.
Tytonidae was given only a few moments of peace before Saena was right back in her face, this time screaming and giggling like it was some sort of game. Cocking her head to one side, Ty wondered if this whole screaming was the next Best Thing™. So when Saena continued her gigglefit, Ty saw it pertinent to scream at her in the loudest, highest-pitch she could force through her tiny puppy lungs. It was nowhere near the level of Saena, but she also didn't have as much practice.
And you know what? It really was the new Best Thing™. Feeling rather empowered by this new talent, Ty began to take in huge breaths and scream over and over again until somebody decided to stop her (or she collapsed from lack of oxygen).
Although Saena hadn't been expecting Tytonidae's reaction, and accordingly shrank away from the high-pitched assault on her ears, there was a sense of empowerment in it. Hawkeye's daughters' screams penetrated the thick plateau woods, and soon they were joined by another round of screams as the young diva threw back her own head and belted scream after scream into the air, quickly summoning the Parent Patrol to shut both of them up.
The spider, long forgotten, had slunk quietly away from the children and found solace in the dirt, where he wouldn't be unearthed for quite some time.
Eventually, either Hawkeye or Peregrine came to shut them up and separate the two girls so they would stop screaming at(?) one another. It took quite some time before Tytonidae was able to get calm enough to where she stopped the screaming, but when she finally did, she settled quickly down and into a nap. In that short time with Saena, she had felt a strange kinship with the lighter-colored girl.
Ty whimpered softly and kicked her feet as she dreamt of screaming and hunting giant spiders. It wouldn't be until later that Ty arose, forgetting the whole screaming ordeal and going about her day like nothing of the sort had happened.