Day one since impact.
In spite of how new and exciting life was, on account of lacking some critical senses, Alyx engaged minimally with it. Her pugged nose worked constantly when she was awake, but her sense of smell was dull and inaccurate, so everything smelled kind of the same: sweet milk and warm fur. She couldn't see or hear anything, so she had no source of entertainment, leaving her only three significant activities: eating, sleeping and exploring.
She mostly slept, but now wasn't the time for that. She wasn't hungry enough to nurse again, so instead Alyx began laboriously scooting her way across the den floor, flailing her fat little limbs, hooking the ground with inexpert paws and dragging herself ever-so-slowly away from Niamh's belly.
Uhm, without me????
First things first, Quetzal was the opposite of miss independent. And FOMO, unidentifiable as it was in words, was something she felt viscerally when Alyx moved. Had she the capabilities and the faculties, she would have lifted her head to whip it around to pinpoint what the hell was happening here. As Niamh's good fortune would have it, Quetzal was incredibly slow on the pickup and it took her thirty real-time seconds to gather that something... is not right.
And when that happened, she was up in arms. What wasn't right? Why wasn't she told about this sooner? Okay, time to figure this out. Turning at the pace of a sloth, Quetzal found her first barrier in either Primrose, or a bodypart of her mother. How... how dare you intervene! Nothing would stop her from finding her missing piece, and so she slumped backward before thrusting forward in an impressive display of ferociousness to behave the battering ram to her offending obstacle.
All that in mind, there was nothing ferocious about it. Quetzal's pace and method was identical to that of a salted slug.
But she felt satisfied. So she rotated a little more... hoping to find that missing piece. Yelling loudly as though she had bat sonar to get a good read on it all, for good measure.
In spite of being twins, Alyx presently felt no particular connection to Quetzal over anyone else. Maybe that would come with time or maybe it wouldn't, but a newborn couldn't feel remorse for leaving her other half behind regardless. The beings around her only existed in the moments that she directly interacted with them. Right now she felt only the satisfaction of not being hungry and the natural compulsion to develop strength in her legs by moseying around, not the need to be close to anyone. Niamh was the only one whose existence she acknowledged regularly, and only because Niamh was also her food source.
So while Quetzal was busy ramming herself against whatever obstacle presented itself, Alyx was busy continuing to row her way across the den floor with a furiously wriggling nose, utterly heedless of any being in the world but herself.
Others still welcome to join!
As for Q, her connection toward her siblings really went so far as space heaters. And if one was gone, that was Unacceptable and Uncomfortable... one which Quetzal would fully support someday, the other that Quetzal disliked then and there because, well, being uncomfortable was uncomfortable. And who liked that? Her attempts to change that were entirely counterproductive of course; by leaving Primrose and Niamh in the dust, she would become most uncomfortable.
Quetzal hardly recognized her siblings as living entities like herself. Actually, scratch that. Quetzal wasn't even aware that she was a living entity. She had become aware (if aware was even the appropriate word) that one space heater had been removed from her side, and did not know what to do about it except see if she could find that same exact familiar warmth again. Again, counterproductive. It might never be said that she was bright in her lifetime. Her solutions would likely never be all that well thought out... but that was especially true now. By moving away from warm point A, and B, because C was not there... meant that she, identified as D (not for Dumb... well... no... but...), would be extra cold. But who knew? Anything could happen.
She was failing spectacularly. So far, so horrible. But she hadn't figured out that mathematical equation above quite yet, and so she still put forth some effort to seeking a resolution. Puppy battering ram clambored in a cardinal direction that probably wasn't where "C" was. A chill gave Q pause on her (far from) lively jaunt, and she let out a mewl of protest.
LOLCAMEO
Most of the time, Niamh slept. When she was awake, she babbled at her children senselessly, or had quiet, caring conversations with Phox who was a doting and gentle father. But in the wake of childbirth, she felt no shame whatsoever in sleeping, even while her little ones nursed. In her eyes, the more she relaxed she was, the harder her body could work producing milk to feed the children, and fortunately for her, she had a family ready to provide food for her. She became content to stay in the den for nearly the entire day- only leaving to drink and relieve herself.
The pups made noises both when they were awake and while they slept, so she'd grown accustomed to their little whines and burbles and coos, and the occasional squawk which meant that one of them wanted something. And in the early days, their needs were simple- food and warmth. So whenever she heard them starting to get louder, she would- even in her sleep- use of her long legs to gently hook around whatever child had wandered away from her belly, and gently pull them back. She found one pup blindly with her foot and fished them back, tucking them against her side- and sort of fumbled as she reached for the other, but eventually pulled that one back to her belly as well. She heaved a sigh, and slipped back into her deep slumber without even registering the fact that she'd just done a good job as a mom- and had pulled her children back toward her warmth.
Alyx's adventure was off to a good start. She was lucky the den held so much of Niamh's body heart or she might've started getting cold by now. She'd put an impressive distance between herself, her mom and her distant siblings just by rowing across the floor. Imagine what a handful she'd become when she had functional legs under that rotund belly!
Today was not the day for a long adventure, however. From out of nowhere, an invisible force wrapped itself around her and she felt herself being dragged backward. Alyx fussed and fumbled and tried to get away, but ultimately wound up smooshed against her sister and her dam's belly. She spent a few seconds flailing her limbs in a vain effort to hit Quetzal, whose fault this obviously all was, before promptly falling asleep.
Her failures did not last very long, and were also quickly forgotten once she was suddenly surrounded by warmth again. Had there been a problem? Not that she was aware of. Receiving a kick in the gut would have winded her were it not for the heinous baby fat she had that presently protected the round area, and Q lashed out to falcon punch her sister (though was probably way off the mark... and the true victim of this would likely be Rosie. What direction was she even facing?). The effort was far too lazy; she paused midkick and just knocked the hell out, her motivations for it also forgotten. These were the simple, easy days... but Q slept like she had just completed the most arduous trial of her life thus far.
last from me!