Burning.
Were things always this bright?
Light broke through his lids, and he was frantic. Every day, it had broke further through. It had threatened and beat at him until he winced his eyes shut, denying its existence. Denying its push. That maybe if he winced harder it would go away. This time, his eyes were burst open by the sounds of pack life and a calling he could not fight. He tried. So, so hard he tried. Cries cracked through his throat. Silent. He'd been so, so quiet for most days, only drinking when his stomach really called for it and leeching for hours until he'd plumped and rounded. Now, on his own, he wriggled and whined, outstretching his paws forward and opening his mouth to scream at this light.
Mothers belly had not been this way.
It had been dark, and safe, and calm. Now he was sent through a hurricane as figures he should have long started to make out appeared in blobs of color through blinding lights. They were large and moving. Some were in front of him, as big as him and going no larger than the hairs on his head. Some things had hues that'd never once cut through. Some things looked as warm as he could feel snuggled under his mother's stomach, and some as cold as the nights he was wet after being cleaned. Some were dull.
He wanted to go back.
Open for the pack but can work as a read only too!
sobeille had adjusted easier than her brother — but then again, was this not her spirit’s umpteenth time navigating its journey through the terrestrial world?
her hearing was far from acute, but her senses spoke of a varying vibration emanating from her brother’s body. she followed its thread as if it were a lifeline, her wet nose pressed inquisitively to his haunches as she investigated just what was the source of all these tremors in her little world.
miette, little homage to sobo.
mireille would be lying if she told anyone she did not look for her brother to appear in that growing form, which she supposed was unfair to miette, and ironic besides.
but the days went on and still she looked for him, cooing to the small ones as they lay just inside the den that warm afternoon.
thibault did not care for the light, mireille noticed. out of them all he wished to retreat the most. and so as baby miette reached to touch him, so did their mother, each connecting with thibault as the obsidian wondered what about the glow of day he did not like.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
...
Touch.
He shut up.
Nudge. Nudge, nudge. On his leg. Nudge. He felt pokes, and it shut his screaming, crying piehole immediately. Clumsily licking and smacking his lips together, he wiggled some more next, kicking his legs and thumping Miette in the head! Very, very slowly he turned around, plopping over as his chub softened his fall.
There was big him and little him, poking him! He stared, shut up, and stopped moving after his head had been put to face Miette's. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"
FROM WHENCE YOU CAME, LIGHT! He is fending for his life from the sun and its terrible warm, fuzzy glow!
sobeille came to the realization things were moving. she froze herself, ears pinning despite the lack of auditory prowess her species typically commanded. the vibrations in their airspace had increased tenfold, a keening shiver which strummed the very air she breathed.
it ceased, then started again. sobeille’s head retracted like a turtle as she was struck, blinking owlishly against the offending blur before she lunged, barely-there teeth looking for their pound of vengeance.
He was frantic and restless, wriggling and squirming about after he'd thumped poor Miette. He was rolled over like a log, stuck on his back and waving his limbs in the air like soggy noodles. "NMNNMNNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"
He inhaled, exhaled, bubbling whines and puppy groans from his throat as he complained about his not-so-appetizing plate of whoop-ass from his loaf friend.
mireille lifted her ears at the sound of thibault's wail, but otherwise did not intervene. her sons, she felt, must find their place in the hierarchy of sapphique as had cousins and brothers before them.
and so she folded her paws, and only looked on, watching to see how this little conflict might turn for the favor of either child.
it was an early brand of vengeance, nearly biblical in its execution but hardly more than nascent play. sobeille withdrew, satisfied — the only thing to have been sweeter than the taste of victory was to hear the squall of her fallen brethren.
she retracted, sulky gaze upon thibault, whose rounded back kissed the earth and chubby legs reached skyward.
perhaps the earliest form of a smile appeared on her cherubic features, which then buried contently into the folds of her mother, seeking milk to whet down her newfound appetite for violence.
He was stuck! He was dying! He couldn't move! Thibault had not yet known that he could turn himself over when he was beached, and it had been by grace, or perhaps by his limbs flailing so hard that he inevitably did, that he'd turned over again onto his stomach. Mama saved him! Mama fixed it! Is what he thought, anyways. There were concepts of doing things alone?
Preposterous!
Grumpy, grumbling noises rumbled from his throat, and from the sound of distinct suckling, he followed it. Instead of using his own touch senses to find milk, he'd used his ears. His ears told him... Sister! Sister is drinking! With a bug-like crawl, his tiny paws moving in uncoordinated steps, he flopped himself over top of his sister and wiggled his belly on her back while he tried to get comfortable. This way, he knew a milk-supplier was nearby! Though..then he was stuck again, and wiggling more. Sister hogged all the milk! Where was his milk! If sister weren't so soft and comfy, he'd be able to move and find his own milky-wonder. This was sisters fault that he climbed on her!
All of the jostling and jousting had disturbed Tousaint from his slumber and while he'd tried to simply ignore it, it'd persisted for long enough that he felt he had to do something about it. He'd shift one way and then another, only to find it almost impossible to be somewhere that allowed him to exist in peace. The shrill complaints of his siblings made him wish he could hear nothing, and he tried to cover his little ears with his paws, only to find his legs were a bit too short.
He burrowed his face into his mother's belly, only to get kicked in the shoulder by an errant paw. He squealed, frustrated with his siblings for being so rowdy, and aimed a nip at nothing in particular, more to express himself than anything. He didn't want to surrender his place at his mother's side, but with all the wiggling Thibault was doing, it seemed like it might soon become the better option.
milk teeth were victorious. sobeille moved like an eel back to the place of milk, and mireille covered her mouth with an amused snort of laughter. thibault continued to cry and wail; in the interest of fairness, their mother did not intervene as the little daughter was jostled at her mealtime position.
tousaint rose; he was angered, this son of hers, and his tiny fangs too showed themselves. would thibault rise to this challenge? would small sobeille subdue her brothers? mireille waited to see.
at so young an age, sobeille already showed a streak of stubbornness.
as she was jostled by both siblings, she only dug in deeper. if she burrowed within
maman, she would become more difficult to extricate.
tousaint's nip hit her round flank; thibault's pointy feet stepped on her head -- and still she stood her ground, supping greedily from her
maman with dogged persistence.
last from me <3