The small boy yawned and rolled him jellybean tongue against the roof of his mouth, stretching each stout limb straight from his body as his mind suddenly roused to consciousness. He wasn’t necessarily thrilled with this change, as he wouldn’t have awoken on his own accord.

There had been a disturbance. 

Lucca was older now but only somewhat; life was quickly rushing into the boy. During his waking hours, few as they were, he bumbled and pushed about the den as best her could on such nascent feetsies. Not only was his body active, but his mind and thoughts had rather quickly unfurled. Of course, as a mere cub most of these thoughts were exceedingly simple  — this is hard, but this is soft and I like it much better — but most of his time was spent consumed with thoughts of mama. She was the only one he knew, and he loved the milk-giver immensely. Father was still an anonymous silhouette, his siblings were simple annoyances that prevented his feeding from one time to another. No — mama was everything, and right now mama was providing attention to something else.

Well now, that wasn’t exactly fair.

Something cried out and Lucca felt spurned on to give a shrill cry of his own — if this tactic had worked for another, surely it would work for him too. The mottled boy laid in wait for his mother’s cosseting.