The child had come to accept the terms of having sight. While for the first few days he'd kept his eyes shut, gradually the light drew him. Fuzzy shapes began to take finer form, and while Merrit was nowhere near the seer he would be in weeks and months to come, the simple sights the inner den provided were enough for him. For now.

Presently he watched his family sleep, having scooted a few meters beyond them so he could observe the blurry rise and fall of their sides. That was the basest rhythm he felt when he lay alongside them, he knew; that was the rhythm that stirred the other rhythms, he would come to understand. But seeing gave him sight to rhythms he couldn't feel. The dance of shadows across the sleeping masses, the interplay of light and dark. He didn't comprehend them - he simply knew they enraptured him.

He had watched one light beam in particular for probably an hour now, draped across his mother's back. Over time, the beam had shifted to curve around her face - but it had also grown dimmer, thinner, and Merrit crawled forward. He had come to understand that there was always a time when the light seemed to vanish, and he sensed that time drawing near. So far, he had only found the courage to watch the beams - but seeing wasn't enough. He wanted to feel them, like he felt the rhythm of breathing - and gingerly, he reached out his paw to touch the one fallen across his mother's face, eyes fixed with wonder.

The light - he felt it, if ever slightly. A warming - not unlike when he cuddled against his mother's side, or squished to sleep between his dozing sisters. Yet this warmth was a different kind. He felt that. There was no pressure with it, no comfort of closeness. Just - warmth. And it simply was.

Merrit held his paw, unable to make sense - and slowly drew his touch away. Only then did his eyes refocus and straighten to catch his mother's own twin watch. The slightest breath escaped him, and his brows leapt with a spook when off-balance as he was, he toppled back and fell. His mother's face fled from sight, and he found his gaze met with the deep shadows of the roof, spinning. Light no longer played there.

He landed in an awkward sprawl and puffed up the downy collection of furs and feathers that warmed the den. Whoof. The world kept spinning, and he closed his eyes, though Merrit didn't hurt - but he was confused. With kicks and flails he scrounged about for purchase but found no solid ground to help him get off his back and back on his paws, and quite quickly, he gave up. His energy spent, he warbled a whine pitched with defeat and a small plea for his mother's help.

Bless his mother, who swiftly nudged him with her nose to right him up from his upsidedown world. Whoa. The den roof shifted to give way to the light-strewn walls, and though dizzy, he felt the ground come clear under paw again. Merrit scraped and scrambled until he drew upright, and turned on his heel to face his mother.

The dilemma of standing had only been a small hitch in his exploration, a road-block he'd literally stumbled on. Now that he found himself standing sturdy again, his attention wove back to the light, whose beams no longer fell across his mother's gentle face. Rather, they draped in long fingers across the wall behind her, and with a cursory glance at his mum, Merrit tottered to reach them.

"Bah," he said and smacked his tiny toes against the beam, turning his wide baby eyes back to his mother so she could see why he had touched her, and that she could share in this mysterious and marvellous thing he had discovered.

Merrit turned with the point of her muzzle to look toward the brightest light, the source of every scattered beam that stole its way underground. He had traced the glow there, but he hadn't found need to draw closer yet to discover what that meant in his own private study. There was so much left to learn about the light just below his paw. Only when he put these pieces together would he even think to venture elsewhere - unless, as his mind shaped and formed, he grew to discover that a broader grasp of information would actually help him understand the little things - like why the light came and went, and where it hid when the darkness reigned.

But for now, his mind still thought very little beyond what was right before his eyes. As his mother moved to lay down, Merrit turned to the wall and patted the light again. His half-closed ears prevented him from hearing clearly, and he what he could hear, he didn't really understand. But that didn't stop the soft rumbling of his mother's voice from stirring a want to try and speak himself.

"Sahh." He tapped his paw once more and turned to his mother with the same look of question and affirmation in his eyes. "Sahh."