Wisteria continued to be vocal just about every day, but the tantrums and fits were beginning to die down as she got older and adjusted to her limited senses. Touch wasn't nearly as sensitive now, so being poked and prodded by her siblings wasn't such a shock. She could smell her family members and that helped her to calm down when she was otherwise disoriented and unsure. @Remi had proven to be a comfort to her, seeming to find her any time she was beginning to melt down with gentle touches, not like Breccan's and DJ's rougher kicks.

Today she was alone, or as alone as she possibly could be in a den full of mom and siblings, and was blissfully quiet despite being awake and snuffling loudly at her outstretched paws. Nine days into her life and little Wisp was able to pull herself along on her tummy, and she did it often to isolate herself like this; she was most comfortable with free air on all sides, even if she found brief comforts in the soft touches of certain family members.

As always, it wasn't long before someone disturbed her solitude. She just couldn't understand why they were so insistent on touching her, prodding her into place and making sure she was tucked in among her siblings like a sardine. Didn't they understand that she was a free spirit who hated being penned in like that? But, of course, she was also a newborn wolf pup who couldn't regulate her body temperature, and if she was left alone long enough then she would experience the distressing reality sooner or later.

It never came to that, though. Today it was Remi who found her. She smelled her smaller sister before the touch came and made every effort to wiggle away, but she wasn't able to turn quickly enough to make her great escape. Remi found her and pressed her head into Wisp's side. The girl grunted and whined, turned half onto her side, planted her hind foot into her sister's pugged nose, and gently tried to push her away while her tail whirred behind her.

Good, yes, very good. Pushing away the offending sibling had the desired effect and Wisteria got her space back. She was deaf to Remi's confused vocalizations and blissfully so, or else she might have felt bad about it. Pushing Remi's face away was a decidedly cold thing to do. Remorse was too complicated, though, and empathy even moreso. The only thing Wisp cared about in that moment was Wisp.

Though, we wouldn't be having this thread if that was the end of it. It was a daily struggle to extract herself from the sibling bundle that she was constantly placed in, and Remi wasn't helpful about it 99% of the time. In fact, while Wisp preferred the solitude, her older but tinier sister seemed to need contact and sought it relentlessly. It was the gentle twang of their whiskers colliding that told Wisteria that Remi was still near.

She sniffed, too, and then screwed up her face and screeched for no apparent reason.

Goldilocks, it turns out, had some pretty high standards and a pretty snotty attitude about it to boot. Things had to be just so. The puppy pile could be neither too soft nor too hard, her siblings neither exuding too much heat nor failing to warm her at all. She had to be able to move all of her limbs freely to feel like she wasn't being suffocated, but be close enough that she could sense the others with the finest, most sensitive hairs of her body. Picky, picky, picky.

Remi seemed to think so, too, for she beat a hasty retreat and left Wisp to her solitude. It didn't last very long, though; their baffled father made sure of that when he brushed the Wet Nasty-But-Nice across her scalp. Chills exploded down her spine and she whimpered in response, unsure whether to find it pleasant or uncomfortable. Suddenly Goldilocks changed her standards again, the fickle bitch, and reached out for Remi. Her inquisitive and touchy sibling, as much as she tended to cause a storm of feelings within Wisp, was definitely better than the Wet Nasty-But-Nice when she was feeling moody.