It had been about a week now since the light coming in from the mouth of their den woke her for the first time, and she peeled her bleary eyes open to see it. The world was fuzzy and indistinct, her eyes unused to the business of seeing, but there was a world there to look at for the first time.

It was bright.

Since then, she hadn't been able to resist crawling, then stumbling, to the entrance almost every day since that first. Curiosity burned, and nothing had yet made it clear in her young mind that the outside might be more dangerous than beautiful. Her ears hadn't opened yet, but she didn't even realize she was lacking it whenever she caught sight of the outside, bright and colorful even as fuzzy as it was to her still-developing eyes. Her escape attempts were numerous and frequent, though more likely to come at night, when the light wasn't so blinding.

Tonight was no different, though there was the added factor of dull pain in her mouth which made it hard to sleep anyway. Blue eyes were wide from the moment they opened, and for the first time, she made it close enough to the entrance to see a sliver of sky far, far above. Her eyes weren't sharp enough to make out more than a see of black, pinpricked with light, but it was shocking enough to set Morena down on her bottom, and she sat and stared, jaw hanging.

Pretty.

It wasn't the voice, but the movement that caught her attention, drawing her eyes toward a dark shape near the bushes. Morena jumped a little at the sight and backed up, but the stranger was wagging her tail—and, when her nose caught up with her eyes, didn't smell so strange after all.

Morena sniffed curiously and started stumbling her way forward instead, bright eyes curious and her backside waving with her own attempts to wag. She tumbled toward the larger pup, not quite able to form words without her hearing, but a chorus of grunty whines escaped her throat as she approached, eager and curious to meet her big sister.

Mori wiggled eagerly as her sister responded, doing her best to imitate the play bow with her far less coordinated limbs. It didn't help that she couldn't quite contain her excited wiggling, and the end result was a sort of flop-and-roll to the side as she splayed her front paws out, ending up on her back. With Soter, she usually wound up on her back during roughhousing anyway, so she felt no distress as she kicked her legs in the air in her own invitation to play.

The difference between roughhousing with Soter and Lainie didn't quite sink in until the bigger girl pounced, and Morena got a better sense of the size difference. She let out a high pitched yip, flinging her paws wide, and only realized her mistake when the gentle attack commenced. Morena squirmed joyfully, attempting to curl around and nom at her sister's face in return. The transition from biting to nuzzling was less familiar; Morena thought for a moment that Lainie had fallen asleep on her, and squirmed even more. She still wanted to play! Fortunately, she had a paw in her face a moment later and fairly squealed her delight, trying to catch it with her paws or teeth.

Mori's ears flattened as her big sister flinched away, her eyes wide. She was still learning to control herself while she played, but that was the same motion Soter made when she bit too hard. A tiny pink tongue came out to lick an apology, and she squirmed closer with a huff. Fortunately, it didn't seem like playtime was over because of her mistake, and Morena happily nuzzled back against the nips, wiggling excitedly. She was quickly running out of energy, however, still young enough that a nap was never far from her mind; her attempts to nip and wrestle quickly turned into drawn-out yawns, and soon enough she was left blinking sleepily up at her dark sibling, contemplating the best way to incite a puppy pile when she couldn't flop on top of the older girl.