Redhawk Caldera Things things things

Eljay missed mommy a lot. She'd only just returned when the pups were born and aunt Fox had passed away. Eljay was sad for her death, but he found himself even more sad to be missing mommy. In turn, he felt guilty, both for being so useless and not providing enough for the pack in such trying times. Whip had vanished, too, but Eljay felt with numbers small and his inexperience in exploration it'd be foolish to go look for him. He'd probably just get lost, or something.

Mommy and @Raven were looking after the pups, so the whole pack was providing for them, since there were so many and the pack was small. Eljay arrived at the den with a fresh catch, a scrawny rabbit -- barely enough to feed himself, but he'd eat from the cache later -- and he chuffed to announce his arrival at the den, hoping to catch mommy or Raven awake.

Raven stole a few moments today to howl for Wildfire—who was apparently loitering in a nearby territory, unwilling to cross the borders—to finally catch up with her sister. It was a bittersweet meeting, all things considered, and the Gamma had the unpleasant duty of informing Wildfire of yet another loss: Whip. He hadn't died but he also hadn't been spotted around the caldera in days. Raven felt terrible for not being able to do much of anything about it but their younger siblings took priority right now. Hopefully Whip could take care of himself, wherever he'd gone. Perhaps he'd find and team up with Gannet somewhere out there?

After kissing her sister's cheek goodbye, Raven reluctantly parted ways with Wildfire and made her return to the den. Incidentally, she arrived just after Eljay and gave his back a weary smile as she padded closer. "Hi, Eljay," she murmured, giving him a little nudge of appreciation for both the company and the gift before striding into the den. With a little grunt, she lowered herself to the ground and made herself available to any pups in need of nursing.

Once settled, her yellow eyes lifted back up to her cousin's face and she asked, "How're you?"

After putting down the food, Eljay licked his lips and was startled by Raven's voice behind him. He turned to look at her and smiled. It was strange to realise that it was really just them, mommy and daddy and Liffey and Lagan now.

"Hi Raven," he said, with a soft smile on his face. He sat down, though looked a little startled when she asked him how he was, feeling caught; as if she had sensed how much he missed mommy and how jealous he was of the babies, in a way. "Um, it's okay, I mean... I'm sad cause, but, you're probably worse, I mean, your mommy..." He grimaced and felt awkward for stumbling over his words like that. After a moment he moved a bit closer to nose her cheek in a frail attempt at comforting her in the face of all that had happened.

Her eyes went a little glassy when he mentioned her mother. Raven hadn't had a lot of time to spare for mourning Fox. And she'd died before they'd ever cleared the air. There was a lot of baggage to unpack there but it would just have to wait. She couldn't do anything for either of her dead parents, after all, except foster their legacy—literally.

"Yeah," she replied a little lamely, yellow eyes refocusing somewhat, "I haven't had much time to process." Raven frowned sadly, then looked over the pups. They were a lot to handle but, as far as distractions went, they were a pretty good one. "Would you like to come in and see them?" she asked, knowing Fox might never have allowed it. But she wasn't here now to make the call and Raven knew how much Eljay wanted to be a midwife.

It was difficult to see that his words struck a chord with Raven, because he didn't want to upset her in any way. He wasn't sure what to say, so he was grateful when she offered to see the pups. He nodded, having been with mommy and the Blackthorn pups from the beginning too and wanting to have as much helping to do as he could with this litter. Even if he felt envious of the pups and sad he didn't get to spend all his time with mommy right now, Eljay still wanted to look after them and spend time with them.

"yeah, that'd be, uhm... yes, please," He said, stumbling over words not because of the seeing the pups but feeling awkward for making Raven reminisce her mother's death moments ago and fearful he might say something silly again.

I'm gonna pretend Fin's in the den but asleep and if Stevie has a problem with it, she can SEND ME A BAG OF DICKS in the mail.

Raven glanced at Finley, taking a much-needed nap in the far corner of the den, then looked at Eljay and nodded. She seriously doubted the new Alphas would have qualms with their son entering the den. Besides, how absurd would it be to bar the pack's only remaining adult from seeing the pups? She frowned even more at that thought, biting back a sigh even as she shifted to make room for the visitor. She positioned herself to afford Eljay the best view of the pups.

"They don't have names yet," she told him, "but this one likes to scream and bite me." She pressed her nose gently to his head (@Titmouse). "This one giggles a lot and it's pretty cute," she added, moving down the line and nudging the future @Towhee. "This one never stops wiggling!" Raven introduced the pup who would one day share his mother's name, at least phonetically (@Phox). "Doesn't this one remind you of a stoat? And this one looks kinda the same but check out these patches by her eyes." Her tongue grazed over the pup who resembled an @Orca. "And lastly but not leastly," she continued, well aware that it wasn't a word, "this little sausage." She tapped the @Oriole lookalike on the butt.

It was a rare moment — but the little screech owl was almost asleep. Then his sister-mom's nose went and booped him, which pushed all the indications of such a thing out of his pea-brain. The boy wiggled, scrunching his little nose, and then reached with all the force he could muster to try and thwack Raven (or maybe Eljay, if he was near enough) with all his tiny limbs. How very dare you! He would've shouted, had he known any sort of language. And then he did what he does best: screamed bloody murder.

Would-be Oriole had worked himself into a sort of trance, humming tonelessly and merely enjoying the feeling of vocalizing. He bubbled and gurgled and murmured which, beyond shitting, was just about all he could do. If he felt truly motivated he could bumble along with his useless little legs, but why would he do that if he could just sit there? Oriole remained content to do jack shit, even after he was nudged on the bum.

Phox had been near Raven's ribcage when she spoke, and the vibrations sent him squirming and worming this way and that. He rarely had a real direction he was going, but he seemed to love flailing his little limbs about every which way. Not only that, but he had begun to taste the world around him. His little snoot was still small and not terribly useful, though it was more powerful than any of his other senses (sans touch, which he used often). His little head wobbled on his neck, wavering as he attempted to make sense of this strange world he'd been thrown into.

He was nowhere near a teat, but he put a tuft of Raven's fur in his mouth anyway and tasted it. It was not nearly as unpleasant as the dirt he'd tasted earlier in the day, but equally as not tasty as the milk that he drank.

The feel of Raven's tongue provided enough stimulation to rouse Orca from her half-nap. She hadn't really been asleep -- after all, it was hard to do so when her siblings seemed to never stop moving -- and the caress from her big sister elicited a squeak and a stretch from the black and white pup. She reached out with her tiny forepaws, elongating her miniature spine, and then rolled over onto her back and exposed her white belly.

"More please," she seemed to be asking as she patiently waited for another kiss.

Cameo!

Something touched her and Towhee stirred, rousing momentarily from sleep. Her head wobbled and she yawned, tiny pink tongue curling forth from her squishy face. When the touch did not happen again, she let her cheek sink back to the den floor. Unaware of anything going on around her, she sank right back into dreamland.

Ears perked forward as Raven went into the den and he followed into the den's entrance to look at the pups. He smiled at their tiny-ness and remembered when Liffey, Lagan and Lucy were this small. They had been so cute. Well, they were still pretty cute now, but, y'know, in a different way, he supposed.

"There's so many of them," he marvelled with a gasp; "They look so cute!" Even lil' Titmouse, who was flailing around hitting both Eljay and Raven at the moment, seemed adorable. Eljay bit his lip as he thought of Ferret, but he couldn't imagine that Titmouse would be the same... He looked so small and innocent, and surely with mommy and Raven's good upbringing, he would be fine, right..? He looked around at the other pups, noticing that one was just sitting around, one was nomming on Raven's fur, seemingly content, and then there was one who seemed pleased with the attention. "Aww!" Eljay squeed at the outstretched paws and he craned his neck to reach out at Orca and nuzzle their tummy — Lagan and Liffey had always been huge fans of the tummy-nuzzles.

The various reactions fascinated Raven, though she didn't have long to dwell on anything other than the little screamer. Although she knew he couldn't hear her, the she-wolf shushed him (perhaps for Eljay's benefit) even as she mouthed him him closer to her chest. She tucked her leg around his warm little body and tried to placate him with swipes of her tongue along his back.

She peered over to watch Eljay bending down to nuzzle one of the girl's bellies. She smiled around her ministrations. Raven wondered if he would have been able to interact with these puppies at all if Fox had survived the birth. The thought made her swallow between licks, then refocused her full attention upon the crying puppy in the hope of quieting him.

*drops a post in here*

Already, Orca was developing an understanding of cause and effect. If she wiggled her legs around and exposed her belly, she got kisses -- as was proved by the gentle nuzzle given to her by her big cousin. She didn't know who he was, aside from his smell -- which was still relatively unfamiliar -- but she giggled nonetheless, pleased with the touches that had been delivered to her tummy.

She continued to work her legs in small circles, her mouth opening and closing to wordlessly express her delight. Unlike some of her siblings -- ahem, Titmouse, ahem -- she was not quite as vocally demanding.

Eljay giggled at the pup's response as he nosed her stomach. "This one's so cute," he said, feeling a bit more at ease being here with Raven than when he'd come in and talked to mommy. He had felt so posessive over mommy then, and had felt like he was losing her to these new pups. But with Raven it was different, because it reminded him that they weren't really mommy's pups... But whose were they, really, and what would they grow up believing?

He looked up from the tummy-nuzzles to look at Raven and asked thoughtfully and hesitantly, "Do you... Who do you think the puppies will think is their mommy when they get older?" Everyone should have a mommy, but he didn't feel too comfortable thinking of his own mommy as theirs. It made him feel guilty to think of wanting to deny these adorable little beanbags a mommy, but he'd already had to miss her for so much of his life.

The Gamma felt a tickle and looked down to see the future Phox mouthing her leg. Assuming he was in search of a teat, she gently guided him toward one, giving him a quick lick to encourage him to eat. Her yellow eyes then drifted upward at Eljay's question. She felt a pain stab through the center of her chest and she swallowed. He hadn't meant anything by it, she knew, but it reminded Raven that they didn't have a mother anymore. They didn't have a father either. All of them—herself included—were technically orphans.

"Fox is their mommy," she replied in a quiet, melancholic voice. "We'll make sure they know all about her and dad. Your parents and me, we're going to raise them but we're not going to pretend we're their parents." They hadn't actually talked about this—everything was still so fresh and raw—but Raven knew her godparents wouldn't attempt to mislead the puppies. Sure, they would be too young to understand at first but when they grew up a little and started to talk, their first words wouldn't be things like mommy and daddy but Unc'a El, Aun' Flea and Wave instead.

It didn't take much to convince Fidget to eat. As soon as he was placed near the wonderful source of food, he began to feed greedily, sucking down the milk and kneading his wet nurse's belly. He'd grown more and more used to the vibrations that the food source sometimes emitted, and he had come to find them comforting. In a matter of mere minutes, he was fast asleep, all four legs twitching in his sleep.

Eljay felt like he had made a mistake when Raven said that Fox was their mommy. Of course Fox was their mommy. He hadn't meant to imply otherwise, but when he heard Raven talk realised that what he had said might've implied differently. "Sorry, I mean, of course Fox is their mommy — I didn't mean to imply that, uhm..." he murmured and trailed off, feeling a little embarrassed. He also hadn't meant to imply that Raven and mommy would do anything but tell the pups the truth when they were a bit older. He just wondered what the pups would think, but he supposed it didn't matter much so long as they'd be told a different story.

Eljay watched the one puppy as it fed and then seemed to drift off into a peaceful sleep, thoughtful and silent, and feeling a little awkward about what he had said before. He wished that there was some way he could help and console Raven. To lose one's mommy seemed impossibly painful to him and he wasn't so sure he would be able to get over it if it would happen to him. He wanted to let her know that she could talk about it if she wanted to and that he felt for her and wanted to be there for her, but he just couldn't find the words to say it.

She knew he hadn't meant anything by it, so it was easy for Raven to reassure, "It's okay, Eljay, I know," even though his question had made her a little bit sad. To distract herself (and him), she suddenly grabbed at the scrawny rabbit he had brought and began to eat it, shooting him grateful looks between bites. She had to force it down at first but soon she was greedily cleaning the bare bones.

"Thanks, Eljay, I needed that," Raven said when she was done. She pushed the rinds away toward the den's mouth, then shifted a little to stretch out on her side and make herself more readily available to the hungry pups. "Do you think you could keep an eye on them for a little bit while I take a nap?" she asked the sitter even as her cheek came to rest on the floor. So great was her trust in Eljay and his answer that she fell asleep before waiting for a reply.

He was glad that she wasn't mad at him, and nodded when she asked him to keep an eye on the pups while she slept. "Of course!" he promised readily, and he smiled at Raven. He loved spending time with the pups, so it was no problem at all to watch over them while Raven and mommy caught some z's.