Sun Mote Copse Starting from zero got nothing to lose

Attn: @Phox, @Alyx, @Quetzal @Primrose Redhawk

There was a fair breeze, but it was still warm and in the afternoon Bronco had had to find some time to sit down and really scratch in order to get rid of his winter coat which was beginning to fall out in big puffs of cream fur. It was mostly the soft underwool that seemed to be shedding- and it was his first time shedding, which he found to be ridiculously uncomfortable. He rubbed himself against trees, scooted his butt along the ground, rolled, and grabbed whatever tuft of loose fur he could and pulled it out just to get rid of the itch. Pine trees seemed to be the best, with their rough bark- but he had to be careful not to rub against one that was leaking sap. 

He'd managed to get rid of a fair bit of loose fur by the time the sun peaked and began to make its way toward the Western horizon, so he decided to stop in and see his mom, and have a look at the puppies. Still, he mostly spent his time at the den's entrance acting as a silent guardian, or hunting or guarding so that he was useful, but he had yet to spend much quality time with the newest members of his family. 

He greeted his mother from the den's mouth, and was slightly surprised when she invited him in. Her eyes were watchful, but warm. He knew not to reach out to any of the pups- she'd mostly just invited him in to see them, not to handle them, so he looked at them with a soft, gentle gaze. They were so much smaller than Meerkat, still- but no less amazing. A bit frightening, considering their tiny size, but in the silence, he was content to sit and watch as they suckled at his mother's side, three soft, round little bundles of fur.

Four days since impact.

An outside observer might conclude that life was terribly dull for a four-day-old wolf cub, but for Alyx, it was plenty eventful. She'd already learned what it felt like to be hungry, to be cold, and to have a tummy ache. She knew how it felt to be stung by a bee, and the hot, painful swelling of her flesh in response, a telltale indication that little Alyx was probably mildly allergic to bees. She knew how to produce a high-pitched cry when she was dissatisfied, a low keening sound when she was only a little unhappy, and a variety of crooning whimpers when she was pleased.

You could say that Alyx was working very hard, indeed, to adapt to this new life. Already she'd put on over a pound, literally doubling in weight since her birth, though she'd also lost a bit of water weight in the process. Her senses of touch and smell were much stronger already; she could tell when Lumps 1 and 2 were touching her and when they weren't and she could sometimes catch snatches of the early spring scents from outside. When this happened, she would crane her wobbly head and sniff with interest.

Kind of like right now. She couldn't see or hear Bronco creeping into the den, but she could smell him, aided by his rapidly shedding fur. Alyx lifted her head as best she could, using her scrawny forelegs to leverage herself further, and sniffed in her older brother's direction with an inquisitive mewl.

Primrose was always close to his siblings, never straying more than a centimeter far. When they wiggled, he wiggled. When they lifted their heads, he lifted his head. As far as he was concerned, they were more akin to personal heaters than siblings...

So when Alyx lifted her head, Primrose just about had it and did the same. He tried to keep firmly pressed to her but as a four day old potato his mobility was terrible, and he ended up tipping over and falling full weight into her. The sudden movement, as well as being tipped displeased him.

So as always: he cried.

They were so small, Bronco wasn't sure exactly how they could move around. He watched them, for a few moments, enamoured by their very existance. He looked up to see his mother smiling at him, and he went to smile in return- but realized he already was. 

"What...Do they generally do?" He asked. 
"Eat, sleep, poop, puke and cry," His mother answered, honestly. "They need body heat; they can't go far from me, or your f-" She stopped herself, bewildered by how oddly simple it was to associate the birth of one batch of children with the birth of her previous litter- regardless of who their father was. They were all hers. "Phox." There was a silence between them for a few moments. Bronco felt slightly uncomfortable that his mother had nearly called Phox "Your father" to him. Weakly, she sought to remedy the blunder. "Baby brain. It's a real thing." She said as a lame attempt at an excuse, which puzzled Bronco who had no idea what that meant. 

The pups seemed to sense that something was different, and he watched as one of the twins stirred, lifting her head, whch she then pointed in his direction. "Woah!" he exclaimed softly, but as soon as his fascination was piqued by the puppy that seemed interested in his presence, the pale one began to cry. He tumbled to the side as his sister moved, and Bronco winced- even though a puppy who could hardly raise itself couldn't really fall far enough to hurt itself. He fretted as the wailing continued- though his mother sighed softly, and reached over to try and soothe the wailing boy with sweeping licks of her warm tongue. 

"Is he...OK?" He asked tentatively. 
"....He always cries," Came her tired response. She caught Bronco's worried reaction and shook her head. "Some babies just do. He's...Just difficult. And some babies don't...Thrive, like others do." She said, with some trepidation in her voice. The girls had had what she had seen as being fairly regular problems- aside from the bee sting, which had been traumatic enough. But they did everything she knew pups did, regularly...But her little son did not seem to be thriving as much as the girls, and it worried her. She wasn't prepared to potentially lose a puppy. 
"He'll be OK though, Mom," Bronco offered, though there was a frailty in his tone. He willed the boy to stop crying, to start eating or do something that indicated that he would grow and develop and thrive just like his sisters, but there wasn't much he could do aside from watch his mother tend to her worrisome child.

One minute, she was investigating the new smell in the den, complete with the tang of young spring grass which was especially exciting, and the next, she had a faceful of Primrose. Her brother unbalanced himself and immediately squashed her, although they weren't all that different in size. It really didn't hurt, but Alyx wasn't about to admit that.

First she grunted and squirmed beneath him, but then she realized she could no longer lift her head or smell anything but him, and that was when she began to get fussy. Fussier than usual, at least.

Alyx did what Alyx does best in these moments: she screeched and began hammering Primrose with her fists paws.