Hideaway Strath we call ships 'she'

open for parents & sibs. i'll probably keep this short as mulberry can't do much but i didn't want to get swept by the checker, kek.

with the exception of being birthed — an experience she has already forgotten as she settles comfortably into her new routine of life — mulberry's existence has been ...uneventful. she still lingers in a world of oilslick colors with eyes still closed and a quiet life; unable to hear the mewls and cries of her or her brothers. her sense of smell is weak still but not so weak as to not find her the source of sweet mothers' milk when her stomach begins to rumble and her instincts push her to sate it.

there is, too, a vague sense of her own body; and that of her mother's: warm and plush and comfortable — and the plump others she is aware of and belatedly acknowledges only when they move ( or when she wiggles a bit away ).

It was the little things, the little things that pulled him. Like Mulberry and Thyme, little Turmeric could neither see nor hear, and what he could smell was very meagre, at best. But he felt, and he tasted, and the wonders of these consumed his waking hours. When he crawled, he felt around, kneading his mother's stomach, feeling the difference between her and his siblings, feeling the difference between them and the packed earth of the tunnel's ground. When he fed, he ate slowly, his tongue lapping about the warm milk and experiencing the flavours that burst through his mouth.

When he didn't crawl and didn't feed, he tasted other things - the stone, the dirt, his sibling's fur. While Mulberry fed, Turmeric had turned away to face the wall opposite his mother's belly. But he was still very close to his siblings - yet even still, when a furry thing smelling of sister - maybe - tickled his nose, Turmeric sneezed, and grasped, but could not grab - so he opened his mouth to feel for the furry nub with his tongue.

Mulberry's tail was about to get a full Turmeric wash.