Stone Circle Little hawk

@Swift sleeps. He seems so profoundly in love with the act of it. His world is simple and peaceful. His breaths ride the momentum of dreams, his little limbs give an occasional kick to her side. In the preceding hours she’d held him all through Gunnar’s funeral. He’s learned so much- but not about death. When is old enough to learn of such things? Tauris didn’t know. She didn’t understand herself what happens when someone goes. She found the idea of her beloved’s body corroding beneath the stones deeply sad.

No. He is too young. Better that he embark on this journey through cosmic time and space. She does not wake him, but rests her crown against the length of his body, where every subsequent kick is a gift of life.

It was his young and simple mind that made his world so peacefully simple. While his mother and the rest of the pack grappled with tragedy and the love-with-nowhere-to-go that was grief, Swiftlet's concerns remained basic and unchanged. He slept because he was tired, and when he stirred awake to find his mother curled around him, he greeted her with rascally paws that mashed against her lips as he announced his next and most predictable concern.

I'm hungry.

She catches a kick in her maw, pinching one black toe with the tops of her fangs and raising her lips in mock-annoyance.

“Me too, kid,” a groan evolves into a lengthy stretch as she reaches to capture her son between two forearms and pull him close to see into his handsome little face. His eyes are soulful and piercing green like his father’s now.

“You’re old enough to hunt. What’s for breakfast?”

Not my toes. He told her accusingly, keeping his paws drawn close.

For a real answer though he had to have a think, catching his tongue between his teeth as it jutted out of his mouth in concentration. Swiftlet had yet to meet an animal he didn't like the taste of. That was to say, he had yet to determine a favorite food that would have made for an easy suggestion.

There was one thing, however, that he hadn't tasted but wanted to. I know! He said, alighting on this idea. There's this weird rock. Down by the water. It moved and looked at me funny. I tried to get it but I didn't. We should go find it. His tail wagged, drumming his mother's limbs.

“Mmm rock,” her smile glints in answer, but her ears perk at the oddity, having observed turtles at the river before though never had the mind to hunt them. She butts at his side and pulls herself up out of the warmth of Tréheim into the new coolness of autumn.

“Been dying to try that. Lead the way,” she gestures, waiting for her son to cut their path and blinking the weariness from her eyes.

Swiftlet bounded off with his mother in tow, leading her as the crow flies to the water’s edge. Trails and easier paths be damned, if there were thickets he plunged on through them, twigs and branches raking his coat into further disarray.

Saw it here last time, he announced as they arrived, slipping to his stomach on the bank with his paws curled around its edge. He peered into the water intently, into the muck where the rock had blinked up at him and scuttled off after. His tail wagging slowed as he saw nothing.

He looked at his mother. What do moving rocks eat?

Downed leaves crunch under soft footfalls as the nornir lets her chin hover over the rise beside her son.

“Turtles," she gives him an adoring look, "and I don’t know.” Her brow puzzles over the set of her eyes. By now Swift may have realized that this mother made for a pretty poor huntress and the support of the pack had spoiled her skills but she was determined not to muddy his view of her.

“Seas weeds, perhaps.” She had no honest idea but it sounded sensible. “Maybe rowanberries, let's lay a trap,” she suggests, easing back off the bank to have a look about.

Yes! That’s what I was thinking too. A turtle trap! Swift’s tail beat furiously as he gazed at his mother. That she had the same idea as him pleased him, and though he would never tell her, he felt proud of himself over it too.

Excited, the young Redhawk spared no moment in turning from the bank and bounding off again like a little deer, calling over his shoulder for his mother to help him find the berries, weeds, and anything else that might tempt the rock turtle into revealing itself.

Let’s meet back at river! Last one there loses and has to… stick their whole head in the water and blow bubbles!