Ankyra Sound crush the fears of yesterday

i t’ink it be time to call for ‘im. sobeille remarked to @Treepie one hazy afternoon, watching smoke collect along the grey horizon.

she’d named the three of them at last. @Mirelyn, named for rosalyn and her maman. @Cairos, named to honor both of her grandmamans, and @Chireille, carrying chani’s remembrance and ajei’s spirit in each breath she drew.

but little mirelyn troubled sobeille. the girl had not gotten better, despite triaging between the three women that still remained. sobeille’s lengthy education with herbal plants did not account for the fragility her daughter displayed, a shortcoming that both frustrated the proud ankyran and filled her with dread.

she remembered @Etienne tending to her maman, and watched treepie somberly as the two cubs explored the sand while the other seemed to walk on eggshells.

she resolved that the drop would decide worthiness at some point, but she wondered — could mirelyn’s body even withstand the tide?

at five weeks of age, chireille was insatiable. her new eyes gave her newfound goals. her opened ears fed a newfound curiosity. and her newly unfolded, devastatingly uncoordinated legs lent her increasing mobility. 

she ignored the murmur of adult voices, having already learned the virtue of tuning them out. her sights rested on cairos, measuring the distance between her teeth and his body; some ancient instinct compelled her to lodge her teeth along his soft skin, informing her the act would be rewarding. that same instinct forbade her to interact with the squally screamy sibling currently protected under the aegis of their maman’s shadow. 

calculating (incorrectly) her tottering trajectory, chireille rose from the sand and tried to climb atop her brother.

Sobeille watched the smoky horizon and Treepie watched Sobeille, at least when she wasn’t gazing fondly at the pups trundling about in the sand. She had been adrift the day she’d run into the laboring woman but every day spent in her company—and her offspring’s—tied her more tightly to the little family. She loved the little ones dearly and knew her feelings for their anaa deepened every day. As she admired her in profile, it occurred to Tiuttuk that perhaps she should tell her.

Hmmm? she hummed distractedly when that familiar voice broke through the relative quiet of the hazy day, her equally hazy eyes clearing as Sobeille’s meaning landed. Oh, Etienne? she surmised, ears flicking.

Would he still be nearby? Was he possibly within earshot? Pie supposed they could start by calling for him. If he didn’t respond, she would track him down for Sobeille, just as she would do anything the woman asked of her. She would definitely dispatch Wyvern to search from an eagle eye view, as it were. Etienne would’ve surely healed by now, though it still seemed in poor taste to sic a hawk on him.

Torn between inspecting the smoky sky with twitching nostrils or inspecting the sand underfoot with an overly eager mouth, Cairos was oblivious to his sister's bumbling approach. Like Chireille, he was held back from interacting overly much with Mirelyn by an unknown force deep within himself. Unlike Chireille, his focus was too easily drawn to his surroundings and not to sharpening his skills against his less frail sibling.

The boy had just decided to turn his questing nose up into the acrid breeze when she stumbled into him. His jaws clapped like the claws of the crab for which he was nicknamed as he whirled around, but he overshot Chireille by a mile and tumbled over, flinging gritty sand every which way. Itchy grains found his fresh young eyes and he screwed them shut against the assault, shrieking with all of a toddler's righteous fury right in his sister's face.

drawing her yellow eyes across treepie’s face, sobeille momentarily sensed an uncrossable distance. that gulf quickly dematerialized as treepie seemed to come back to the present. a quiet voice inquested in the back of her mind: where did you go?

yes, etienne. sobeille confirmed as a toddler brawl broke out between her two more hale cubs. sweeping her gaze over each of them and performing a mental checklist (all two eyes accounted for? check. all four limbs? check. no blood? check)

i don’t think it’s getting better. came the ankyran’s quiet report, wondering if treepie had ever seen something like this in her days back in the moontribes.

oblivious to the gravity enshrouding both adults, chireille focused her sights on her brother. 

bumbling into him with the same enviable grace as a zamboni performing ballet routines, chireille’s clambering atop him halted as an ear piercing shriek loosened from the pile of flesh beneath her feet. 

the hell was that? she froze mid-epic clamber, tilting her head to one side then the next, ears flopping as his face leered into his. 

two could play that game. chireille had yet to be indoctrinated into the righteous misandry of her mother’s culture, but she wasn’t about to be outmatched. taking in a large gulp of air, chireille lent her own voice to the caterwauling at a volume she believe bested her brother’s.

There wasn’t time to do much more than register Sobeille’s confirmation before the pups stole their attention. Treepie also performed a quick, entirely silent assessment, deciding it was fair play. Her sunny gaze flicked back to their mother’s face as Sobeille made a cryptic comment.

Pie knew exactly what she meant. She knew Alaric would’ve helped in a heartbeat, though he was a stranger to Sobeille. If she wanted Etienne to come meet her pups and check up on Miralyn, then Tiuttuk certainly wouldn’t try to convince her otherwise.

Let’s try calling for him then. Think they’ll try to join in? she said, nodding her head toward the hollering Cairos and Chireille.

She grinned impishly at the rollicking pair, then approached their more aloof sister with soft footsteps. Tiuttuk bent down and nuzzled the crown of her head, a familiar and grounding touch between a caretaker and her charge. She then lowered her lips to the youngster’s ear.

Want to sing, Mirelyn?