Stavanger Bay fragments of your lost soul scattered across an endless galaxy

Qilaq spent a lot of time by herself, even in the company of Amayo and Appeh, and now is no different. She's struggled here and there, especially lately with the growth of her teeth, and finding a loose tooth when eating. The urge to chew and bite and tug frequents her, taking longer to chew her meat if only to enjoy the weird sensation of wiggling teeth. Sometimes it feels like there simply isn't enough room to fit them all as her adult teeth push out the babies ones but for now the girl is relatively content flicking her tongue on the side of a premolar having been loose for two days now. 

She lays, lower half sprawled out and the front half hunched around a long bone between her front paws. The head of the joint is missing and shards off to the side where she's spit a few out but the rest end up ingested. Her head is turned so that most of the pressure comes from the wiggling tooth, pushing on the nerves in her jaw to ease the tension of her mouth.

Doe has no way to know that her girl is teething. She's never had pups before, and hasn't been around them since she herself had been small. Vaguely, she remembers the ache in her gums, but it isn't something she can see in Quill and identify as easily as that. When she sees the teeth, she'll know, but for now it just looks like the girl is having a good chew, and if there's anything Doe understands, it's that.

"Hello, lamb," she says as she approaches, staying a respectful distance from the child's possession. Even as Atoll, she sees no reason to overstep such boundaries. Even with a child, there is such thing as respect. "Do you want to do something fun?" she asks, not really sure what it is they might do. For although she cannot really remember losing her puppy teeth, she does remember the endless boredom of her youth, and her constant wish that someone big would take notice of her, and take her on one of the adventures they always seemed to be on.

As a child, she'd had this feeling mostly with Riverbone, strong and courageous. The closest facsimile here would be Skellige or Szymon, as alpha and father-figure, respectively, but Doe figured she would have to do. Szymon would doubtlessly interact with her some other time, and Skellige... Well, she would have to do.

The pressure of the bone against her tooth is a weird mix of pain and satisfaction and the harder she pushed, the better and worse it feels. Qilaq groans and quietly whines with each movement but she gnaws until it loosens even more. It doesn’t completely wiggle free from the grasp her gums have on it but it definitely moves even more now than it had before. There’s a tinge of blood now and her tongue pushes against it when her jaws release the bone from her chewing.

Qilaq turns her head when Doe approaches but keeps her distance. Her head tilts to the side, temporarily forgetting the bone in her grasp and letting it go entirely. She stands, tall, and nothing but heavy puppy on legs that should probably have branches of their own. The girl swings back, remembering the bone she’d just had, and grips it beneath her teeth. It teases the loose molar, wiggling as she grinds it beneath her grasp that unknowingly  smears a little blood along the shaft, but she quickly jerks her head and tosses it the distance between them to see what Amayo might do with it.

The bone lands at her paws, milk-white and tinged pink with her pack-daughter's blood. Two small somethings click within her mind. First, she connects the chosen activity to the cutting of adult teeth. Next - and almost before she knows it - she is standing on the same shore, only as it was months before, and she is watching Shink be swept into the deep blue maw of the sea.

Seconds tick by, her breath comes faster - but she returns to her body and to the present day, and the bone is just a bone. Doe picks it up and pats the ground with her paws before prancing a few steps away, holding the prize up above Quill's head - although, the girl has enough legs now that even a little leap would bring her up past that level.

Knowing this, she lowers herself once more, flopping over to one side and leaning back on an elbow. The bone rests between her paws, and her hooded eyes sparkle mischievously as she watches for the daughter's approach.

As the bone lands between them, her greying eyes focus on it. As the seconds went by and nothing happened, she will occasionally flicker her gaze upward at the larger female. Her tail waves slowly back and forth, similar to a cat, and her front half lowers to the ground in preparation for what is to come. Eventually, Amayo scoops it up playfully and holds it above her, where her back legs propel her forward without really being prepared. 

Her limbs come out from beneath her and where she should have been able to grasp it, she hits the sandy ground instead. Qilaq picks herself up, covered in dirt and sand, and she turns to find her bone still in Amayo's grasp but this time between her paws. Without fully getting ready, Qilaq launches forward with a high pitched battlecry to retrieve her bone.

This isn't what she had in mind, but in Doe's eyes, a good came of keep-away is always fun. She'll go easy on the girl, of course, but that doesn't mean she can't test Quill's mettle.

She's surprised when Quill forgoes finesse and simply barrels toward her - it is not Doe's way, after all, and she knows no other - but seeks to counter the attack as quickly as possible. Of course, when long-legged pups are involved, 'as quickly as possbile' is never fast enough. The war-cry of her girl draws an excited, gleeful meep from the woman as she recieved a chest-full - and a mouthful, by Doe's nature - of determined baby girl. (She's not a baby any more, but Doe will maybe always see her that way.)

Fastening her mouth around whatever part of Qilaq is convenient, Doe gives a gentle shake and tries to locate the bone, having lost track of it in all the commotion. If she can distract the girl long enough to regain control of it, maybe she can still steer this toward her pack-daughter's gentle defeat. If not, she might have to endure a defeat of her own.

"A-ha!" she says, triumphant as she catches sight of a white-and-pink blur. At once, her grip on the girl releases as she tries to go for the utterly useless prize.

By the time she collides with Amayo, she doesn't know where the bone is and temporarily forgets it. She scrambles around to get back on her feet but she's held back by a gentle grip on the fur of her shoulder. The girl growls and snaps her head up, trying to free herself so she can find what she's looking for (what, at this point, may have been forgotten). Her attempt to get away doesn't cease, however, and she tries to grab on to the nearest thing she can reach. Teeth snap on to nothing but air and her failed attempts come to a stop just as she's let go. 

Amayo's voice catches her attention a little too late and the woman is ahead of her by the time her own gaze fixes on the bone. Remembering what she's been after this whole time, she kicks her legs into gear and tails along behind. The loose ground beneath her feet does little to help send her forward enough to gain the distance she needs to get there first.

I forgot I was editing this! Sorry!

With little thought for the young girl behind her, and most of her attentions focused on the goal of winning, Doe leapt forward, kicking up sand in her wake. She fell on her prize with abandon and paraded it brazenly before the dark-phase youth.

Take that! her eyes seemed to say, the yellow dancing merrily in the bright rays of sunlight.

Maybe she shouldn't have been so proud to have beaten a child - and perhaps the battle was not yet won - but Doe had never been known for her wisdom or humilty.

Amayo gets ahead of her, crashing down upon the bone before sweeping it up. Qilaq isn't close enough to snatch it away before it's out of reach and she doesn't rush for it and a haphazard attempt to take it. Instead, she slows to a stop and stares as she's taunted, Amayo parading it around as if a prize taken away from her. It had been her bone, she'd been chewing on it, and just because she'd flung it toward her didn't mean the other gets to keep it. It is still Qilaq's and she wants it back.

Probably more than she's ever wanted anything.

Irritation sounds in her throat as she flashes a set of still sharp canines with another blunt set of them poking through the gum line. Far from fully grown in, but enough to cause a nuisance, and added to the fact her toy has been taken doesn't settle well. Her growl continues upon her approach before she takes an unplanned run and jump for what is rightfully hers.

Crap post I'm sorry

Doe did not miss the calculating look in the girl's eyes - and deciding that things were better off left at a truce than victory on either end, she decided to drop the bone and offer it to the girl. She was not, however, in time to stop herself from being pounced upon.

Growling playfully, the woman gave herself up to the half-grown pup's whims.

She isn't quite fast enough to stop the impact as the bone hits the ground, but as they come together with playful growls, Qilaq loses herself in the moment anyway. She slathers a few long licks across her face before the realization seeps in and she's jumping off and away. There's a greater distance between them as her nose touches the ground, moving to and fro for the thing she most desires. When her nose bumps into it before her eyes find it, she snatches it up into her muzzle and darts off toward the mouth of the den for safe keeping.