Lost Creek Hollow great, i'd like your $8-est bottle of wine please

it was a new day since his birthing, and the pudgy little man wasn't entirely pleased with how things had gone. his mother had slapped an eviction notice to his forehead and then swiftly ejected him onto his plump rear end. not only had he lost his warm little apartment, but he also had to make the active decision to eat. what the fuck? who decided this was the best way to go? being fed without having to actually move had truly been the lap of luxury, and aengus found himself feeling like the guy who'd won the lottery and then lost everything due to one poor choice.

with a squeak, the dark child stretched his stubby limbs outward and jammed his toes into whoever was beside him. with a satisfied sigh, he held this position until his arms felt like they'd had a good stretch. once he'd finished, he relaxed and inched his way toward his mother's milk factory.

Bat went right to work. She wasn't a hunter by trade, though her small game skills were passable and it seemed like the directest way to give back. Each and every kill, from the plump field mouse to the decidedly less plump ground squirrel, was dropped off in the hollow's caches. She only ate one out of every few kills to keep herself sustained. Every time she made a deposit, some of the guilt lifted from her shoulders.

She knew about the new pups in a vague sort of way, though Bat didn't dare think she was welcome to pay them a visit. She did want to bring this fat rabbit to the nursing mother, though, and came close enough to hear and smell the goings-on at the den. Bat's left ear twitched in response to a loud squeak and she smiled around the carcass dangling from her mouth.

if aengus was capable of it, he would have fixed bat with the cheesiest and dumbest grin before winking and offering a sort-of, 'hey there, toots,' kind of look. instead, the boy was lacking in the smooth moves department. he was nothing more than a fat potato of a child with some nubbins that barely assisted him in puttering around the den site.

as though she was missing out on his great show of manners and charm, aengus piped up loudly. he threw back his wobbly head and squeaked into the darkness of the birthing den. even in his youthful age, he could smell the strength of the blood in the prey animal. then, the boy placed his sharp claws against his mother's stomach and began to wiggle violently.

there's a lady in here, mom! she needs to know how cute i've gotten!

Liffey was busy fussing over Eshe when Aengus's squeaks took her attention. She glanced down at him and then up at the mouth of her den, breathing in deep to move past the scent of herself and Rannoch and their children and find strangeness. Someone was out there. Someone she didn't know.

The mother bristled. She moved deftly to step around her kids towards the mouth of the den. She spotted the girl's face and let out a fierce snarl, snapping her jaws just inches from her nose in a warning to get the fuck away. It didn't matter to Liffey if this was a packmate or a child or a well-wisher just intending to offer food. She didn't know her face, so Liffey was going to bite it off if it didn't evacuate the vicinity of her home quickly enough.

The smile vanished when a bristling den mother appeared. When she snapped at Bat, complete with a fierce snarl, the yearling promptly dropped the rabbit, spun and left. She didn't even bother saying sorry, just hoping that the gift was well-received even if her presence wasn't.

the tension in the room could be felt in every hair on his round potato body. he might not have understood what was going on, or that he was essentially being cockblocked by his own mother, but he knew that something had upset her based solely on the tension. aengus lifted his weak head, as though he was attempting to reach out to bat and beg her to stay. if he had his sights, he would have batted his pretty little baby blues at her and serenaded her sweetly into coming back to their den.

instead, he released a squeal that could have broken the sound barrier. his nubbin arms moved a few inches before he got tired of all that. tentatively, he drew his bobble head up and squeaked for his mother to rescue him; he'd wiggled a bit too far from her side and damn the world was cold.

The girl got the message. Liffey glared as she dropped whatever she'd been carrying and booked it without a word of protest. She didn't drop her guard until the stranger was well out of sight, and even then she felt tense as she stepped forward to snatch up the rabbit and turned to creep back into her den.

She set the carcass on the ground and slipped back into her usual position, curled around her little potatoes. As calm began to return, she did start to feel a little bad about the stranger. She'd clearly been young and obviously very naive. There was a far gentler way to have taught her that you didn't come near the den of a mother you don't know and her newborn children, but Liffey supposed the message had been received anyway and that was what mattered in the end. Lessons learned, and she could actually apologize later.

"Where are you running off to, little boy," Liffey murmured as she planted a few soft kisses on Aengus's head. She glanced over at the rabbit and decided to pull it over until it laid right alongside him. She wanted to see what he would make of this new thing. She wasn't particularly hungry quite yet, and she was content to let him play with her food until she wanted it.

yeah, it’s a little late mom… you already chased off the sweet girl with your nasty snapping and snarling. it wasn’t like you just had a bunch of kids or anything. god, you don’t need to cramp your boy’s style the minute he flies out of your womb. at least let him get a running start before you crush his hopes and dreams of scoring some bonding time with a foreign pretty lady.
 
though his sense of smell was not entirely perfect, he definitely caught that there was something wack as fuck in their den. the rabbit was unlike anything he’d ever gotten a whiff of. sure, sometimes sionnach could get stinky… but that was because she was a lumpy little girl and she couldn’t even like bathe herself yet. all that was fine and dandy. aengus was quick to get used to the smell of his siblings and parents in their little slice of seclusion.
 
the rabbit, though. that was like a sensory overload from god himself. the boy was quick to scramble over the dead animal with feverish delight. his sharp little claws allowed him to move across the carcass with ease. all the while, aengus drank up the smell of that sweet prey.

Liffey was unaware of the great opportunity she had forced her son to lose out on, so she merely smiled as he became distracted by the rabbit and began to crawl all over it. She thought of Breccan as she watched him. Her eldest son had been tiny like this once before too, but now he was grown and was able to catch rabbits like this one all on his own. One day, Aengus would be grown too. All of them would. It made her sad and wistful already.

Maybe her hormones hadn't quite settled yet.

"You're a fan of rabbit, aren't you?" Liffey cooed as she watched him, dropping her head down between her paws. There wasn't much she could do to try and play with him while he explored her dinner, but she was content to remain just like this.

aengus couldn’t even come close to understanding the strange flurry of emotions that had possessed his mother. he was nowhere near as emotionally competent as she was, and he had experienced far less in his life than she had. if he had known better, the boy would have tried his best to ease the flash of sadness that had washed over her. he would have told her that there was nothing to worry about. as grown as he might have been able to be, she would always be his mother.
 
instead, he was way too fucking pleased with the rabbit that she had let him play with. her sweet coos fell on completely deaf ears, but if she couldn’t tell that he was pleased by the squeals of delight that filled their family den, nothing else would have given it away. the boy pressed his paws against the rabbit and pushed as hard as his nubbins could push.

hell yeah i'm a fan of rabbit, mom.

Liffey smiled at his little squeaks and grumbles as he explored Mount Bunny. She wondered what was going on through his little head. What did he think he was climbing? What was it he enjoyed most about this new terrain he was exploring? She reached over to prod at the rabbit, noticing the softness of its fur and appreciating it in a way she never had before. She'd eaten thousands of rabbits in her life. Had their skins all been this soft?

She scootched a little closer and reached for the rabbit's ear. She guided it towards Aengus's face with her nose and gently brushed the tip of his muzzle with it. Just for fun.

while his mother may have blocked his only means of chasing tail at such a young age, she had provided him with something much greater. the rabbit was about the grandest adventure he could have asked for at such a young age. the dark boy wiggled over top of it and buried his nose into the plush fur that lined the animal's back. he wondered if he would have been able to drink from this creature too, though he knew it was not his mother. opening his mouth, aengus gummed at the rabbit for a moment before he realized that there was nothing substantial happening with it. then, he turned his little head and squeaked for his mother. he missed her warmth and he missed the food she had provided him. it was in this moment that she had moved to tickle his face with the rabbit's ear. he felt the soft tickle of hair on his snoot and sneezed the loudest sneeze that a child could have possibly made. he then reared his head back and opened his mouth, but no sound came out. in his mind, he was roaring like a mighty lion.

Aengus seemed pleased with the rabbit, or pleased with himself. She couldn't exactly tell, but it made her happy nonetheless. She giggled at his sneeze and the expression on his little face that followed. He would be such a handsome prince, just like his big brother. Just like his littermate. Just like his sisters would grow into lovely little princesses like her older girls had. Her children were all royalty in her eyes, and she would raise them as such. 

But even little princes needed their faces cleaned up and snuggles inflicted sometimes. With a soft, cooing growl, Liffey leaned over and ran her tongue soothingly across her son's face and down along his spine. She pulled him gently over to her and smushed him up next to Eshe, who had moved to cuddle into the crook of her arm. "That's enough exploring for one day, my little scout," she said softly as she nuzzled him and attempted to soothe him into sleep.

the warmth of her tongue was like a stun grenade against the adventurous young boy. the moment that she washed it over his face and down his back, aengus had fallen still and quiet. he pushed himself against the touch of her so that he could hog up as much of it as possible. really, he wasn't all that interested in sharing the attention with his siblings. when liffey scooted him to the crook of her arm and up against his sister, the little bull poked at eshe with his nose and then yawned a wide yawn. his body was tired and he was ready to fall into the arms of a deep sleep. in a matter of moments, he had done just that.