Bearclaw Valley of anthedon ◍

A week after being lifted from the well, all he has is sleep—all he is is fragmentary. The dreams do not flow so much as storm. A typhoon of simplistic scenes, of voices, of faces, which he is not yet equipped to translate. Glaucos dreams of the sound of water rushing around him, and the comfort of the depths. The cold, but he has never experienced true cold—not yet.

He is nested between @Ikkalrok the mother and @Astyanax the brother, warm, much too warm for his own comfort. The heat of their too-close bodies makes his mind slip in to darkness. The water evaporates. There is the feeling of the den floor beneath him: coarse, solid, the antithesis of his dreamscape.

Forelimbs spasm one after the other, legs too; he flails like a sea turtle having finally dug its way out of the sand. A breaststroke that ought to carry him back to the cold—but he is unable to coordinate anything. His toes graze something small and wet and as he is drawn out of sleep and in to the waking darkness of the humid den, Glaucos wriggles himself close to his brother, shoving his face against the cold of his twin's little nose.

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Open to anyone that'd be allowed near!

His brother, too, sleeps a dreamless sleep, having found a warm spot against their mother's stomach, comfortable for the time being. He unconsciously fidgets and lets out small squeaks as he drifts in the endless yet familiar dark, mind forging new pathways as it becomes used to the concept of occupying and controlling a body - one that is suddenly yanked out of dormancy as something brushes against its nose.

Immediately the boy's face scrunches in discomfort, bothered by the flailing of the other whom he shared this space with. It would be days yet until he could see exactly who this was, and many more before he understood this was his brother, at the moment an exact mirror of himself. Yet, for the time being, he was nothing more than a nuisance that disturbed his slumber, and Astyanax expressed his distress via a loud cry whilst kicking his back legs clumsily, wanting the normalcy of just moments before to return.

The cry of his kin vibrates through him, but he does not heed it. If anything it urges him to work his little mouth with more fervour. The wetness satisfies something on the tip of his tongue. He squishes closer and the warmth of his saliva liberally coats his brother's face. The suckling begins in earnest after that. Hunger does not drive him to this attempt of drinking but rather, comfort does. It comforts him to do the instinctual thing, to create that warmth, and to imagine the thick warmth of milk sliding down his throat. The curious noises of Astyanax are muffled by Glaucos' greedy gums, and he does not taste the sweet milk, it has been replaced by lukewarm brine-flavoured snot. Unpleasant.

His demands for this unpleasantness to cease are responded to with a more intense suckling sensation (now you know how poor Ikkalrok's teats feel, Astyanax). The boy's now stifled cries become louder still, and he struggles against his brother, tiny features crinkling in displeasure as drool slides from Glaucos' mouth and begins to drip down his muzzle, collecting in his own.

In his flailing, Astyanax manages to place his forelegs against his brother's chest, and with a gurgle, the boy shoves forward, hoping to rid the other from his space and gain the ability to breathe properly again.

An audible pop punctuates Glaucos' untimely removal from his brother's face and with his head thrown back, his saliva gathers at the back of his throat. He chokes for a few desperate moments until he rights himself, with most of it having filled his sinuses and now dribbling out of his own nose; his breathing rasps, it does not feel particularly pleasant. He therefore begins to wail and punch the air, knocking at his brother's nearby chin.