Blackfeather Woods my sun and stars

primarily for @Astrid, but anyone welcome! (also, a lil pp.)

 

They cried, they pooped, they wriggled around, they ate and they slept. Besides that, there was not much of a variety to what her infant children could do. This concerned her. Did this mean they were, god forbid, below average? By now they should surely do something, anything, interesting. In other news, she was positive their eyes had come to, noticing how they navigated with what they saw rather than by her own directional ushering. This was both a blessing and a curse, for now that they knew where the exit was, one boy in particular would not stop trying to run away. 

Yet, she was not alone. Kove was just as active with their children as she and it brought her and odd joy to watch father and children interact, even if what they could do was rather limited. She longed for the day when they would run beside her, with the pack, and she would watch them grow into their own destinies.

For now, however, Astrid continued to scream in her ear.

The girl had lungs, a vocal range uncannily large for such a small girl; it seemed the high notes were her favorite. Astrid seemed by far the most mobile and the most pushy. Perhaps, it was a trait developed by Nemesis herself; she would deny it all the same. The dark woman watched the girl bully her brothers, and no matter whether intentional or not (she was sure the former,) it needed to be stopped. Nemesis pried the girl away from the rest, sitting her between the folds of her stretched out forelimbs. "You are going to be a nightmare as a teen," She sighed as she licked over the girl in a gentle preening. Children were so dirty. As she did so, she noticed, faintly, the hint of a galaxy of spots decorating the girl's bodice. It was extraordinary, a pattern that would forever remind her of the darkest night sky and the luminescent stars above. 

It was true- Astrid was quite mean to her siblings when it came to a spot at her mother's belly or any activity they had to do together. It was not because she wanted to be mean, she just hated not being the first. She felt superior- better than the other blobs. And it all proved to be true when, after screaming her lungs out, she was lifted into a space closer by mommy. Of course, she only saw the creature as the bringer of food, but still it brought her great honor. She stopped screaming, closing her bright blue eyes as it did something weird to her- something wet. 

As to escape whatever it was doing to her, she nuzzled into the chest fur of her mother- almost trying to go through the creature. 

Quite the opposite of his sister, Abraxas had grown to be silent, except for his random screeches that he seemed to emit at random. His ears had begun to unfold in the slightest, and on occasion, he would catch the odd noise. It would be a few more days until they were to be fully functional, but the male was growing fast, and remained a comfortably average size as compared to his siblings. Today, he started from his sleep by a noise, the sensation still uncannny. It was the screeching tone of one of his fellow blobs, coincidentally, the one who was at fault of the noise most of the time. 

He rolled away from the little pile of sleeping blobs he had collapsed beside, and blinked open his blue eyes, gaze falling on the shape of dark screeching blob and big milk-blob. Someday, he would come to know her as mother, but for now, she was defined only by her use, which was great. He stood, wobbling in the slightest, and slowly, trepidly, made his way to big milk-blob. He did not seem to comprehend the paw attached to the big leg in his way, and he hit it in his forward momentum, unsteady legs giving away as he plopped on his face. Upset at this turn of events, he gave an unhappy little sound that may have passed for a pathetic attempt at a growl.

After a moment of shrill cries in defiance, Astrid settled down and burrowed her way through Nemesis's fur as if the girl's mere force could burn a hole through her mother's chest. Yet, Nemesis did not make any attempt to move her, having had her in the prime position to preen the girl without much wiggle room. Her daughter's restless movement could only tell her one thing; the den was getting too small for the growing litter. She counted the days; the birth had been almost a month ago. Perhaps it was time. A nudge in her side turned her attention to the youngest, Abraxas and her eyes beamed. "Come," she beckoned to him, tugging lightly on his ear for him to join his sister as they ventured outside. But, she was careful. Astrid was beyond control, energy-wise, and she dark woman would not loose her daughter in the dark woods. Instead, she gripped the girl by the soft flesh of her neck and hoisted them both from the shadows of the den and into the world beyond. 

The air was chillier than she had anticipated, the warmth of several bodies had always kept them warm before. She imagined this would come a shock to the infants, yet the sooner they became independent, the better. Sitting down her daughter on the hard ground below, she surveyed the surrounding area of any sign of unwanted guests. She knew the rest would be eager to meet the next generation, but the dark woman knew to take it in steps. Instead, she invited @Damien and Damien alone to approach if he so wished; throwing her head back to beckon the fellow leader in a low call. 

With the amazing force of the greatest fluffball in the world she pushed into her mother's chest. Her forehead was put against it, her legs moving in a silly attempt at walking as she didn't go forward. The preening made her calm down just a little, but the real surprise was when she was picked up. A sound indicated that her thoughts were; "Vut the feck is happening" and she kicked the air as the air got colder. A shiver ran down her spine, all the way to her freckled behind, making her tail twitch in annoyance. She screamed her lungs out, DEMANDING to be let down on the ground like the other blob she saw moving. 

The change in air was not the only thing that surprised her so bad it became annoying- it was also that "out" here there was far more light and color. Her bright blue eyes moved over the longer blobs with greener blobs on top of it, scanning everything around her. Eventually, she was put down, and she crawled away as fast as she could- which wasn't as fast as she thought it was.

Squealing noises left her tiny mouth as she explored, not knowing her future husband had been summoned. 

A sharp tug on his ear had him up, he did not contest this but accepted the dark lumps actions silently. He was being persuaded to move, and yet, moving took effort and time, and he hesitated a moment before following at the big lump's side. Then they were out, a word the boy had no concept of, and unlike his horribly loud sister, he was still and silent as soon as he was out here.

Cerulean gaze crawling over everything, the cold causing him to shiver once in the newness of the sensation, but this whole new aspect of his tiny world instilled wonder in the boy, and he was unaware that his mouth dropped open as he gave a tiny gasp. Abraxas was obviously impressed, but quite content to stay here, near the entrance, and observe instead of interact with the newness.

He was awakened by the absence of his siblings and the being who fed them. Startled at this revelation, the by shot up, his eyes narrowing and widening as he struggled to comprehend the lack of spaces that formerly took up the den. Then, the fright came to him. He did not want to be without his mother, without the figure that had taken care of them since his memory could grasp. A mew escaped his mouth, and he shivered at the sound, and the blur of tears met his eyes. Thankfully, with much difficulty did he notice the figure of another lump sitting by the exit of the den, signalling to him that at least; he was not alone. 

But he wanted his mother.

With as much effort as he could, he shoved his way past his younger sibling, a cry escaping his mouth at the same time as his legs moved hurriedly in a wayward line towards the looming yet familiar figure of his mother. As he did, his mouth and tiny teeth grasped the ankle of his mother's hind leg, furiously biting as if never to let go. He didn't want to let go. This was his mother and he would never be separated from her again.

Hadn't it been for the absence of his silencer, Damien would have forgotten that the Dark Sister had recently given birth to her brood. She and Kove had been silent, busy perhaps, and Damien was doing what he could to fill the void that they had left to care for their young. But as much as they were theirs, the pups were Damien's too, or maybe more some kind of life insurance for Blackfeather Woods.

He would have wanted to meet them sooner, but he understood that newborns were too delicate for him to come snitching sooner than it was necessary. So he waited, and in time his co-leader called him over to see the future for the first time. He walked down to the glen with calm and silent steps, looking over what seemed to be a playground, full of life in a way he'd never seen. "Nem," he greeted, more warmly than he'd ever spoken to her. But his eyes did not linger on her for too long, for they were curious about the smaller forms squirming around their mother. One in particular caught his eye, the only one he could be sure was a female for the way she smelled, but mostly for her loud and demanding behavior.

Dreams of formless things filled his mind every night. Dreams of scents, of sounds and sensations. But those dreams often ended in a rather unpleasant way. This time, his pillow, which happened to be his older and most comfortable brother, forsook him in the most of unexpected of moments. His dreamy head fell down with a dry thud, and he jerked himself awake before crying in tantrum. He did not understand what was going on, but his instincts knew exactly what to do.

With heavy eyelids and still a long time left of sleep, the palest of the spiderlings crawled his way up to mommy, who had moved to a cold place for some reason. He rejected the cold, and curled himself in the warmest of his mother's side, whichever that was, before making one more attempt to return to his sweet dream.

As Damien arrived, Astrid escaped her hold, instantly taking to the exploration phase though some of her brothers became more timid in their approach. Yet, the girl was anything but timid and the dark woman let her go her own way.. within the bounds of course. "Damien," She greeted, and for the first time in quite a while her gaze was not met with a scowl. Both seemed to understand that their differences would be put aside in the presence of the children, for they did not need to witness their first fight at 25 days old. "Atshen, firstborn," She indicated to the child currently biting down on the bone of her ankle, to a pleasure she did not understand. "Keelut," Her eyes traveled to the boy crashed in to her side in what seemed an attempt to pass right through her, though she knew the boy was the less communative as the rest and she let him bem curled up within the folds of her fur. "Abraxas?" She searched for the oddity, though did not spot him among the children in her immediate vision. Her heart surged, distress quite clear on her face as her brown furrowed. "Abraxas?" Nemesis repeated, yet this time it was a call and she aburptly stood, her eyes flickering from one spot to the next until her eyes rested on the strangest of them all. The boy watched from the den as the scene unfolded. He stared. She stared back. Opting to end the uncomfortable eye contact and move on to another child among the many, she simply turned her attention away from the peculiar boy and to the only girl she had birthed alive. 

"Astrid," She sighed, watching as she girl darted about. Yet, more pressing matters raised to her attention as she watched the girl. The Blackfeather line was to continue, in any way possible. It seemed only reasonable that she offer her only daughter, if Damien wished his bloodline to succeeded among the dark woods. Astrid would have little say in her future, that much was certain about the Spiderling litter as a whole. They had been created with purpose, not out of joy and so the opportunity presented itself. "She will bear your children, if you so wish to continue a purified line," She did not meet her co-leader's eyes, for she did not know what to expect. Instead, she watched her daughter play, oblivious to the conversation of her future underway.

The grass tickled her midnight belly as she crawled around- bright blue eyes taking in all that the world had to offer for her. She supposed it passed- though something more stunning than blobs would've been preferred. Paw after paw she explored, eventually trying to eat some of the green that was so annoyingly stroking her soft spots. Her sharp teeth cut the grass, but the flavor it had was just not for her. She spat it out fairly quick, instead now focusing her attention on a darker blob that was not her mother.

She crawled towards what would later be known as Damien- settling on one of his paws. She would get to it- she was just that amazing- however slow it went with her puppy-speed.

Staring. He was good at it, the boy. As he stared, from the den's mouth, he watched his siblings, the pale boy that pushed by him, his sister, his mother. She stared. He stared. But his gaze was drawn to another, dark shape, and for a moment he was confused. A second mother? But no, this one did not have the mother-smell that Mother had. 

Interesting.

His blue gaze locked on the adult, the lean black shape. He stared at the eyes, a white, like his father. As he stared, his mouth fell open a moment, a yawn, but held, perhaps, longer than necessary. When he felt that the male had been thoroughly stared at, then did he move, not with the eagerness of his sister, however. A slow, cautious gate was his as he prowled (well, as best a pup can prowl) around the den, hugging the den as he scanned the clearing, away from the small gathering.

Another one, pale unlike his siblings walked out of the den and curled himself next to his mother. Damien's eyes were trying to follow the moves of each pup, but there were simply too many. So they settled on their mother, allowing that small ones to play with, stare at, or ignore him, while he paid attention to Nemesis' voice.

Atshen, Keelut, Abraxas. Those names would probably need to be reminded to him later, but for now the dark prince liked them. They would need to get a Daedra name later, one that marked them as Blackfeather Woods' property, but that would come when their personalities developed.

Astrid. Like Nemesis', Damien's eyes followed the little girl as she charged at his paw. But they came up fast like bullets when Nemesis revealed her purpose for her daughter. Damien's heart stopped for a moment and he looked down again, not sure how to react, how to respond. Astrid was such a little girl, such a useless thing still. It would be years until Damien could even attempt to plant his seed in her, and currently the mere thought of it brought a chill down his spine. That was when she reached him, when her cold nose touched his paw. Her size didn't overmatch his own paw's for much.

"Uhm-" he struggled to respond, but kept still, now wanting Nemesis to think he was rejecting her daughter through body language. "I... Are you sure about this?" he asked, uttering the only words his shocked brain could manage to form.

She watched her children as Damien swallowed the revelation of her daughters to-be role. No doubt he'd have some hesitancy given her age, yet, it was a plan over time that would take long to formulate. Not one of immediate effect, of course, for the girl still had to mature in body and in mind. She could not present a girl to Damien, but a woman — when the time came. The dark woman suppressed the urge to chuckle at his stunned reaction and flustered tone, one of which she had hardly witnessed before. “Yes,” Her opposing calm reply came, fairly certain with the future paved out for her child and the future of the Brotherhood. 

"The brotherhood must succeed by blood, there would be no better advantage than to join our lines officially," She was simple about it, having retold herself the same thing multiple times before. It was something she took seriously, for it was her daughter, her future with someone she could not choose but be granted to. "I would not promise such a thing on a light heart," She turned to him at last, awaiting his decision. If he did not approve, that would be it. Yet, the woman only seen the good and little troubles in a union between them. Age was something fixed easily by time.

Finally- her target was close. She wasn't sure what the bigger blobs were all doing, she only knew that one had such an interesting paw and smell, so different from mother's and the den itself that smelled very much like puppy. She "bit" the unknown thing, letting go a few moments after. Oh, she liked this game! She crawled further, trying to get on top of the thing, using her mouth when she was unstable. The thing was attached to a longer thing, and, yes, she would gladly explore that too with her tiny mouth. 

Damien's attention was torn between the mother and the daughter. The former attacked him with words while the latter used her teeth instead, and Damien didn't really know how to react to either front. Nemesis was right about everything, though, and Damien could only agree with her prompt to have offered him her only daughter in marriage at only days of having given birth to her, but that was exactly what was wrong with it. She was a baby. A baby with hella sharp teeth.

He Jerked his paw gently, trying to make it a little bit harder for Astrid to savage it completely, but never too hard... It would give off a terrible impression in his current situation... Which takes us back to Nemesis.

"I guess you're right," said the dark master, looking back at the Silencer with a troubled, but comprehensive glare. All he can think of is 'what would mother say about this?' but there's nothing he can retrieve from his memory, nothing similar to which Meldresi had ever made a useful comment that could hint the conflicted Damien on the right direction. This was something he would have to decide for himself...

"It would be my honor to join our lines," he decides wholeheartedly as he focuses his pale eyes on the tiny girl. He smiles at the thought of her becoming his mate, such a small thing, but it was true that that was the only way they would truly ever transcend, by breeding their own, pure kin. And when he thinks of that, Astrid doesn't seem such a strange choice anymore, and he looks at her with different eyes. They find a beauty in her that Damien hadn't wanted to see, hidden in the specks of white coating her black fur, like the stars light up the sky; and a thought crosses his mind.

"My mother named me after Mehrunes Dagon, a Daedric Prince like Mephala," he says, trying to explain a little about his culture. "Your pups will need Daedra names as well," he suggests, hinting that they all belong to the same kind. If Nemesis allowed it, Damien would suggest a name for each pup, one that fit their individual assets and reassuring the nature of the lives they would live.

Of course she was right. While she understood Damien's hesitance — the age difference being a factor in the reluctance to accept — Nemesis's head was in the right place. It only seemed logical, inevitable even, for their lines to finally cross. She did not expect the attraction to be an immediate feeling, but a developing bond cultured to the desired outcome. Astrid would need guidance, and when she outgrew her mother, Damien would become the part of her life she could feel something other than familial affection for. It did not occur to her that the girl might have different ideas; it did not matter. Children did as their parents commanded, and in the grander aspect, this was a blessing instead of a birth right. The girl would come to understand, and take her place beside Damien's side when the timing called for it. Until then, she would make sure that their relationship did not progress in an unwanted way, nor at an unprecedented rate. "Good,"

With that, the matter was put to rest and tucked away for a later date. It would not be for some while that they would need to revisit the topic, and for the sake of all involved, she remained silent. However, the matter of middle names had never occured to her, much less, it's origin nor dedication to the Night Mother. "They will," Her eyes ran over each that were present. "What do you have in mind?" She did not particularily care for what he chose, nor did she have any ideas of her own. Trully, she had not embraced the Daedric culture as her own, greek having domintated the majority of her life. It was the idea that her children embrace the home they were born to with everything they had that approved of this concept and that alone.

I think I lost track of the post order here so f* it
I guess the oreos can post whenever they want..?

With that the topic was put to rest for the time being. The arrangements had been made as far as they could with Astrid being still so young, and Damien was content with what he'd attained. He'd been promised a future, for his bloodline to be extended further, securely, and he wanted no more. As though they were his own, Damien watched Nemesis' brood with pride. This was what Blakfeather Woods yearned for, and now Mephala had torn fate to their benefit.

"Zymel," he suggested looking at the one Nemesis had indicated was the firstborn. "Born of the storm," he explained, knowing the conditions of their birth. Then his eyes traveled to the second son, curled within his mother's embrace, and said "Vaekar," with conviction. A warrior, a guardian, and Damien could only think of Kove when he saw his resemblance to the Dark Brother. "Fierce like his father," he anticipated. The third one was an oddball, Damien could tell, driven away from the small meeting by his own interests. Something about Abraxas reminded him of himself, something good (in his terms), in his eyes, in his stare, and that alone deserved some recognition. "Dagon, like my namesake," he suggested, feeling pride wash over him as he watched the pup find his way around the den.

But his focus fell upon the last one again, the one whose presence Damien would always notice from that point onward. Astrid, and like the others Damien had a perfect name for her. "Nyx, the embodiment of night," he suggested with full certainty. That one needed no further explanation, her image spoke for itself. To Damien -and those who believed deities in other cultures to be interpretations of the Daedric princes themselves- Nyx was another name for Nocturnal, ruler of night and darkness. The name of a goddess.

yee, fade here?

 

Each name came with a meaning, and each, she approved. However, it was when Damien decided to further name one after himself, she did not hide her eye roll. But she would not put up a fuss, the woman had no other idea and allowing the "Dark Master" to have his time of self gloating was okay once and a while, despite the fact it would only further boost his already majorly inflamed ego and perhaps ruin the prospect of middle names for her. Yet, she moved past the idea of her son being names after her rival, and ended on the last thought of Nyx; the utmost perfect name for the girl with the star kissed pelt. It seemed a blessing, that her only daughter be granted such a pattern of beauty upon her, a break in the dark sky; Nyx. Each of her children had been granted with the perfect name by a not so perfect person, and ultimately, she found herself grateful that Damien existed in that moment to bestow upon the four, names that she would have never though of herself. Stormborn, much like the first born's temper; Vaekar, fierce like his father and his mother, Dagon and Nyx. "They are named," She announced, sitting back to observe the four as they squirmed, unknowing of the event that had just taken place. 

In his pride Damien did not see the new mother roll her eyes when he suggested to name one of her cubs after himself. To him, that was simply the biggest honor he could offer her, and nothing would change it. Like her, Damien expected her brood to become a strong, competitive bunch, just what he needed for the Brotherhood to thrive.

Despite her clear disapproval of Abraxas' chosen name, she embraced his suggestions. Damien hadn't been expecting anything different, so her words of agreement and the tone in her voice were a step closer to resolving their long-standing trust issues. If they would ever be truly friendly towards eachother remained a mystery to the day, but things were certainly falling into place after the revolution. Damien was, perhaps, leading his pack to a better future.

"You look tired," he said after a few more seconds of admiring the spiderlings, he hadn't really checked whether she really did look tired at all, but he needed an excuse to resume his day. "I'll cover up for you until you're ready to resume your duties," he announced, not seeing it as a favor or an issue for that matter. Someone had to do her job while she was busy with the pups anyway. With his words came the ending of the conversation, and he left the glen in silence, not before nosing the loose child back to his mother.