Redhawk Caldera This castle is in unacceptable condition!

Open to the many parents and siblings of this little booger.

Sleep was a skill that Titmouse had not yet acquired to any great extent. If there was such a trade known for being still, quiet, and relaxed for long periods of time, it was not a suitable one for the Little Titty. Newborns often slept for tiny spurts only to awaken when the desire for food became too great — but in Tit's case, he just didn't sleep.

Since his birth he'd screamed himself into a sort-of stupor from time to time. He'd be quiet for a handful of minutes (currently the record was around fifteen), but then a switch would flick in his tiny brain and Titmouse would go off again — humming, hollering, squealing, and honestly making the most racket out of all the wily newborns.

If anyone would recognize the signs of a colicky baby, it might've been @Raven — aside from being the wetnurse, she was the (aspiring?) pack medic after all — or maybe the more experienced @Finley would have noticed by now that the pebble-gray boy just never shut the hell up. Either way, nothing they did seemed to ease his desire to scream, and today was worse than before.

Titmouse had stopped grabbin' them titties and seemed extra focused on keeping everyone wide-awake with him.

Raven was so exhausted that she could sleep through any manner of disturbances now, which could be both a good and bad thing. It was good because she might otherwise die if she didn't get some rest, what with all the demands being put on her body. It was bad because sometimes she slept right through it when one of the puppies needed her attention, like right now.

She was dreaming that Fox was yelling at her. Then Wildfire appeared and yelled at her too. The Gamma whimpered and twitched in her sleep, then suddenly snorted awake. She barely had time to think of her mother's loss lately, though it washed over her in cold, dreadful waves as consciousness restored. She knew her sister was close by too and was sad that she couldn't visit with her. There was just no time right now.

Realizing that one of the pups was being particularly loud at the moment, Raven reached over and grasped him around the midriff, then gently set him beside one of her teats. She winced when she realized it was the little nipple nibbler. She couldn't decide if it was good or bad news when he refused to latch on but instead kept squirming and squalling. There was a note of discomfort to the noise, though obviously it wasn't hunger pangs.

Guessing that he might be gassy—the pups produced an extraordinary amount of both flatulence and feces—Raven gingerly rolled him onto his back and then used her snout to push his back legs toward his bloated belly. She knew he might make a mess but she had already adapted and become quite impassive to dealing with those. Raven might have gone crazy otherwise.

It didn't take long for someone to attend to his needs. He remained disinterested in the teat offered to him though, and squirmed with little flailing bean-paws as he was flipped over. Even though Titmouse wasn't very old, he had been strapping on weight from the get-go. It helped that he usually had such a firm hold on his food source most days. The squirming of his siblings did little to stop his gluttony — but this was different. Instead of having his face squished against teat after teat until he'd give up and suckle, he was stuck on his back.

At first Tit's little legs framed his face. He absently stretched out one of those legs and the toes attached (which was probably cute). But then there was movement below the waist. His lower legs were pressed up against his round belly and out from his tiny butt came — well, not gas.

Raven should've re-thought having her face so close to his ass, because in the next instant Titmouse loosed a combination wet-fart-poop-stream directly across her snout. Thankfully this eased the boy's squalling, and he even seemed to chill the heck out for a few seconds.

Taking a stream of warm diarrhea to the face wasn't particularly pleasant, though Raven mused that she only had herself to blame. She had provided the key ingredient for this chocolate milkshake, hadn't she? Chuckling despite herself, the Gamma quickly cleaned both herself and the pup, then repeated the process once more to be sure he'd fully expressed himself.

Feel better? she wondered, though she neither bothered speaking aloud nor even mouthing the words. She knew he couldn't see or hear. Raven smiled down at her baby brother, coaxing him back toward a teat again just in case before momentarily checking on the other five.

Aaahh, yes, it was much better. It wouldn't prevent Tit's roaring for long, though. He had a dopey little smile on his face right after his bowel emptied, like he knew what he'd done to his poor sister, but it contorted into something less than pleasant when she cleaned him. He looked like he was ready to pop off at any second and start screeching — but Raven shoved him against a teat, and he was again, briefly contented.

Titmouse didn't latch on at first though. He nosed at a teat, rolled, and nosed at another. Between these tiny bouts of motorboating, the boy seemed more and more agitated, until he opened his mouth as if to scream — only to grappled on to one of Raven's teats, pinching hard with a strangely strong bite. He gnawed and nibbled but did not drink.

The little boy Finley called Fidget was squirming as much as usual. The little giggly girl was doing her thing too. The others were moving and making noise, though nothing particularly concerning. With a quiet sigh, Raven returned her attention to the little nibbler, mostly because he was treating her nipple like a chew toy.

It didn't hurt, exactly, because he didn't have teeth. But it sort of chafed. There was nothing she could do about it, really, other than gently lick her own teats whenever he tired of one and moved on to abuse another. Perhaps she would have to take a break and visit the badger den, find something to make a poultice to soothe them. For now, it would just have to wait.

One has to wonder how long a child like this would've survived had Fox been alive. Maybe she would have been less forgiving for the way he would've munched on her teats? Maybe she was in to that (this is Fox we're talking about). But it wasn't the incautious red wrecking ball that was caring for these devil children — it was Raven who, if anything, had the opposite of Fox's temperment. Maybe the kids would survive a little longer because of it.

Every time Tit released one milk recepticle and moved to another, Raven shifted. He couldn't watch what she was doing, or hear it, but he felt the odd sensation of warmth and of the world rolling. At one point (while trying gracelessly to reach a teat too far away) Titmouse managed to roll away from Raven like a bowling ball, and upon crashing in to his siblings, he burped and loosed more screams. 

Yeah. Yeah.. Fox would've eaten this one.

When he rolled to the side, Raven lifted her head and watched but didn't take action right away. She glanced over at Finley (assuming she was in the den too) and suddenly wished her godmother was lactating too. Perhaps if she spent enough time here in the den, she might start? Raven wondered, though she quietly shook her head and refocused on the now-screaming baby boy.

Maybe now was a good time to drop by the badger den, actually, since none of the puppies were currently nursing. Standing suddenly, Raven grimaced a little at the stiffness of her body. Playing wet nurse was really taking a toll on her. She could probably use the walk regardless of anything else.

"I'm going to step out for a few but I'll be right back," the yearling said to the new Alpha female before giving the nibbler and each of his siblings a quick nudge and then exiting the den.

I figure @Finley or @Elwood could take over from here if you want to continue this thread! :D

As Elwood neared the den, he winced. One of the babes was howling at the top of his or her lungs. This was becoming the status quo; it was rare that there was even a moment of silence. Just as he arrived, Raven slipped away, and Elwood gave her a small smile. The young medic had been doing more than her fair share to take care of her brothers and sisters, and despite her good nature, she looked exhausted. She deserved a break whenever she could get one.

He poked his head into the burrow, exchanging a quick glance with the ever-watchful Finley before settling himself down in the entryway. The little loudmouth was wriggling and yelping, crashing into his siblings with no apparent concept of personal space. "Dude," Elwood said, reaching out to nudge Titmouse with a paw. "Take a chill pill."

The bumbling bean rolled smack-dab in to his nearest sister, the eventual @Orca, and then flumped the other way. He was on his front when Elwood entered the den, wriggling and kicking and screaming (probably right in to her ear), and after pawing at one of his sibling's faces, Elwood stepped in. The nudge of a paw sent Titmouse off-balance again, and he stumbled and rolled backwards to where the adult was sitting. His tiny head bupped at Elwood's other foot.

Like a little weeble, the pup wobbled this way and that. He bumped into one of his siblings, a female with a black and white pelt, and she gave a peep of annoyance but didn't make much of a fuss otherwise. After Elwood tapped him, the boy rolled and crashed into Elwood's other front paw.

"You're like a little wrecking ball," Elwood commented, encircling his forelegs around the somersaulting puppy to create a barrier of sorts.

Wrecking ball was right! If he had ears to hear that (and a brain which could comprehend) then he'd be grinning. Now that he was trapped between Elwood's limbs however, he couldn't roll around so much. But he did manage to flip back to his chest. His little legs splayed out on either side of his tiny body, making Titmouse look more like a furry pebble with gimpy little feet. He wriggled them and discovered that he wasn't moving — and somehow he managed to lift his bottom up, just in time for a nice long, Pfffrrrrrnnnnnnnee^eeee—pTH! to gurgle from his rear-end, right beneath Elwood's nose. It was odious, and more than a little solid.

Now that Titmouse was trapped, his range of motion was quite limited. Elwood watched with an amused expression as the boy continued to flail, managing to turn himself over onto his back between his godfather's forelegs. His gaze was focused on Titmouse's tiny, flexing toes, so he didn't realize what was brewing in the pup's gut until it was right in front of him.

There was suddenly a strong smell, and Elwood wrinkled his nose and looked down. Right on the ground, centimeters from the grey fur of his chest, was a miniature puppy turd. "Oh...nice one," he groaned, pushing himself up into a sitting position to avoid getting it on himself. He then picked Titmouse up by the scruff to move him away from his own feces, plopping him down near his siblings in order to give his rear end a quick bath.

He was plopped among the wriggling children and was pleasantly surprised by the warmth of their bodies. The jostling of the twitchy sibling didn't bother Titmouse in the slightest — he was quite happy with himself, actually. Then, when Elwood began to clean his bottom, he felt the oddest sensations; it was damp and strange, but also pleasing. The Alpha's attempts to keep Tit in a state of cleanliness also led to him becoming drowsy, and he passed right the fuck out atop the pile of fuzzy potatos.

The methodical, repetitive movements of grooming Titmouse was soothing to Elwood, too, and as the pup drifted to sleep he found himself losing track of time. A few minutes passed before he became aware of the unexpected sound of silence. He looked down at the puppy, freezing mid-lick with his tongue protruding from his mouth. The boy looked almost cherubic in the throws of slumber, and Elwood snapped a mental picture, knowing it certainly wouldn't last long.

He glanced up at Finley and, after receiving a smirk and a nod that indicated he could go, he carefully withdrew his forelegs from around Titmouse and eased out of the den, happy to have spent some quality time with his godson but also thankful for the fresh air (it was a little musty and stinky in there, understandably).