Hideaway Strath the teeth of the eye of a storm

heh. tagging for reference — this is open to any baby siblings or anyone realistically allowed in the den. :-)

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Winter’s Bane slumbers, his pudgy cream puff body presses as close to @Lotte as he can physically get. He gravitates instinctively to her warmth, comforted by her scent as dull as the sense yet it so to him. He has no word for his äiti but he knows her. Shortly after his little brother is born the violent tremors that he feels even after he has been labored out of her body stills and cease entirely. There has been visitors but he is blind and deaf to them and with a belly full of sweet mother’s milk he is quick to fall asleep. Tucked against his mother’s bosom Roarke is safe from the tumultuous strike that has unsettled his Teaghlaigh. The unheard and unseen world of Roarke’s mind and personal space is at peace — for the moment. His slumber lightens from it’s deepened state and he lets out a small cooing gurgle as he shifts, no longer quite so confined as he was in the birthing sac. He is as vaguely aware of the press of bodies all around him — as aware as he can possibly be — but his movements are much more free and he draws a front paw up and begins to suckle on his own toes as if his paw is his mother’s teat. He lets out a low huff of disappointment in his sleep when he suckles to no avail. He suckles harder as he stirs awake but his toes do not (and alas will never) secrete milk. It takes him a few seconds to realize that the warmth on his paw comes from his own mouth and he releases it promptly to nudge at Lotte’s bosom, until he feels a few droplets of warm milk upon his leathery nose. He lets out a mewl and suckles. Distracted as he is — and not yet able to focus on more than one thing at a time — as he delights in the warm milk filling his belly he fails to notice the warm trickle down his hindquarters. Until he does notice it, detaches his mouth from the teat and lets out a loud wail of discomfort and demands to be cleaned and free of the puddle quickly soaking into the earth. If there is one such creature that does not deign to linger in his own urine it is without a doubt Roarke Fearghal.

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Most of the time, Mallaidh sleeps. It’s easy. It’s literally the easiest thing she has to do. When she wakes up, she has to find her way to a teat she can’t see. Sometimes she gets help, sometimes she doesn’t. And then! She has to suckle and put effort into that and sometimes she stops eating because it’s way too much work. Eventually, her stomach will go on strike and she quickly takes back to the teat until she’s swollen because, let’s face it, bitches gotta eat. Then she wails until Lotte works her tongue and relieves her of her discomfort—something she has yet to control—and she snuggles back into the warmth-machine.
 
Sometimes, like now, she’s pointed toward a sibling and the faint movement of Roarke suckling keeps her from falling into sleep. She moves, awkwardly and slowly, until she bumps into something soft—much softer than her mother but not entirely unfamiliar—that she doesn’t quite know what to do with. Her mouth opens and she surges forward, taking the first bit of flesh she can latch onto and takes him by the flap of the boy’s closed ear into her mouth.

Dagfinn stood guard outside the Kind Sequoia day and night. No one had asked him to do this, but it comforted him to be near Lotte (and her little bean-bears, though he would never admit it), and it gave him an excuse to remain nearby, just in case she needed something.

Or, just in case she was snoring like a hibernating bear while her children were peeping for... something.

Dag twitched an inquisitive ear and poked his head into the den. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dark of the den, but once they had, a silly grin quirked his face. Lotte, the poor girl, was in a dead sleep, drool drizzling from her maw and massive snores shaking her blue-grey sides. At her belly, one boy wriggled and cried in a puddle of his own urine while his sister tried to suckle at his ear.

"Ay, wee bears," he said with a soft chuckle, padding forward and nudging the girl away from her brother. Dagfinn rooted into Lotte's side until he felt a splash of warm milk on his nose, and then he carefully picked up his niece and placed her at the teat he'd located.

With a huff of disgust, he picked up the boy and, laying down near Lotte's sleeping form, took him between his paws and began to clean the pee off of him.

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Warm and wet. A combination he will come to loathe quickly in his infancy. He notices when someone latches their mouth onto his ear in a way that isn’t dissimilar to how he had suckled his own toes not too long ago. It is already a distant memory quickly fading. He is more preoccupied by the sibling who is attacking his ear with their warm mouth and leaving dribbles of baby saliva clinging to his ear. He lets out a low huff and a partial whine, part squeak of displeasure. He continues his cries about being stuck in the puddle of his own creation, too, between his half-hearted protests about having his ear assaulted — because he has not yet forgotten that he'd peed himself. He is startled by the sudden absence of the sibling he would come to know as Molly as she is lifted away and tended to. Hey! He let out the loudest cry yet — thankfully he is blissfully deaf and feels only vibrations which are utterly inconsequential to him — because he does not like being ignored. Molly munching his ear the winter’s bane can easily deal with. It left his ear slick with her saliva and a bit chilled as the air of the den touches it but being covered in his own urine is worse. Infinitely worse.

He is grasped by the scruff and lifted from the wet spot on the earthen floor of the Fearghal birthing den. He curls into himself instinctively, comforted by the feel of teeth upon his scruff. A soft, babyish coo leaves his lips as the ground remains a forgotten about concept until he is placed back upon it and feels it beneath him once more. There is a new warmth washing over him and he lets out a soft mew knowing that it is not mama and trying to process how he felt about it. He wasn’t so sure he liked it. But he wasn’t so sure he hated it either. The sensation of a tongue smoothing over his pelage as he is bathed causes him to squirm; but he is unable to do much else other than squirm (and go no where, mind) and so he is left to endure the torture of his bath albeit not without minimal complaining. As it is, Roarke does not realize that he has likely subjected his uncle Dagfinn to an even worse torture than bath time — of being responsible for cleaning urine off of him. A fact that he has already forgotten.

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Feel free to skip me from here on out! Tag me if you disrupt her. <3

She isn’t latched upon the ear for long—which is fine, it’s not producing anything—before she’s forced away. Okay, now that is not what she likes. She would have let go. Eventually. Her mouth opens to wail but no sound comes out as a yawn takes over against her will. She’s nudged a little roughly, pressed into her mouth, and she grunts in displeasure. It is short lived when she feels the warmth and faint sounds coming from her mother and it is harder and harder to stay awake. A second yawn forces out of her mouth as she slowly falls back asleep, settled snuggly next to Lotte.

Post 200 for you, my lovely friends. ♥

Lotte snorted inelegantly as she awoke abruptly, jerking her head up and blinking blearily. With a moue of distaste, she swiped her cheek and jaw briskly against her wrist and licked her lips to clear away the last vestiges of drool. “Dag,” she said softly, with a hearty thump of her tail. Her voice and eyes were full of affection and warmth as she slowly rearranged herself into some semblance of order, smoothing her tongue soothingly over feisty little @Mallaidh’s crown and down her spine. It pleased her to watch the unlikely tableau: Dagfinn, cradling a tiny white snowball, giving his nephew an impromptu bath. “I wonder,” she mused, “whether he and his kaksonen will take after the Ansbjørns or the Fearghals.” She didn’t know at this point whether the twins would carry the muodonmuuttaja trait or whether they would remain white-furred and blue-eyed all their lives like Arturo’s daughter Devin. Speaking of which — Eirlys, the Quiet One, lay so still and limp at Lotte’s side that the rogue feared the worst. She licked the snowdrop a bit roughly to stimulate her and was rewarded with a soft mewl of protest. @Ceallach, too, was sleeping — and Lotte paid the same tribute to Arturo’s lookalike as she had his siblings, drawing her tongue lovingly from tip to tail. “They are so small,” she fretted. “They were born too soon, but Hemlock says they are healthy.” She lapsed into the language of comfort, of childhood, looking to Dagfinn with a wry smile.

“Maybe they are just impatient, as I am,” she quipped, turning the subject to her own kaksonen. “How are you, pörröinen takapuoli?” she asked. She worried about her twin — without Lotte, who was keeping him in line and making sure he ate enough? She glanced coyly down at one of his forepaws, a mischievous glint in her argent eyes. They didn’t look nearly chewed upon enough — but the benevolent Banríon would fix that for him. She snaked out her muzzle to try to catch Dagfinn’s broad, leathery appendage gently between her teeth, mostly mindful of @Roarke but also banking on the idea that a little roughhousing around her newborn children wouldn’t hurt…right? Puppies were 50% rubber anyway.

Eirlys, roused from her disconcertingly deathlike state, nursed distractedly for the span of about a minute before beginning her rampage. Mewling inconsolably, she worked her noodly little legs into a frenzy until one pink-toed forepaw made contact with the soft velvet of @Mallaidh’s flank. Natural curiosity bade the snowdrop to follow suit with her face, but she couldn’t seem to actually grab hold of anything; she merely opened her mouth as wide as it would go and turned her head from side to side, her tiny tongue curling rhythmically in an attempt to learn more about what she had discovered. It was during a particularly violent lunge that she veered away from Mallaidh and into open space, scooting along like a little turtle on the go and accidentally shoving one hind paw unceremoniously into @Ceallach’s personal space.

On some subconscious level, perhaps Eirlys was looking for @Roarke. She had no names for her siblings and her knowledge of them was nebulous at best, but there was a restlessness in her little body that did not seem to quiet — not even when Lotte uttered her name and crooned gently to her, a soft, low vibration without sound that she would one day come to accept as hers long before she could repeat it back. “She is looking for her kaksonen,” Lotte chuckled above her head, and Eirlys cooed in response to the warm rush of air as she wormed her way over to her eponym and opened her mouth wide, intending to engulf one of his toes like an enraged sea monster. She reached with both snowy forepaws to grip @Dagfinn’s paw —

Worming was really hard, though.

Mid-attack, the snowdrop sighed softly and slowed to a full stop, the nub of her blunt puppy nose just barely touching her uncle’s paw before she fell asleep.

Dagfinn stiffened at the sound of Lotte's voice, having been too focused on the fragility of his nephew to have taken notice of her stirring. Part of him wanted to leap away from the tiny pup and deny any contact with it, but the thing seemed to breakable to simply fling away from himself. Dagfinn contented himself with glaring uncomfortably back at his sister.

"Ota se pois," he snipped, lifting his chin away from the child in aversion that was only part-way feigned. He didn't want to be seen showing tenderness to these little banes, though he could not exactly say why - and to rid himself of the child with the proper care would require a great deal of tenderness. Best leave it to Lotte.

Dagfinn hmm'd along to Lotte's questioning and sat stoically when she set her teeth against his paw. He was happy for his sister, and already, he felt a great well of love toward her offspring - but that was not a fact he wanted widely known. Perhaps, not even to Lotte. That she'd borne witness to the impromptu bath was bad enough.

And then, sweet Eirlys came wriggling toward him, almost as if she knew that she was destined to be his favorite. Dagfinn resisted her, of course, and moved himself away by fractions as she drew near. He was still sore that she was Dagny and not Dagfinn, and that she was a girl insulted the dark youth beyond measure.

But she was adorable, and she was partly Lotte, and she had been made his by Lotte's christening, whether she'd meant to do so or not.

Delicately, Dagfinn dipped his nose to snuff over the pale little girl. A loud sneeze escaped him and spattered her pelt with little droplets of mucous and saliva.

"She stinks," he pronounced with faux indifference.

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The torture of bath does not last forever and once it has ceased the thespian to be forgets about it. A gift of extreme youth: his discomfort ends and the screeching wail that had been building like a bubbling volcano in the boy’s chest dissipates and leaves with a soft gurgle noise, not nearly as fierce as the banshee scream his lungs was building the anticipation up for. He is not a bathe enthusiast — if his pelage is ruffled and wind-swept, wild and untamed then that will only serve to be all the better. He can’t be James Dean cool without some rad windswept fur, after all. He shifts closer to the warmth of his uncle Dagfinn, seeking to coo into the plush fur of where ever Roarke can jab his nose. He wiggles an inch or two — but it feels like the biggest accomplishment ever because he has no concepts of time or space — lets out a splitting yawn with a cute little baby noise, stretches his pudgy potato self and with the grace of youth falls into a light sleep that is not destined to last.

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Breezing through Lotte posts. I am sorry for the lackluster quality!

Lotte grinned good-naturedly at her brother’s self-inflicted misfortune, utterly untroubled by his pique. “Kuten haluat!” she chirped cheerfully, canting her head in a patently subservient manner as she bent to retrieve her son. She didn’t know the cause of Dagfinn’s aversion but it didn’t bear mentioning; she loved him better than any other creature alive and maybe more than her own children, and he could have whatever role in their lives he liked. Personally, Lotte pictured him as the dashing, exciting uncle who rescued them from the monotony of always living in the same place. The wolves of these wilds continued to mystify the smoke-and-shadow rogue, who was accustomed to wider territory and a lot more adventuring.

Cradling Roarke against the plush fur of her décolletage, Lotte groomed him rhythmically, humming to him as Dorthe had hummed to Dagfinn and Lotte once upon a time. She was sorry to have woken the boy, but she was sorrier that Dagfinn had been forced to pick up the slack while she slept. “You stink — and you un-bathed all the bath I did!” she shot back playfully, showing her teeth in mock frustration. As she focused in on the little snowdrop, her argent eyes grew oddly distant. “Don’t get attached,” is what she wanted to say to him. She still didn’t think that the cub’s odds of survival were very good — she didn’t know if Eirlys was going to turn that corner and catch up to her siblings, but she didn’t know if she wasn’t going to do that. Ultimately, Lotte didn’t know anything about neonatal care aside from what instinct told her — and instinct was kind of a pessimist. “Give her to me if you’re not going to re-bathe her,” she suggested.

As if in protest to her mother’s faithlessness, Eirlys summoned all of her strength to worm closer to the source of warmth that for whatever reason seemed to be getting further and further away. Her tiny turtle flippers paddled furiously as she got her second wind and moved insistently toward Dagfinn, squeaking plaintively all the while. The feeling of his whiskers brushing against her downy fur caused her to still almost instantaneously, her own head tipping upward in a blindly searching manner just before the heavens broke with an outpouring of saliva and mucus. She sat like a sunning sea lion for the space of a few precious seconds, a string of snot clinging to her ear before it fell slowly to the earth, and then her tiny face contorted. For a moment she looked as if she might wail, but instead she gave her uncle her first smile.

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Roarke stirs awake abruptly with a sharp intake of breath, front paws giving a twitch kicking out at his mother. His head rises and then rolls and he lets out a small near inaudible squeak as he tries to get his bearings, disoriented despite that he is blind and deaf to the world. He knows when he is awake and when he is sleeping in the same way he knows when he is hungry. It is a base, primal instinct. Survival. He feels the warm lash of tongue against him as Lotte bathes him and he lets out a wail of protest, struggling and huffing loudly in the hopes that bath time would end forthwith. Roarke demands it in the wordless way he can make his demands but his demands are overridden. He is grateful to be cleaned of urine, satisfied that it no longer stains his hindquarters — as it is he has already forgotten that he has peed himself at all — and all he knows is that he doesn’t want a bath. Already, he’s forgotten that his uncle Dagfinn had given him a bath previously. His newborn memory is not very good and if he cannot feel it constantly then it is easily forgotten as the next and newest sensation presents itself to him.

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Last post from Eiri!

When Dagfinn did not immediately return Eirlys to Lotte, the young mother took matters into her own hands. Quite suddenly, Eirlys was plucked from beside her uncle’s forepaw and tucked snugly beside her twin against the thick, insulated fur of Lotte’s chest. The squirming she’d done, compounded with the two baths she’d received and the comforting warmth of her mother and twin, acted as a heavy soporific. The thrum of vibration as Lotte traded tales and songs with her kaksonen only intensified the snowdrop’s sleepiness. With a tiny yawn, Eirlys poked her infinitesimal nose into Roarke’s plush neck and softly sighed, falling asleep even before the sigh had fully spent itself.

[hijacks adorable Roarke thread with massive powerplay of Dagfinn, sanctioned by Mix ♥]

“Roarke, little snowbear,” Lotte crooned to the pudgy cream puff, grooming him rhythmically, humming softly a lullaby-like version of the tule kotiin call. “Dag,” she said in their beloved home tongue, “remember when our own mom and dad used to sing us home?” She chuckled, beginning a whole new world conversation about their shared childhood memories. Lotte had a new life now — a separate life — and for the first time this niggled at her and kindled a flicker of anxiety. Things had been beautiful in the Enok Tundra. The siblings, despite being a boisterous, loving lot, had split naturally into two pairs: Lotte and Dagfinn, Bård and Tove. Lærke, on the other hand, had always floated in and out of these pairs with ease. It’d always been a special treat to have the Bear home at last. Listening to his stories and learning his songs had been Lotte’s second favorite thing — doing just about anything with Dagfinn, of course, was her favorite.

“I miss him,” she blurted out, and with Dag she never needed to clarify where her bursts of thought came from. “I thought he’d come back.” She confessed that she hadn’t even thought of him during the fire. Her first inclination had been to call out for her kaksonen, and then for her beau. Dagfinn responded as he always did, in a way that comforted her immeasurably, and confessed his own feelings. Feelings that, big surprise, had aligned perfectly with his sister’s. Things hadn’t happened how either of the twins had imagined they might. Lotte and Dagfinn had followed Lærke with the thought that they might become a trio like the one Lotte had met, only better. Because they were soturit. Because they were Ansbjørns. And while they’d each had their share of adventures, they were far from home and sans the Bear.

It was at this point that Dagfinn suggested the absolute last thing Lotte wanted to hear: that he wanted to return to the Enok Tundra to bear the news of her children and her mate. To Lotte, it felt a whole lot like writing her off. Unfairly, she imagined the whole family getting together and hunting without her and doing just fine, and that rankled. She tried to find the words to convey her insecurities, but she couldn’t. Dagfinn, ever her soulmate, picked up on her mood. They talked it out amidst affectionate insults, and even though neither of them felt particularly good about being separated, kohtalo was an impossible thing to fight. There was a sacrilegious moment where she hated her children and hated these wilds because they stood between her and going where she wanted — i.e. with Dagfinn — but as Eirlys and Roarke nestled against her with contented baby sighs, she told herself with a new kind of serenity that she could still be happy here.

It was a different kind of happy, but it was immeasurable in its own way.

It was in this way and in this moment that Lotte locked away part of herself — the part that didn’t want to live if she wasn’t living with Dagfinn in breathing or yelling distance. They’d tried that already, and just when they’d gotten back together…well, it didn’t bear thinking about. Maybe part of what she locked away was her youth. Maybe that was too dramatic. Lotte had surged forward in life, becoming wife and mother and Banríon — she was a fast-paced girl and she liked having a fast-paced life — but the thought that she’d surged past Dagfinn and evidently past some invisible line that she couldn’t cross back over was crushing.

“I’m not crying,” she informed him as her voice broke and tears began coursing down her cheeks and splashing down onto her son’s velveteen crown. She blinked rapidly, trying to stow them, but it didn’t do any good. “Why would I cry? You’ll be back tomorrow telling me you got lost and I’ll be chasing you out for worrying me. I won’t even have a ch-chance to miss you.” Dagfinn, similarly not-crying, made his own playful retorts. Their words were light, but their hearts were heavy as they clung together and not-cried as one, crushing the poor snowbears between them, but they pasted watery smiles upon their faces as they disengaged and withdrew. Lotte was determined to maintain her façade of looking on the bright side, but at the sight of her kaksonen walking away without her, she cried out sharply, softly: “Dagfinn!”

She’d meant to say something meaningful, like, “I love you,” or, “Be safe out there,” but the words stuck in her throat. Throwing back, she howled wordlessly, harmony to an empty melody, all her grief and all her love and all her worry for both of them — and he filled it with his voice, just as she’d meant him to.