Stone Circle the branches have traded their leaves

@Valette @Steph @Ezra

When Clary had discovered sound, she hadn’t stopped babbling. The idea she could add her shrill voice to nature set her with a certain thrill. And when she had suddenly discovered her babbles made words, Clary hadn’t stopped talking.

“Gooood mooring Ma!” She shoved an affectionate kiss at Valette. Dawn peeked over Easthollow, and Clary’s mouth opened before her eyes even had the chance. “Good mooring Steph! Good mooring ‘zra!” And with a giggle added, “Good mooring Clary!” With a flashing lick at each of her siblings, she scuffed away from the nestled heap of her family - probably roused by now, if not by her belting voice, then by her bouncing movements - and booked herself to the mouth of the underground with her loudest effort yet.

“GOOOOD MOORING SUN - “

But her paws smacked the ground and a sharp gasp cut through her shout heavenward. Clary recoiled and snapped eyes wide open toward the grass - or where the grass should have been. A dusting of something colourless and freezing covered the earth as far as she could see, and Clary blinked before she plunged straight into this unknown. Her caution lagged behind the whirlwind in a sharp and startled, “Ma!”

Murdock's ear flew back at the ungodly racket coming from the den. He'd come by with the half-eaten carcass of a freshly-caught lamb, hoping to offer it to Stephie and Valette, and to the other two terrors as well.

Somehow, he found himself unprepared to face said terrors, and so paused when he found himself standing before a little dawn-grey girl. A moment later, though, he'd gathered enough to lay down his kill a few yards from the den's mouth.

"Hey," he said to the child, eying it uncertainly.

She struck the ground, and jerked away. Not only did the white stuff sting a cold burn, but seeped the fur between her toes like she’d stepped in a puddle after a rain.

Clary twisted in a bouncing sidewind, trying to get away from the cold while at the same time craning her neck to catch some glimpse of the tracks she left behind. The activity so demanded her concentration that Clary didn’t notice the brown smudge until he spoke - and when he did, she tried to turn her clumsy dance to careen a course toward him.

“Heyyy!” She repeated, a shout, but Clary didn’t look up. She still stared cross eyed at the dance of her paws against the bleached out ground, her brow knit and her tongue quirked out, as if essential to her movements. “Wha’this?” Her toes kicked a spray of slush with every step, and sent the white flying in every direction.

"Oh no," Murdock said under his breath, realizing that this pup as just as perfect and wonderful as his darling Stephie. The ground had her complete attention. She didn't even look at him, but he couldn't tear his eyes away from her adorable little paws.

"It's frost," Murdock replied, glancing toward the mouth of the den. He wondered if Stephie would be out any time soon, or if it would just be him and this child out here in the cold. "Frozen water. Careful not to get too much in your fur - it's real cold, and it'll getchya wet."

He'd hate to have been the one watching her when she was getting herself sick.

"Frrr-awww-ssss-t," Clary tested the word against her tongue and she decided she liked the way it felt. She liked the way every word felt, but for the moment this new one took the front of her list. "Fraawst." A giggle escaped her, and she twirled a bit tighter in her sidewinding dance, distracted from the ground now that her concentration bounced to the big wolf's rumble, and testing out her own rising voice. "Frawst! frawst, frawst, fraw - "

Her paw caught against her other legs, and for a catch of breath she staggered, until the ground lurched from beneath her and took residence against the side of her body instead. Clary lay in a stunned moment, not really sure of what had happened, only that a chill now seeped against her. The big wolf said something about water and cold, but against the ground his warning flew right over her head. Clary laughed and rolled over. She didn't register the sharp shudder through her body, only marvelled at the way this strange unfamiliar thing made her feel shockingly alive.

Murdock settled down on the other side of the lamb, content to watch the girl play until her mother awoke and took over. Although they were almost certainly old enough to go about their own business, Murdock couldn't bring himself to leave the child unwatched. Anything could happen to her, after all!

And it was a good thing he was there, because almost as soon as he told her not to get too much in her fur, she flopped over and began rolling around on the ground.

"Hey!" Murdock scolded, patting the ground with his large, brown paw. "Quit that, you little bug. You're gonna get sick. Your momma will be mad at me."

[B]He motioned her over, hoping she'd come quietly to be cleaned.

Her giggles bounced in a hiccough at the sudden pound against the ground, and Clary paused, interrupted in a strange contortion of her usual playful bow. With rump stuck in the air and torso low, she twisted onto her shoulder to stare at the man, and found the world turned upside down.

Clary only giggled at his words  - believing that if this was really that dangerous, the man would have stopped her himself - and prepared to resume her wriggling (even though at this point the cold didn’t feel quite as invigorating as before...). But her play took second when she caught a gesture from the man. Clary understood. And as much as she lived to explore the world, strangers were even more interesting. She gave a little squeal of delight and forgot the frost, and instead scooted her sodden self at Murdock with shivering steps, only to collapse herself against his warm and sturdy leg, if he allowed. “Not bug.” She corrected with a giggle, and turned her gleaming blues to stare up at his face. “Clary!”

His days spent with Stephie had gone a long way toward dulling Murdock's aversion to children. If he was being honest with himself, it was more of a chore to hate kids than it was to care for them. After all, it'd taken one look at Clary to have him falling in love with her cute little face. And when she collapsed against him, Murdock reacted very little beyond arranging himself into a position more comfortable for her.

"Clary, then," he said sweetly, booping her nose with his own. "Let's getchya dry, alright?"

He began grooming her with quick, economical movements, wanting to get her warm as quickly as possible. The days were getting colder, and he didn't want them to catch pneumonia and die. Especially Stephie. Especially Clary. The third one, too, to a lesser degree. (He was sure he'd love that one, too, as soon as he saw it. God, he was getting sentimental in his old age.) Instincts were difficult to overcome, and Murdock had been raised by a loving father to one day be a loving father. And, since he'd denied himself that for so long, he supposed it was only natural for him to latch on to the first set of babies he saw. There was a perfectly reasonable explanation for all this - but that didn't make his gaze any less adoring as he looked down on Stephie's pale sister.

help me I don't know how children talk.

Then and there, Clary decided she liked this man, and as a show of her acceptance, she hummed her content and settled against him, but not before returning his nose with a flash of a kiss. "A'right!" She repeated with a wide grin and lapsed into the comfortable rasp of his tongue against her fur. His movements felt quick and hurried, sure different than mama's, but interesting. Almost squirm-worthy - and a quiver rippled her shoulder. She giggled at the strange sensation.

"Feels tickly!" She said through the dance of her laugh, but she didn't move away. Instead, she closed her eyes and took in the strangely unpleasant and enjoyable feeling, shifting here and there when he reached a particularly ticklish spot (behind her ears seemed most effective), all while silently planning to simultaneously hide this revelation from her siblings, and figure out if they were tickly there, too.

These thoughts spun her mind, but her mouth ran a mile a minute, in part made possible by his preoccupation with licking her dry. "I seens you wif Stephie, did ya know? An I think - 'he's nice!' An I think, 'he's Stephie friend, but why not all our friend', and I say, I say 'hullo' an if he say 'hullo' back, then he wants you as friend. An' if not, then you still be his friend, kay?" She caught her breath, and finished, "I didn' say 'hullo', an' you didn' say 'hullo', but you friend now, kay?"

He hummed in agreement with her assessment - baths could be tickly, he supposed, although it'd been a long time since he'd experienced that. A moment later, she'd launched into another diatribe. Wanting to get her warm and dry, Murdock mostly responded with grunts and huffs, but by the end, he could hardly hold back his laughter.

"Holy shit, girl. You sure can chatter," he said, hoping she'd shut her mouth for a second so he could think. How did those little lungs of hers hold all that air? He didn't even understand half the things she was talking about due to how fast the words had come out. Very different from Stephie, who seemed to be a girl of few words, as of yet. "Are you and Stephie good friends, then?" he asked.

Clary giggled. "I know!" and nodded her head many times in agreement. She was fully aware of that herself, and took great pleasure in the sound of words, the idea of words, the making of words. The everything of words. Because, why have a voice, if not to use it?

His question, though, startled her, and Clary leaned her head to stare at him, dumbfounded. Well, duh, what kind of question was that? "Of course!" she said and shuffled about to get a better look at his face. "Stephie my sister, an I hers, too. She, me, an' Ezra, we bestests friends, and we always, forever, and ever, and ever - " she stamped a paw against the ground and widened her eyes so he would understand how much she meant this - "and ever be bestests friends."

Clary flopped back against his leg, content with her delivery, and curious, now, about him. "Wheres your brother an' sister?" She fully expected he had siblings, and one of each, for in her world, every wolf did. "Are yous bestests friends forever?"

Murdock was pleased to find that Steph and her siblings shared a tight bond. He thought it was important for a wolf to be close with their family, and with their littermates at the very least. Although he no longer shared a close bond with any of his siblings, his memories of them were often a great comfort to the aging male.

"That's good," he told Clary, giving her one final swipe of his tongue before releasing her back into the wild. He mulled over her question for a few seconds, but tried to answer promptly so that she could get back to talking again. "I lost 'em," he replied, going for honesty and simplicity. "But we were good friends before that."

He met her with a short bout of silence, and Clary couldn't imagine why. In her mind, she'd already answered the question for him and had well moved on to the other things she could say and ask. What were they like, what were their names. But what he gave her brought a pinched breath and the furrow of her little brow.

"Oh no!" Steph had gotten lost before, but she had always come back, always. But did some wolves get lost and not return? Would this happen to her? What if she got lost and couldn't find her way back to Ezra and Steph? Clary pressed closer to Murdock's leg, as if he could ground her there. "How did you losted them?" Maybe if he told her, she could make sure that never happened to her.

Murdock laid his head on his paws, so that his head was near to where Clary was huddled. What an interesting question - he'd never really thought about how they'd all been separated, before. It hadn't happened all at once, after all. One had left, and then another. A few had even died.

But Clary didn't need to know that. "Well, we grew up," he explained. "And we started our own families. We still visit each other, sometimes, but I don't know where some of them have gone. The world is a big place." He gave Clary what he hoped was a comforting look. "If you're intentional about it, I'm sure you'll be able to stay in touch. I'm just a bad brother, is all."

And there his answer came - we grew up. He spoke of starting families, but the concept only brought a loud and puzzled look through Clary's eyes. Why would someone need to start a family if they had a perfectly fine one to begin with? She had everything she needed right here in Easthollow, a big enough place - and if growing up and the big world meant losing all of this...

She licked his face at the look he gave her and sunk down beside him. Her thoughts reeled and rendered her silent, until Murdock drew a confession that snapped her from her own rabbit trail of fear. "No!" She said, and pressed her small head against his, to return him the comfort he just gave her. "You save Steph, an' you make me dry. And you here, talking," which was more than enough good to win her heart. "You not bad, Mudock. No, you a good brother to me." 

Her sweet insistence made him chuckle. He'd rarely seen such kindness in the wilds. Perhaps pups were different from the rest of the world, but perhaps not. As adorable as Stephie was, she didn't strike him as being unnaturally kind, so perhaps this trait belonged to Clary alone.

"I suppose I can't argue with that logic," he agreed. "So I'll correct myself - I'm an irresponsible brother. How's that sound to you, bug?"

Wrap this up? I don't mind fading with your next post, if you're down with that, too! I love Murdock <3

She paused a moment, as if to consider his correction - but really, she didn't actually know what irresponsible meant. Only that he made it sound better than bad, and so, with a giggle, said, "'Kay!" and stretched out to give her new irresponsible brother a kiss on the chin before leaping back, her posture a clear invitation to play.

Murdock groaned at her invitation. He was tired, and honestly, getting a little too old to play the sprightly games of youth. But he laid back on his side and, obligingly, snapped at Clary's paws and face when she strayed too close to him. They passed some time this way before Murdock - inevitably - fell into a comfortable nap.

A day well spent, in his opinion.