Heron Lake Plateau the heart

Existence was chaotic and tiring.

Exceptionally tiring.

Tucked away against @Kite, she dreamed a dream that only children do, though granted it may as well have been nothing more than a dream of colors and flashes of questionable light. She'd forgotten already the trauma of coming into the world, forgotten the confusing disorientation of being moved and cleaned and moved again. These things were commonplace now, but always marked by arrival at what she knew to be random times. It was impossible to make a proper timetable when she had no concept of day and night, nor growth in intelligence to deem the difference yet, and apparently eyesight would have been a great helper too.

It hadn't even been ten minutes since she had squirmed and rolled over to her pale sister, as though her presence was calming than initially disruptive. She had no idea where the other two were—perhaps the womb had snatched them back up, at which case she may have protested and demanded back in. Maybe. She wasn't able to point fingers, but it seemed pretty sure @Owen may have kicked her earlier and @Vasa probably stole her favorite teat she only rediscovered for the umpteenth time.

It was pretty comfortable here, if the smack of her lips and nestling down more against Kite meant anything at all. With very little sense of spacial awareness, Phoebe didn't know if she was closer to @Quixote or @Raven, or whether one of them had left again to come back smelling as foreign as they were familiar when recollection kicked back in. Not that it mattered either, she had eaten her fill for the time being, and her mind's eye was putting on a paw-curling show to lull her along.

tags are for visibility; forgive my liberties but i wanted to post for the hell of it for lack of better things to do at the moment.

Hah! ..."I want back in!" was my other newborn pup's post, actually.  XD  No worries; not a whole lot your potato brother can do yet but you're welcome to pull his puppet strings however you'd like, lol.

Owen resented the implication that he was some sort of, of, Sister-Kicker of some sort. Even—maybe even especially—if it was true. Fortunately for the continuing peacefulness of sister @Phoebe 's existence though, Owen couldn't hear or see any accusations she might have leveled, and he was no sort of mind-reader, at least not yet.

His own sense of time was divided sharply into segments based not on the circuits of the sun and the moon but rather on whether he was eating, sleeping, or that most uncomfortable and squirmy of states, awake-and-trying-to-start-eating-again. His dreams were muzzy, dark, senseless things filled mainly with bizarre smells both real and imagined, though as of yet he was having a lot of trouble sorting out which was which. Once in a while he'd get a rude awakening from one of his siblings that would bump him abruptly from one state to another. This time was a little gentler though; curled up as he was near one of Momma's enormously giraffe-like legs, he more gradually than usual sensed the movements of another sibling moving in to feed again. Owen jerked a little as he awoke, nonetheless, and took only a cursory sniff of the air before bumbling forth in what he hoped was the correct direction to fill his tiny gurgling belly.

At least...that had been his intent, until he realized some lazy sister of his had moved in-between him and his mother's burgeoning belly whilst he slept. Who was this?! What were they doing sitting there right where he wanted to be?! Oh, this wouldn't do at all! Owen tried to summon an authoritative bark to command the other to move, but it came out as more of a whimpery yip. Perhaps the foot he tried to scoot under her in an even less-subtle hint, hint might have a little more effect, though? He wasn't likely to be able to lever her little body up and out of the way but he could sure try. (But hey! See—it really wasn't a kick! Not exactly. :P )

There seemed to be a lot of things that had deprived him of sleep since they got to the plateau.  Apparently this was another of those cases.  He was pretty sure it was the middle of the night still, Raven was asleep, the pups had been pretty quiet.  Peaceful.  Leaving the anxiety-prone father alone with his own thoughts.  A great idea.

When he tried to sleep he was haunted by a ying-yang of ghosts, jolting awake in the den.  Just a dream, but he wasn't sure if it was supposed to mean -- a threat, a reminder... Something.  He'd settled himself on the far side of the den from Raven, afraid he'd accidentally squish a pup in the middle of the night.  Now, though, he wasn't going back to sleep yet.  He'd get to stare into the darkness for a while.  Or would, until someone started squeaking.

Okay, what nonsense were the little munchkins up to now?  For little beans without the ability to do more than nurse, wiggle around, and poop, they seemed to cause an at times absurd amount of trouble among the lot of them.  Quixote belly crawled over to take a better look and see if he could sort out whatever their issues were without waking up Raven.

Owen seemed to be the troublemaker of the moment, but Quixote wasn't entirely sure what the little guy wanted other than to bulldoze his sisters, apparently.  It wasn't like Quixote had basically any training with pups -- but since everyone else seemed to be happily snoozing, he probably should be too, right?  Either way, he probably should break up their little 'fight' before Phoebe, who was tucked up against Kite, got another sister involved.  Quixote reached down and very gently scooted Owen back an inch or so, swiping first him, then Phoebe a few times with his tongue to try and soothe them into settling down without a fuss.  Yeah, sure, he wasn't mom, but he'd do his best.

She was first stirred to by a tiny paw reaching in. And under her. Maybe once or twice to her fuzzy little legs but nevertheless the fact remained that it slowly jostled her free from her kaleidoscope dreams. Her face scrunched with uncertainty, her nose working to root about to figure all things apart when suddenly that other being, her dear Owen, disappeared from her sense of touch. Kite remained to her relief, however, and then the great dampness awashed her fully into the land of wakeful.

Surprised by all this change, her alarm came to rouse one and all. She cried strongly, a protest to this injustice. How dare, she seemed to announce, how dare you wake me! Yes, how dare not-mom.

If he'd thought that Sister Phoebe getting in his way was unfair, the injustice of the larger figure's interference really would set him squalling... Owen found himself involuntarily being scooched back from his goal, away from the belly of ultimate deliciousness! No no no no NO, this was NOT acceptable! He flailed his paws wildly before him, with any attempts at re-shoveling them under his sister doomed to fail but perhaps if he "pointed" them frantically enough in her direction (and maybe even bopped her once or thrice for emphasis) the looming interferer would get the hint.

The big stinky male had been there making a nuisance of himself right from the start of this whole outside-mom adventure, though, and didn't seem at all inclined to stop now. Owen wailed and ineptly tried to squirm away from the tongue seeking to sleek down his fur and emotions both. No, he didn't want a bath, you great idiot, he was hungry! Why this big stinky monster seemed unable to psychically divine this was beyond Owen, really. His cries died down a little as he started to hiccup however. Owen half-curled into a sulky little ball and muttered incoherently to himself about how his sister would doubtless steal all the milk for herself now that this brute had given her a hand in doing so. Owen leveled another mighty paw-smack at the bigger creature in retaliation and feebly tried to craftily plot his way out and around this unacceptable situation, like the world's most inept robber scheming out a bank heist.

Oh man, he was just making this worse.  New goal: don't wake Raven.  If she stayed asleep, she wouldn't know how much of a failure he was being right now.  Qui really shouldn't have skipped that parenting class.

Though both Owen and Phoebe were both up in arms at his failed attempts, Phoebe sounded much more likely to wake someone up, so she got his attention first.  Trying a different tactic, he lowered his head again to very softly nuzzle the tiny pup, trying to encourage her to just curl back up against Kite and pretend nothing happened.  Shh.  It's ok, he whispered, it's just me, the idiot.  Just go back to sleep.  Chances of that happening felt like maybe 3% if he was lucky.

And then, Owen, who seemed to be way more focused on trying to beat him up now rather than his sister, thank goodness.  He nudged the boy around a bit so he could more easily pick him up, delicately moving him to the other end of the pup line where there was a bit more room for him.  If there was less competition, maybe there'd be less trying to bulldoze his sisters?  Maybe.  Quixote was kind of just winging this.  All he wanted was them to settle down for a few more hours 'til it was an almost-respectable hour to wake up.  Knowing his luck, that'd just piss Owen off more, but hey, he was trying, dangit!

The ticklish feeling of having her fur slicked against the grain — collateral damage for sleeping so closely to Phoebe — was a source of irritation for the sleeping fledgling, but aside from a faint tremor and a disgruntled murmur she didn’t stir.

That is, until the squirming of her siblings and her father’s well-meaning nuzzle popped the fragile bubble of slumber and had her bobbling into full wakefulness. Normally Kite would have woken up at the mere touch of Quixote’s tongue — she was incredibly sensitive to tactile stimuli — but he’d been given a freebie of sorts.

Now, though? All bets were off.

The silver-cloaked thirdborn peeped her own litany of protests, wibbling and wobbling wildly as she attempted to worm her way toward her father. If she was awake, she wanted to be fed! It didn’t matter that Quixote lacked the proper equipment; gumming on his toes was good enough for her. It passed the time, and half the time she wasn’t on target with actual nursing, anyway. She quaked and quivered, bumping her muzzle around blindly — but she found Phoebe instead.

Squeaking fitfully, she pressed her head against her sibling with a tiny sigh.

Poor Dad, he couldn't catch a break.

Her protests were met gently, the sudden arrival of his muzzle to soothe her did in fact work—she silenced slowly, sighing as merely the presence of someone or something there reassured that perhaps nothing at all had changed.

But she was deaf to Kite's wailing, but not the shaky movements that defined the pale girl. Phoebe's meek features scrunched again as her source of comfort moved on just as her sister found her to rest upon... and well, she didn't have the energy to protest feeling that comforting contact. Was there a point? She heaved a sigh again, whimpering likened to a quiet grumble as she let her tiny legs stretch out.

This was really exhausting, this existing.

For a moment, it seemed his inept flailing had frightened off the big smelly male from his interfering hanging about, as he disappeared from Owen's vicinity to go take care of Phoebe instead. Owen waved his head uncertainly about in the open air to confirm that the creature had vanished, and then with surprise and delight started to fumble his way forward-ish again. Food was this direction. He thought. Dangit, all this fuss and kerfuffle was so confusing. His alert nose detected Kite squeaking and scuffling someplace in the vicinity, but Owen dismissed her and kept casting about for Raven's belly instead.

But he didn't get very far at all along his crooked baby-seal-flumph of a trail before the hulking male was back again to mess things up. Owen tried to loose an authoritative yap to command the creature leave him alone once more, as he angled to give the beast another hefty THWAP with his paw, but it flopped hard, coming out as more of a pathetic mewling yip. —Get that big boxy muzzle out of my face! Get back, you big bully! And put me down! Owen yelled in surprise as he found himself hauled aloft—a position that could only be removing him further and futher from his much-desired milk. He was too surprised to mount a proper protest however before @Quixote carefully deposited him on the ground once more. He started a feebler wail of confusion and began to throw his head back and forth in frustrated protest when he found his skull thonking straight into a looming wall of fuzz that the bullying male monster had somehow magically made appear before him. (Gasp! A regular warlock, that one. it seemed!) His voice immediately trailed off into silence as he felt about more tentatively with paws and muzzle both, and then greedily latched on to suckle from the first teat he could find, the topmost post nearest Raven's hind legs.

...There really was more than a little irony to Owen's continuing complaints about their father's treatment of him, given that Owen himself was less than careful that his confused flailing limbs and desperate lunge for milk avoid striking all his siblings. But he himself was resting beside Momma and contentedly filling his belly now, and so far as Owen was concerned that was all that really mattered in this world. Bulldozing over/under/through sisters apparently had its perks.

Raven slept the sleep of the dead. Alphaship and motherhood -- particularly the broken sleep and the demands that nursing put on her body's resources -- kept her taxed to her limit, most of the time, so when she laid down and closed her eyes, she pulled off a pretty impressive impersonation of roadkill.

So it wasn't any surprise that she slept through most of the puppies' revolt against their poor desperate father. Ironically, when she finally did wake up, it wasn't the noise that roused her so much as it was the sudden quiet. Owen and Phoebe had, for the most part, ceased their fussing, and only Kite was squeaking and whimpering. Raven's eyes popped open and she lifted her head, blearily looking around in the dark. She spotted the harried-looking Quixote and grinned sleepily. "Looks like you've been having fun," she commented with a grin of amusement at her mate's misfortune.

Okay, Owen seemed to have settled down even though he was still wiggling around like a madman.  Phoebe also seemed to be settling down again.  Quixote didn't have any plans to poke either of them again at this point. No thanks, not gonna dive into that again.  Now the problem was just Kite.  He'd been reaching down to try nudging her closer to Raven's side when motion in his peripheral vision caused him to jerk back suddenly -- he'd maybe been able to touch the longest hairs in Kite's pelt with the tip of his nose before doing so.

Apparently his attempts to try and let Raven sleep hadn't been successful.  His ears folded back on his skull.  Aw, c'mon. I was trying to keep them from waking you up, he said, sounding pretty dejected at the fact.  I'm sorry, I really don't have a damn clue what I'm doing -- try to stop a riot, end up causing one instead...  Insert a rueful sigh here.  It'd probably be more funny if could figure out what the heck he was doing wrong.  They just did a good job at making him feel like a dunce.

It was the low vibration of Quixote’s voice and the warmth of his breath rustling through Kite’s fur that clued her into his location. Laboriously, she turned herself, moving one wildly trembling limb at a time. Tiny grunts and huffs of exertion escaped her blindly seeking muzzle as she moved toward him, using faulty echolocation to make her way there; she peeped, but the sound was rhythmic and almost questioning. It probably would’ve worked better if her ears worked better, but whatever. Up until this point in her life, everybody sounded like Charlie Brown’s teacher, anyway.

When Kite finally reached her father’s foot, she tried to clamber atop it, but the erratic jittering of her limbs wouldn’t quit. With no small amount of effort, she hooked her little elbows over the broad span of his toes and hugged his ankle with her whole body until only the tip of her tail continued to quiver as she worked to keep her balance. Finally! A soft, relieved sigh gusted from her tiny lungs as even her tailtip ceased its trembling, and she fell asleep there on Quixote’s paw, like a furry white bracelet that didn’t quite fit the whole way around his sturdy wrist.