Sun Mote Copse Hit your heart.

Meerkat had just punched her mother in the gut, figuratively speaking.

Towhee stared, unfocused, at the spot in the brush where her daughter had disappeared several moments prior, off to fetch a friend and go exploring. Meanwhile, the Sovereign tried to catch her breath as the conversation replayed in her mind.

-"Hey, mama, could I go visit Moonspear again soon? I'll take a buddy!"-

-"I would prefer to be the one to go with you when you visit other packs. We'll go again sometime in the near future."-

-"Okay! What if..."-

-"What if...? What if what?"-

-"What if I stayed there for a while? I wanna be an ambassador, wouldn't that be a good way to learn?"-

-"...stay there, as in leave Firebirds and join Moonspear...?"-

-"Yeah!"-

-"No. Absolutely not. You're nowhere near old enough. No."-

Towhee felt guilt churning in her gut as she blinked back to the present. Meerkat had accepted her mother's knee-jerk reaction with a graceful nod and nothing more before scooting off to find a scouting buddy. Along with the conversation, the sight of her daughter sashaying away into the copse had hit Towhee upside the head. Meerkat would fill out more in time, yet she was now the size of an adult. And she had gone off to work on her trades. Which was also why she'd brought up Moonspear.

"Mother fucking shit..." she whispered under her breath, tears stinging at her orange eyes.

Maybe @Phox? But all welcome! :3

Alyx practically hopped down the game trail, carrying a bundle of humongous pointed leaves between her lips. Somewhere between the rendezvous and the southernmost border, she'd found a lone tree with these ginormous leaves and, taken with their vaguely star shape, she'd grabbed a few to take back with her.

They flapped comically in her face every time the wind picked up, which might explain how she never saw Towhee until she stepped practically on top of her. Woah! the pup explained when Towma's tail appeared beneath her paws. She sidestepped neatly, then dropped all her leaves in a gently fluttering cascade before abruptly asking, Towma, Towma, can these heal ouchies?

For a moment, her secondary mom's pensive expression went unnoticed, but then Alyx spotted the tears and her heart thudded painfully. Are you okay, Towma? she asked, snuffling toward the Sovereign's muzzle. Can I help your ouchies?

if y'all mind me, let me know! <3

 

Q on the other hand had not been at all productive. While Alyx was collecting things that looked like stars, Q was being selfish and burying her favorite things wherever she found them. A crooked branch here? Absolutely had to have it. A small, overchewed bone? Thrifting happened to be in at the moment, and Q was overjoyed to find and stash it. Now her stash jobs were piss poor and needed work—that crooked branch she found was likely only half-buried, so anyone with eyes that could see could find it. But Q was rather pleased with herself, hence her jubilant prancing. 

She heard Alyx from afar, but only ouchies. Let it not be said that Q did not care for her siblings. Q for sure did, she just was more into herself and getting muddy. Priorities. But thinking her sister had an ouchy did worry her, and so she grabbed the nearest thing to her—then and there, a nice, sparkly little rock—before finding Alyx and Towma nearby. 

Q darted toward her sister, wisely avoiding the pile of leaves her sister had collected (though truth be told it was likely because it wasn't in her destructive line of path) and squinted. Having misunderstood that her sister had no ouchies, Q dropped the sparkly rock and nosed it to Alyx. It was clean and pretty, and Alyx seemed to like the former to her knowledge. Maybe she would like the way it sparkled in the light? 

Rare though it was, when Q cared about someone she could be thoughtful. This was likely the first display of it in her lifetime where there were witnesses... but now and then it happened. All bedter? Insert tail wave here.

That was when she saw Towma and the tears, and Q adjusted the way she stood to face Towma now. Towma has ouchy??? She asked, in a way asking the both of them. Looking to Alyx, the rock, and Towma... then back to Alyx again... she huffed be righd back!!!!! before turning away to go grab something that might make Towma feel better, too. 

Thank god it wasn't a medical emergency because Q was, clearly, no medicine woman.

They quickly welled and began to spill down her cheeks. She knew that if Meerkat wanted to do this, she shouldn't hold her back, but she was just so young. Towhee had seen this coming, after learning of the girl's aspirations and witnessing her love of traveling firsthand, yet not so soon. She had expected her to wait until she was a yearling before taking off like her brother and sister before her. She sniffed, grappling with the reality that, no matter how tightly she tried to hold onto Meerkat, it wouldn't do any good.

Something pinched her tail and the emotional she-wolf flinched, whirling quickly. She swallowed the instinctive impulse to snarl, since she was inside the territory and she doubted she was being attacked. In fact, it was just one of the twins, with a mouthful of leaves. She dropped them and gazed up at the weeping Sovereign, offering comfort. It was such a sweet gesture (and honestly made her think of Meerkat's penchant for such), so naturally she began crying all the harder and found herself unable to speak.

She made an effort to sign, -I'm sorry, I'm okay.- Of course, that probably wasn't reassuring, given her state. Towhee hiccuped unattractively even as Q careened onto the scene, dropping a stone before exchanging a look with her sister and darting off again. Towhee didn't catch what she'd said, beyond her own name. She gulped and put an honest effort into stemming the tears, a foreleg coming up to swipe aggressively across her wet eyes and snotty nose.

-"I'm okay,"- Towhee croaked, fibbing because she didn't want to burden the younger kids with her complicated emotions, -"especially now that you're here. What're those?"- she asked thickly, pointing a toe at the enormous leaves even as tears continued slipping down her muzzle.

Sometimes, Alyx didn't seem to have anything in common with her twin, but there were other times that she and Q operated on the same wavelength. Today was one of those days. Ooooh, she exclaimed when Quetzal dropped a shiny rock, craning her neck to get a good look at it. It glinted in the dappled forest sunlight and she was amazed at how clean it was. Quetzal wasn't known for being overly tidy...

Before she could say or sign anything to her twin, Q was off again like a rocket, leaving Alyx with a blubbering Towhee, who asked what the leaves were. Remembering for once that Towhee couldn't hear, Alyx began to sign. She was still pretty clumsy about it, so maybe it didn't make a lot of sense, but she did her best: Stars in trees. Good healing?

Frowning, she added, help Towma?

sorry for the delay <3

 

Quetzal returned with a variety of things. The Holy Trinity, she would later enthuse in a retelling to Rosie. Real cool girl shit. And what were these items, you might be wondering? Well, wonder no more:

One was her favorite bone that she constantly hid in new places so that no one could find it. Hell, Q could scarcely find it. But what took her so long was that she thought really, really hard about it. It was her absolutely favorite thing (right now), and though it hurt her heart to part with it, well, it definitely would help Towma feel better. It always made her feel better! Another was a raggedy stick. It just looked cool, to Q, who was easily impressed. Not as pristine and pretty as the rock she had shown Alyx—it had definitely been chewed on before, too—but semantics. And lastly was a rotting, miscellanious body part from a frog or a toad or something reptilian she had buried. Unidentifiable, a cold case brought back to "life". It was worse for wear than ever before, and worried by her teeth, but well loved. 

Q dropped each of these items at the feet of Towma, and reclined on her haunches, satisfied. -Happy now????- She asked, with a little wave of her tail. Fat chance that she wasn't with this absolute fuckin' bounty she brought. Treasure was real, and Q was better than most (in her own eyes) at finding it.

Alyx's clumsy signing warmed her preemptively broken heart. She just wished she knew how to answer the girl's question. She hesitated, peering at the leaf. She was just about to tell her she wasn't sure but that Eljay or even Weejay might know, when the second question came. Towhee choked up all over again.

Glad that they could communicate in a way that didn't require using her voice, Towhee said, -Yes, this leaf makes me feel better already.- That much was certainly true. -We could ask Eljay if it has other powers too. Would you like to do that?-

Before Alyx could answer, Quetzal returned with a whole myriad of items stuffed in her maw. Towhee's brows raised in genuine surprise as Q unloaded her loot. She was impressed she'd fit so much in there, until she remembered. According to the others who could hear, Q had the biggest mouth in the pack. That thought caused a chuckle to eke out of her; she caught herself a little off guard with it.

But her tears were already drying and her fears about Meerkat took a backseat as she leaned down to examine the twins' treasures. -Yeah,- she signed as she did, looking between the two to catch each of the twins' gazes, -I feel a lot better now. Thank you.- Towhee knew they likely wouldn't understand how much they'd genuinely touched her, though hopefully the respective nuzzle to their matching foreheads would get the message across.

The leaf made Towma feel better! That was as good as any healing to Alyx, who grinned widely. Knew they magic! she exclaimed in ptero, exaggerating her movements even more than usual to convey her excitement. Towma admitted that she had no idea if they had any other properties, but before Alyx could think on her suggestion to ask Eljay about it or respond, Quetzal zoomed back onto the scene with an absurd number of items crammed in her mouth, distracting her.

They tumbled out like a small landslide, each item worse than the last, in Alyx’s prim opinion. She could appreciate the bone, but the splintery stick was met with a grimace of disapproval, and she visibly recoiled when she spotted the—

What the hell even was that thing?!

Ew, Q! she hollered, prancing on the tips of her toes. Smelly! At least Towhee seemed to appreciate her twin’s unorthodox gifts. She arched up on her toes a little when Towma brushed her head with her nose, then sidled up to Quetzal, careful to avoid the decomposing voodoo creature she’d procured. She beamed again when Towhee said she was feeling better, unaware that emotions were a spectrum and not absolutes. "Better" to Alyx still meant 100% better, not a little better. Wanna play? she asked, including her twin for once, which could only be a regret in the making.

The only games Quetzal knew, according to Alyx, were the filthy ones.

Q huffed as her sister reacted in ptero. -Smelly things can be good too,- she answered. But really, she wasn't all too upset by it. Alyx had no love for the finer smellier things in life. Towma did, though, which was why Towma was brought The Good Stuff^TM. Anyway, Q was on the same page as Alyx when Towma said she was feeling better. Cured from sadness by the two expert child heart-doctors of the Firebirds, Q visibly perked up at her sisters suggestion to play. 

Prancing in place, and pressing a (clean) shoulder against her twin, she grinned, yeah! -Whatcha wanna- play? she asked, lapsing in and out of ptero (but fortunately, her mouth was facing Towma even as her eyes shifted to Alyx).

With the problem evidently solved, the twins wanted to play. Towhee wrinkled her nose as the two of them bantered, feeling a rush of affection wash through her. Each of this year's four children were such unique individuals. There was Meerkat, the happy-go-lucky adventurer (her chest twinged); Alyx, fierce and fussy; Quetzal, with a mouth so big even Towhee could hear it, with a heart to match; and the small, soft Prim. The love she felt for all of them was deep, fierce and indescribable, which was probably why her heart felt so bruised after the earlier events.

But the two dark girls kept serving as a wonderful distraction. Finding her voice again (after clearing her throat), Towhee said, -"Of course."- She then dropped into a crouch, freezing for a beat before swiping a paw at each twin's rump. -"Tag, you're it! Tag, you're it too! Tag team tag!"- Her voice was a little hoarser than usual, not that she realized, but her eyes danced with genuine mirth as she spun and led them on a game of chase through the trees.

Feel free to archive here or wrap yourselves!