Dragoncrest Cliffs and nimbly, has reminded me now

aw!

two weeks. she scarcely knew where the time had gone, only that now her children had largely opened small blue eyes and seen the stone promise of sapphique stretching just outside their home.
@Sobo, in the next moments, had his face cleaned; mireille her hackles groomed; @Loko's paws cleansed, and @Coraline's belly smoothed.
today someone had brought a pink-tinged shell, and erzulie rolled it before her four. "un cadeau," she told the babes softly.

Sobo was still reeling from having his face wiped clean when Erzulie's voice sounded. Sounds were still distant and faraway in his developing ears, words spoken as though through blobs of cotton. Just enough to draw the babe's attention. He wibble-wobbled his head while lifting with his forelegs, suspending himself in a sort of searching arc.

Something bright rolled into his blurry vision then and his denim eyes went wide. Woooooaaaaaah. That was certainly not the red hues of his siblings and Rosalyn, nor the warm creams and browns of his dam or the earthy hues of the man who came now and then, another trusted figure for Sobo. That was some unknown colour that immediately drew him forward in a lurching crawl. His gums were bared already in anticipation.

He needed it. He would die without it. It had to go in his mouth, right now.

sobo was the first to detach himself from the retinue of children. he lunged in his graceless puppy way for the shell's glinting surface, provoking a chuckle from his mother. it occurred to her now that she'd not had sons in her den since the first year, of scarab and reyes nursing between herself and rosalyn.
the thorn in her side, that one; she had not expected anything of nature but it had still seemed unfair to disallow the wives from sharing another brood. illogical, irrational.
erzulie shook it away.
"eske se vre?" she asked, dipping her muzzle near him with a grin. "que les garçons sont chaotiques?"
she placed her paw behind the gift, meaning to steady it as sobo explored.

Boys are sweet little baby angels, thank you very much, mère!

So might Sobo have protested, if Sobo was aware of the words spoken to him and gifted with words himself. He lifted his head at the soft whishing of her voice through his ears, something akin to a hand whisked through water and heard from below. His denim blues locked onto her dark face for an instant, accompanied by a bashful boyish beam.

He had not forgotten the shell, though, and tracked her paw toward it once more. The rosy hue transfixed him again at once. Sobo stumbled forward until he could press his nose to the smooth surface of it, eyes crossing with the effort of trying to remain focused. It was cold to the touch and the alluring hue filled him with relaxation. His tail thump-thumped against his sides. For a moment, he quivered there, gentle and calm.

But he was still a boy, and Erzulie was not wrong about boys. The spell was quickly broken when he clamped his gums down on it and began to vibrate with a possessive growl, warning away siblings and generous maman alike while he attempted to drag the shell away with comical heaves of his small body.

GOSH i love the av AHH

she laughed, watching sobo's eager travails when it came to the shell. he was exploratory, fierce; sobo knew little fear. and he was the most hungry of this year's brood.
her last.
finally, a decision, and erzulie breathed easier in the wake of it. she would dote upon her sons and daughters as though they were her first, and crooned in her small demigod's direction. "coquille," the harlot purled gently, trying vaguely to wrest it from him, testing to see if his puppy-growls would show themselves. they amused her, after all, and reminded the woman that sapphique and its legacy were only as strong as the teeth behind their name.

Erzulie could easily have taken the shell from him if she wanted. This was not a concept Sobo comprehended yet, however, so even her gentle tugs caused him to ratchet his growls up an octave. The rumble was there below the high-pitched whine of his very young voice, but there was nothing threatening about it yet.

He planted his paws wide and gave the shell a mighty tug, but his gums slipped against the smooth surface. Instead of wrenching the shell away from his mother, Sobo merely popped it out of his own mouth and threw himself backward. He gave his head a brisk shake, flopping clumsily onto his side with the force of it, then rose and toddled forward with a wagging tail and chorus of youthful growls. He would not be so easily deterred!

He clamped his little jaws on the shell again and tried once more to haul it away, setting himself up for a repeat of his previous failure, with no indication that he had learned anything from it.

she chuckled, listening to his growls warn even her back. she began a song, a wordles little melody, and circled around to the other side. intent upon amusing herself, she pushed the shell harder this time, more from sobo's reach.
erzulie wished to test him a little bit, even at his tender age —
would he continue for the gleaming surface or turn upon his maman?
she flipped it the other way, showing the little shell-studs upon the duller face.

Erzulie's hummed song piqued Sobo's interest. He focused so intently on her far-off voice and the rising and falling notes that he went slack-jawed. His mother would find no resistance when she pushed the shell away from him, but it effectively broke the spell on Sobo. He flashed his gums at his dam, then dove after the shell.

It would be fortuitous to say that Sobo stopped before ramming those gums right into the shell’s pointed edge, but boys did not learn by merely looking at the object. Sobo grabbed it with the same gusto from before, only to recoil with a whine at the feeling of the studs digging into his sensitive mouth. The look he shot at his mother was full of confusion, and if she looked close enough, she might imagine betrayal.

He was too young to feel such abstract things, so it was only the poignancy of his boyish gaze, and not any real feeling of betrayal, that made Sobo’s eyes shine in that light. Nonetheless, he shied away from the shell with his gaze locked almost expectantly on his mother's face.

"oho, pauvre huître douce! i did not mean it so cruelly," she trilled to her betrayed little son. her muzzle dipped close, and she showed him how his front teeth might be used around one spike or another, how to fit other fangs into the spired surface of the shell and lift it to be carried away.
"ou dwe dou," she entreated brave little sobo, encouraging her son back to resume his exploration of the sea's gift.
boys raised in sapphique had the particular luck of two mothers, erzulie felt, and it would serve them as men who must go out into the world.

His mother was kind and gentle with him in spite of his sensitivity. Two mothers would serve him well, indeed, but also hinder him in a way. No man would demand that he toughen himself up, for Njord was not the sort to push his boys in that way. Sobo would learn the hard way how to be a man, and hopefully become one worthy of Sapphique, as so many before failed to be.

He watched with great interest the way she handled the shell as though no spikes existed to press into her gums. Sobo was not so elegant about it, but he eventually managed to fit in his mouth with a stub resting against his palate, tiny fangs hooked around the rim, and then he was able to hoist it up, staggering in place while he steadied himself.

In his eyes now shone excitement and pride where betrayal flashed before. These, he turned up to his mother with a broad grin around the shell, whipping his tail in a frenzy.

"bon travail!" erzulie crooned to her happy boy. he had followed her instruction and was now rewarded. she wondered if he might seek to collect shells, and turned her two-toned gaze toward the beachfront for a moment. 
"èske w konnen ki kote kokiy soti?" she asked aloud, smiling at him and the pinkish curls of the ocean's gift. her tail answered him in long swishes.
it did not occur once to erzulie how the lack of a harder farther might affect her sons. njord would not lift a paw to them, but had he once, the obsidian would have disavowed him immediately.

The meaning of the sounds his mothers and father made still eluded Sobo. He was delighted by their voices and often responded with coos and cackles of his own, nonsensical little noises that made sense to the toddler but none to adult ears. He could tell praise from scolding by the inflection and the way the speaker's face lit up, so excitement was his natural reaction to Erzulie at first, but her question sailed between his ears without comprehension.

All he did was continue to smile up around the shell. Who cared where they came from! Sobo had lifted it, and so it now belonged to him. As if to finalize this, he staggered in a slow turn and began toting it back into the den, where he meant to settle in a dark corner with it and growl boisterously at any of his siblings who dared try to take it from him.