Stone Circle the wicker wolf

Once Swiftlet became aware of other creatures within their world, and became capable of pursuing them, they became his sole reason for existence. Beetles and bugs, flies and wind-carried leaves which he mistook for the latter, grasshoppers and frogs... he went after them all. If he caught them he would eat them, and in doing so he discovered his biggest joy in life so far: the thrill of chowing down on something he had hunted himself.

It was a mild afternoon with the sun drifting in and out of the clouds. @Katla was with @Tauris nearer the den while Swift, whom was always hungry and could never seem to eat enough, was on the prowl again snuffling about for snacks and entertainment. Despite his voracious appetite he remained slender, growing more graceful in his movements each day. This was most apparent when he was focused on stalking, as his propensity for reckless frolic and haphazard gamboling often masked his elegance.

His ears, now almost entirely erect on top of his head, were keen enough to pick up a distant hum. It lured him with its persistence and novelty, and he tracked it to a patch of clover. @Figment had passed by here earlier when he left to hunt, and for a moment Swift was distracted by his father's scent and a longing to travel so far as he. But then more distinct, individual hums loudly passed by his ears. The rest happened very quickly.

He snapped and bounced after the bugs as they rose from the clover until there was a sharp pain at one of his heels. Then his arse. Perplexed at first, he stood stupidly glancing to and fro, only for one of these black-and-yellow menaces to pitch on his nose and dig its stinger in there. Swift yelped, and right then and there he abandoned his hunt and sought vengeance, driving his head into the clover as he tried to chomp at the rising swarm.

There was no taking the punishment. Seconds later Swift fled squalling, blundering blindly through the brush and colliding with [YCH], the hornets still madly on his tail.

Let's play Your Character Here! :) Open to anyone who may be in the vicinity of the den.

Inkeri was barreled into and a soft oof left her followed by her own language.

godhet

She saw the child and then bees and she reacted swiftly. come to the water.

Once they made it to the water and he splashed in a bit they would leave and she could use mud on the stings. Poor little one.

She was heavier than she had been, but she felt they could make good time.

The collision stunned him but Swift came to his paws quickly after, shaking his head as if to throw off the disorientation. The hornets were hitting like lightning bolts all over his body, but one particular strike in the most sensitive of places sent him rocketing forward with a sharp wail.

Tail hooked tight between his legs, by accident or compulsion the boy took the directions given to him. Surging ahead he plowed into the water without thought, his first swim a wet-and-wild display of frantic splashing amid the sounds of him snorting and gasping for lack of knowing what to do in this new environment. The water soon became the center of his panic, the hornets forgotten as he flailed.

Inkeri jumped in after him
Reaching for his scruff. Holding him and herself she attempted to pull him towards the edge.

Lucky for both it wasn't overly fast today, nor was it deep. The challenge would be keeping him calm.

Come little one. Come with me. Me.

Swiftlet raged like a wildcat. Twisting and spitting, paws swatting, snapping and growling.  His ire was directed at everything and nothing — such was the chaos of it. Too much had happened to vex him in too short a time. His senses and sensibility were overwhelmed.

Back on land and with the hornets gone, he had a chance to calm and to take stock of matters. First, he levelled a severe stare at the strange wolf who had aided him (she had scruffed him! the nerve!). But he presented little of a threatening image. Swift looked like a drowned rat, but more specifically like a drowned rat that had been beaten with a branch. His fur was dirty and wet and flung in every direction. One eye was partially swelled shut, and the bridge of his snout had ballooned. From the corner his mouth lolled his tongue — also puffed.

He sat there, ears flat and his tail still curled tightly beneath him, silent and scowling and still staring.

The boy had hurt her. Oh he hadn't meant too, but he had cut her head and scratched her face and she felt tears well up in her eyes, but she fought them.

She couldn't blame him. He was so little and such terrible things had happened to him. How could she blame him. And she had wrongly told him what to do. She should have used mud.

Inkeri shifted. My I help you? You? With some of the pain? Sometimes mud. she looked down then. Or I can call your mother. Mother.

SHe thought for sure that Tauris would be mad at her, but she had done her best. Hadn't she? Despite it all she had done what she could. She sniffled, but didn't cry. She longed to help the little one. To pull her to him, like she would her own children.

EHH!? How was mud supposed to help him? Mud was fun and he loved fouling himself in mud but mud was just that: mud. But there was a more urgent matter at hand, and the topic of mud was cast aside.

He stomped a paw down. Don't. Tell. Then that same paw lifted to shoo her. Go. Swift still never budged from where he sat, twitching and fidgeting. Through his nose blew a frustrated sigh as he shifted uncomfortably from one back foot to the other, at times his rump lifting from the ground before he caught himself and planted it once more.

Bye!

Inkeri's ears splayed to her head as the child made his distaste known. Could she blame him, she had muddled all this up. She cursed her lack of words. The way she bumbled, stumbled through what she wanted to say. She had been so worried for him, she hadn't even thought he wouldn't know how to swim or even that he would have gone that deep. She had only wanted him to jump in until she could get to him.

His words grew harsher and Inkeri felt her nose twitching. He was being quite rude for a pup. She had done her best and he was being a nasty little thing, though not every child could be as even tempered as her girls she supposed. She tilted an ear and then spoke softly.

You put mud on nose and other stings. Just dab. Dab.

She nodded and then slowly turned away from him. He told her not to tell, but she'd be telling @Tauris or @Figment anyway, because they needed to know, what had transpired and what they could do to help.

There sits her sopping, muddy, swollen mess of a boy, so serious and determined to conserver a dour glare. He was absolutely ridiculous! And with one glance, she breaks into hysterical, roiling laughter! That was one way to learn to leave wasps well alone.

Inkeri had told her where to find her son by the river and she’d been quick to cross the field after thanking the woman for her care.

“Oh baby,” she coos between tempered giggles, “Does it hurt?”

Like a thief checking if the coast was clear, Swift had a quick look around for other observers after the white wolf left. Seeing no one, he hastened to his business. Admist whines and whimpers and mad little growls, he nearly turned himself inside out trying to lick between his legs. The frantic bathing of his tongue failed to soothe these most tender pieces of himself, and so skeptical or not Swift scuttled over to the mud and dropped his rear down in it.

His mother came along just as he was desperately wiggling his hips, urging the mud to release its magic and quell the burning and throbbing that plagued him.

What? No! Don’t know what you talk about. Swiftlet played it all off, straightening his back and acting as though nothing were amiss. I’m just sit— He saw it then as he pretended to look around all nonchalant like. His reflection. His swollen face.

Swift guffawed. Cool! He said, forgetting the insult below his tail and admiring his new badass look.

“Mhm, very cool,” she bridles forward with a head cocked. Her son was quite impressive, taking to his injuries in stride while other young cubs might have been screaming their faces off.

“But I’m not sure your father will agree so let’s get you cleaned up, ok?” She passes a tongue along the bridge of his nose and up over an eye swollen shut. She’s fairly certain Fig would see the humor in this too but she was not above using their father as a scapegoat if it meant winning points with her children- and getting chastised for it later, a thought which elicits a sly smile.

She carries her son to the river, giving him a good dunk before setting about her grooming, throughly preening at every sodden inch.

Swiftlet squawked as his mother bathed his puffy snout and eye. Nononono!

The dreaded bath time.

He protested and squirmed but his mother was winning this battle as she had numerous times before. One day he would win the war he figured, but today he tucked his tail between his legs and hoped she wouldn't take notice of just what a 'big boy' he had become.

I'm clean! I'm clean! But no, he wasn't, and his mother would go on grooming him until he was regardless of his constant insistence otherwise.

Fade here? :)
Danni - thanks for subjecting poor Inkeri to this brat!