Sawtooth Spire tin cans and string

Sitamat blinked against the light of the day, his eyes having been used to the darkness of the den. His slight discomfort was relieved by the brush of his father's tongue over his head, and the boy was quick to try to return a lick of his own. He missed — just — and instead his tongue was left poking out of his teeth as Iqniq used him as a foot rest.

The youngest accepted his father's antics, not shaking his paw off and instead letting it balance on his head and sitting up straight as he listened to his words. He understood a few of them, his vocabulary currently a work in progress, but a certain word caught the boy's interest. He glanced up at his father, awkwardly turning his head to peer out from underneath the man's large paw. "Ff...fvvole?" Vole. That was a new one.