Blacktail Deer Plateau baby's first everything

For Kat and Perry (who is hanging about as @Osprey Jr.! According to my maths they're about 2 months if 1 human month = 1.5 pup years, so I'm going to see what babies can do at that age. Slight positional power-play.

They were three days old today, and never in the history of weight-gain had the world stood witness to such a percentage increase.

Pura, it turned out, was a champion consumer once latching on had become a doddle and he had worked out how to swallow slightly less air. The farts were still many and putrid, but the frequency with which the cloud was replenished meant that those who were made to suffer the effects - Hawkeye in particular, whose sense of smell was keenest - were surely inoculated by now.

The ever-present milk machine, whose sacrifice and hard work Pura did not yet have the faculties to appreciate, had been relieved of her duties to bathe, stretch, and see a face or two with eyes that could actually open. Other wolves stood guard outside at varying paces between the mouth of the den and the vast, angry wilderness. Peregrine was stationed closest.

The day was mild and the pups were full, huddled in the center of the den like a cluster of mismatched, balled-up socks. Osprey Jr. and Saēna had declare a truce for the moment, allowing her brother a moment's respite from the lady-squabbling he would no doubt spend the rest of his life policing. The 3-day-old pup lay on his back in a rare ray of sunshine that had found its way into their hideaway, probably planning mischief though he had neither words nor images to form a thought. Suddenly, their dark sentry shifted into the path of the sun, and Pura was suddenly colder than he had been. A high-pitched "Ooooo!" and a customary toot signalled the little boy's great distress.