Hideaway Strath ceathairéad

You all made such beautiful posts. ;-;
Meanwhile, KJ remembers how difficult it is to play a newborn puppy and flounders among your greatness.

The moments following Eirlys and Roarke’s birth are bewildering and unsettling — a flurry of movement and frenzy that the little blossom is helpless to comprehend. Unlike her feistier siblings, she shuts down completely — and perhaps this underwhelming entrance is indicative of her future response to life’s trials and tribulations. Until the wise woman gently prods at her with the cool wet of her nose, Eirlys remains limp and unmoving but for the erratic rise and fall of her tiny breast and the thrum of her pulse that is visible through her baby fur. She is essentially stunned, her developing mind whirring frantically as she registers sensation after sensation in a dizzying rush. Nothing is familiar; she instinctively longs for the warm, comforting press of her siblings and utters a frail, mewling cry of protest that only seems to make things worse. Against her will, she leaves the ground behind and is deposited somewhere else entirely.

The snowdrop becomes aware of warmth — a pleasant, ticklish sensation that causes her skin to tingle from the blunt nub of her nose to the trembling tip of her stubby tail — as her mother bathes her thoroughly. She squeaks softly, ridiculously pink paws splaying every which way in an experimental manner. Being placed between Mallaidh and Roarke comforts her, for the feeling of being squished is more familiar than anything else she’s experienced in this new world so far. Although her first instinct is to nurse, stimulated by the wriggling, squirming bodies of her siblings as they do exactly that, she doesn’t seem to get the gist of it. Her first clumsy attempts involve the side of @Mallaidh’s face, and it is only when she is detached with an audible little pop! of her suckling mouth and redirected that she figures out what she’s supposed to be doing. The moment the first droplets of sweet nectar trickle down her throat, her forehead seems to tauten — if her eyes were open, they would have widened in surprised pleasure — and she latches on with a will. Her folded ears twitch with the zeal of her nursing as she burbles happily.