Dirty looks from your mother

Lycaon

lauren feel free to jump in if she would tell him to gtfo

news that the grottolitch had at last delivered her clutch in the night proliferated to the beta's ears the next morning. he was thrilled and nervous and wildly unsure of what to expect when visitations hours were declared. he'd never gotten the synopsis of how a woman's body wrought life, so he didn't know how fierce, how hardwon, how depleting it was to beget even the smallest of existences.

anyway. what if she didn't even want to debut them to the world, yet?!

Lycaon knew, if nothing else, that a lil bit of payola never hurt anybody. before making his way to the grotto, he ran an errand to the rockpiles in which marmots were known to burrow, and tried his luck at filching one still in hibernation. to his misluck, there was nothing to be found in the crevices except extremely surprised/upset snakes, which he really wasn't in favor of, and was quick to desert. his patience was weakend by the eagerness to meet his new siblings, thus, he settled on hauling a muskrat from the reedy creekbed, sopping wet and eerily similar to the mushpig Tachyon had always best liked.

nerves were unraveling him into a delicate alabaster fibril on his way back to the coastal hollow. he'd long since vacated the recesses of the grotto to find his own smaller-scale, less disorienting den in the forest where he and Nyx could have more private affairs. even after the affairs stopped, he remained there--mostly out of a sense that he wasn't soon to be embraced into the maternity ward with open arms.

it was clear by the dead hare at the entrance that Lycaon had not been the first of visitors, but perhaps the first of those willing to court danger? the kill smelled faintly of Nyx, but regardless of its previous almsgiver, he collected it into the glove of his muzzle with the muskrat. suddenly aware that he could hear tiny squeaks, he tentatively toed onto the grotto's threshold with his ears pricked and trepidation rousing--heartbeat quickening--with the excitement of a little girl when approaching a cardboard box full of mewling kittens. he turned the corner to the resting form of the denmother and her hot-off-the-press brood. "ifsth me. i brouhf fou food." Lycaon announced himself, dropping the quarry at his feet and nudging them towards her with a hopeful shimmer scintillating across his features.

there'd been an inkspill of sorts, it would seem to him. darkened forms nestled into the pale furs of Caiaphas' belly, one of them making himself very well acquainted with the clout of his lungs. Lycaon lurched down with intrigue, sniffing at the tinny-smelling blob that had no identity to him but was presently insisting a namesake of squeeeaaaeeuuuuu. "nice try, but i'm still better at marmot calls." he whispered into Ephraim's folded-over ears, snuffling wetly all over the characterless blot.