Bearclaw Valley don't let the ever rolling motion go and get you down

the parcel of soft-furred ears tumbled from indra's mouth as a pup stirred from the depths of the den. her ears fell back in uncertainty as the cream thing stumbled towards her -- she was struck by how impossibly small and vulnerable the child was.

she made move to nudge him, but paused as she heard ferns rustle behind her. when she turned around she half expected the mother -- instead it was xan, hunched over the shuddering form of a second, quite sickly puppy.

indra felt a sinking feeling in her gut - what parent would leave their children behind like that? futher more -- what cruelty was it to take one, and leave the others implicitly behind?

perhaps it was that shared grief that softened the ice around her edges, though it was not enough to cut the bluntness of her answer. "i don't know. i'm not their mother." indra said ruthlessly, though realized thereafter coldness would not help their situation. "she left yesterday with one."

the cruel irony of this situation did not escape indra -- laurel's children, bastards without a father -- and these children, wretches without a mother. and standing between the strife of it all, the perpetrator: xan.