Swiftcurrent Creek the light goes out, my heart goes still and just like that, i believe in ghosts

God damnit, was her first waking thought as a gentle tug on her nip signalled Tiercel's departure. She wished she could rise bright and sunny in the mornings, but her awakening was something much more like Frankenstein's monster coming to consciousness; a spasm wracked her body and her eyes, gummy with sleep, cracked open and immediately shut again as her face inverted itself with displeasure. She laid there for some time, ignorant to Tiercel's careful inspection and decision to break the rules, before with a groaning and popping of her joins, she rolled laboriously to her stomach and blinked half-lidded at the moonlit entry.

There was nothing bright and shiny about that grouchy morning face. It was clear she hadn't slept well in days, constantly disrupted by Tiercel's need to have a teat crammed into her greedy mouth all night long and her own ignorance on how to make her child less dependent on her without just cutting off her own tits. Beauty sleep had lost its title quite some time ago. You'll be beautiful if you kill yourself was a more frequent component of her late night musing than just getting a solid eight hours to be fresh for the next day, and occasionally kill the kid snuck in there, too.

Determined to do the latter tonight, the mottled sterling she-wolf prepared to drag her bone-weary body up when suddenly her rebellious offspring came flying back into the den and jammed herself right into her pit. "Ow," she grumbled, "the fuck, child?" With a sharp nip to the rump, she sought to remove Tiercel from her hide-y hole. "If you're gonna break the rules you gotta face the consequences, all right," she decreed, half-joking and not-at-all-amused. "It's not my fault if you become owl food because you can't follow simple instructions, yeah?" Cue a gentle shove meant to freak Tiercel out, reminiscent of being seven years old while your dad locked the car doors and pretended to drive away without you. "Get your ass out there and face your destiny."