Hushed Willows sect;heat;helium;lead;bare;state;invention;medieval;

suddenly, the light wasn't so bright anymore. parts of it were, but most of it was blocked by this big, fuzzy dark blob before him. gawping, cam lifted his little head and squinted dubiously up, his blue eyes narrowed to slits. with clumsy, squirming steps, he crawled toward the big shadow-thing, wondering if it was like mum-shadow or if it was different, somehow.

oof. he bumped into a tall, solid thing (a foreleg, he'd later discover) squishing his already-squished nose against the solid length of bone and muscle. he snuffled indignantly, starting to blubber over his fate. now everything seemed really dark, and he didn't know whether he liked that more or less than the blinding light.

he closed his eyelids—what an odd thing to say, much less do—and it was very very dark; opened them again and not so dark. he did this a few times, before opening them wide and staring high at shadow-thing.

now that it wasn't so terribly bright, he found the golden-cream, the soft, silken texture of fur. fur like mum-shadow! it occurred to him that perhaps these things were one and the same, and he moved to turn, an action that invariably took a small eternity with his chubby puppy body. he blinked at mum-shadow, and she was very dark! very dark, and he looked down, and he was dark—

and there was a bright blob and a golden blob by mum-shadow, probably his little squirmy pillow-friends, and wow oh my goodness things were all of a sudden very different. no more formless void for cam; there was, there simply was, and it was marvelous!