Bearclaw Valley take a shot

The cold had come sweeping in so quickly that it had startled Glaucos from his sleep. He was aware of the vacany in the den, a percieved absence of something, somehow. Where there should have been warmth and dust and the sweet scent of baked grass to comfort him, there was something different - new, at least to his little nose. A musty smell, a dampness in the air which cooled his cheeks.

He trundled towards the den mouth, expecting to collide with a body before he met the entrance, or at least be grabbed by a warm mouth and placed somewhere more suitable for his chubby pebble-self to be. Instead there was more of the same: absence, cold and empty and alien.

Glaucos' head raised up as he faced the world outside, feeling a fat rain drop hit his nose, and then another upon his forehead - anointing him, in a way. The water rolled down his neck and slicked between his shoulders like a frigid lick of a tongue, and he squirmed in place, but did not have the motor skills to go in reverse. His bottom shimmied; his tail puffed a bit and fwap-fwap-fwap'd against the dirt behind him, becoming mud.

And then, out of the darkness of the den, came his brother. He had been stomping about while Glaucos struggled, and then lunged for his brother. Glaucos took the full brunt of the hit across his back and coughed a noise as he hit the dirt, face planting in to the puddle at his feet, which promptly silenced any further protest.