Dragoncrest Cliffs lanmou lajounen

If Sobo was a clap of thunder, then Loko was a reed snaking in his brother's downdraft; a squeaking and squirming slip of a wolf pup. He chirred and wriggled until a teat to the face stopped him up with a grunt of thought—if it could be called that. It was an idea if nothing else. The idea that there was something he ought to be doing besides worming in his new space and trying to make conversation.

Deprived of fat but not of spirit, the second-born latched onto his mother, and suckled. He suckled, and he suckled, and he suckled. He grew round with a temporary fatness and groaned with discomfort. Or was that determination? Because the bugger kept on suckling, and suckling, and suckling still. He must have been making up for lost time, for long past the point where it seemed there could be nowhere left in his long thin body to put more milk, he was still going. He burped there once, as if to signal the end, but then filled whatever space that made with even more.

If Loko hadn't passed out... well, he'd probably still be suckling. But there he was for now, dead to the world. The rise and fall of his chest the only indication that he hadn't truly eaten a hole to the spirit world in his first few hours of life.