Hideaway Strath Ghosts in the closet

Developmental stage: 5 weeks/3 human yrs

Momo had quickly developed a habit of wandering, so frequently in fact that her Mantli eventually gave up on attempting to corral the sandstone pup and merely tasked her with the requirement of staying close enough to call for help even if The Priestess couldn't see the child. Mantli was a flickering presence in her bright days, flitting in and out of the child's play sessions to check on her whenever Momotzli grew bored of accompanying her dam on various chores. It was different than Tahtli, she could notice the difference even as young as she was. Tahtli shared her and mama's bed, though not every night anymore. The den felt too large when her father failed to return home and the dark too pressing; on those nights she clung to her mother and burrowed against her narrow chest as she once had her father's -- feeling guilty that she wished it was Vein's and angry for reasons she couldn't quite understand. And most days her father was preoccupied by the gods Mantli took her to speak with, though she couldn't really hear them and Aerin only smiled when she said as much, or by his precious plants. She might've acted out, as any young child was like to do in such a situation, and demand his attention. But in some corner of her young mind, she could sense that it made her mother sad too. The combat medic did her best to hide it but Momo could feel how her chest shivered and shuddered in the night when her husband was absent. Instead she bottled it up, not wanting to make mama even more sad and hurt that her father could leave them both this way. Rather than throw fits and rage, she took to solitude and ranging through the Strath she had come to learn was her home -- while abiding by the rule of staying close to Aerin, of course. 

On one such instance, the golden girl came across a shadowed figure -- the likes of which she had never seen before and made her mismatched, gilded orbs widen in shock. Her parents were so pale that her own flaxen fur seemed a mystery to her developing mind, let alone the thought that a black wolf existed somewhere in the world. She hadn't met many of her packmates yet, old or young, being that her mother wasn't a very sociable creature and had only just started returning to her normal routine. Besides the fact that with everything that had been going on, her dam didn't seem up for company other than her daughter's and the child felt much the same. Had The Priestess known her only living offspring was approaching a she-wolf she considered to be unstable and possibly dangerous, she might have come running from where she gathered herbs nearby. As it was, her scent perfumed the chimera heavily as a warning to anyone who might think to hurt her -- Whrist would surely realize whose child the Dagger was as soon as Momo got close enough for the older wolf to smell her. 

Momotzli had never received anything but positive attention from the adults in her life -- when they were around anyways -- so her tiny paws immediately shifted into an excited scamper as she bounded towards the terrified Blade, letting out a string of happy barks as she raced towards her new playmate.