Stone Circle Homesick

He expected an apology, and to be fawned over- but nothing of the like happened and just like that, he began to see that he was not Tauris' little boy anymore. She had babied him,  clutched him close like a child when she had found him at the borders and for the time that had followed, but now she had children of her own- tiny, and truly helpless. He had spent so much of his life being willfully helpless himself that the arrival of new children came as a shock. He wasn't the pack's littlest boy anymore, physically, but he still felt the same in his heart. 

And so it broke him to see children, at first, to know he would have to shed his comforts and privileges and step up into a role that pinched like ill-fitted metal armour. He reflected for a moment on how it had been easier  to accept Gunnar and Taktuq's children, realizing how reluctant he suddenly felt to see Tauris and Figment's children. But he couldn't simply pretend they didn't exist. And he couldn't pretend they weren't Figment's, either. 

There was no doubting it, either, when he saw the two children, perfect and snuggled together- one earthy and with a hint of their mother's fever-coat, and the other charcoal and silver like his father. It pained him to see children who looked so much like their parents, when he found that there wasn't a single other wolf in existence who looked at all like him. He envied them, as he recognized within their truly beautiful, normal looks a perfection he would never see in his own reflection. 

And in spite of the sadness in his eyes, his lips chose to smile. In spite of himself, he couldn't look upon the two little babies, hear their names, and hate them. He despised how they made him feel, but the emerging paternal instinct in him told him that he would do absolutely everything for them, just as he did for his younger siblings. 

A tear surprised him as it splattered onto his foot. He laughed, and wiped his cheek, smearing his dark cheeks with tears from both eyes that came unbidden, an unexpected rainfall. Rubbing his cheeks loosened the tension in his face, allowing the smile to spread from his lips to his eyes which now danced with mirth. 

"Perfect," He said, forgetting the word in the common tongue. He moved in alongside her, tentative and yet relieved to be welcomed. He brought his muzzle closer to them, to know their scents, and he uttered a soothing croon before he looked to Tauris again. 

Motherhood had changed her- but she looked all the more radiant for the effort it had taken to create two beautiful children. "Little Tatanka, one and two." He said softly, remembering the word he had learned from her, and creating his own nickname for the children.