Blackfeather Woods nature's cruelty

Recently, Cicero's eyes had finished changing from their initial baby blue to orange and cold silver. They were now as distinct as they would ever be, although the boy himself did not notice much of this. Not except for the one time he had looked into a puddle and laughed at his own mirror image, which wasn't anything like his siblings' symmetric faces.

He hadn't spoken many words yet, and in that sense, was slower than his siblings, mostly laughing and using different tones and miniature-words without forming sentences. 'Sees', his own name, was one of those mini-words (his entire name was something he had not yet grasped, even though he understood it when the adults spoke to him and used it). It was almost as if developing his speech was not one of small Cicero's priorities in the world.

Today Cicero sat just outside the den, observing the outside world. He had only seen it with snow, the outside. The child sat outside smiling, tongue lolling from the side of his mouth, in the daytime, as he observed nature all around him. When he heard a squeaking sound, Cicero's ears flopped forward and he got off his butt and trotted in the direction the sound came from.

There, he saw a wounded bird. Cicero looked upwards, into the tree that the bird had fallen from, where he heard lots of rustling and saw large wings flapping. "Baaaaws!" he nonsensically shouted just as a nest of loose twigs fell down from the tree. It landed next to Cicero, and he sniffed it, but was soon distracted by the squeaking wounded bird again.

Afraid his stronger brother might hear the sounds and take his newfound toy, Cicero sniffed the bird and, as it tried to run away and tripped (one of its wings was broken), Cicero leaned down to the ground, barked excitedly at his new toy, and batted at the small wounded bird with his right paw.