Blacktail Deer Plateau backyard at night

The pups were nearly six weeks old and although summer wouldn't start officially for another month or more, the temperatures had been pleasantly warm lately. As the sun dipped low into the sky on this particular evening and the air darkened, the temperature remained comfortable. Fireflies began to wink in the woods, a few dozen of them wafting around the Alpha pair's den site.

The children were rowdy tonight, despite a large supper. Osprey Jr. was particularly noisy and willful. Realizing that attempting to put the kids to bed would only result in disaster, the three adults mutually agreed to try wearing them out instead. They started a game of tag in the clearing beyond the den, their shadows flitting back and forth amid the lazily drifting fireflies.

Eventually, some members of the party grew tired and relaxed on the sidelines. Osprey, still humming with energy, ran to the outer edges of the dooryard and began to snap at those insects dumb enough to hover this low to the ground. Of course, as soon as she caught one, Osprey nearly vomited from the awful taste in her mouth. She ran up to the nearest wolf and stuck out her tongue, which contained the last pulsing, glowing remnants of her poor victim.

Do you base any of your baby behaviour on your niece? :D

Pura Virtúte's palette was not so refined. Osprey Jr. must have known that, because it was to him that she offered the pulpy remains of her catch. The only boy in the litter had taken to eating everything and anything that looked like it could be chewed - this meant everything from rocks to feet. Curious blue eyes regarded the mess on his cousin's tongue like a customer perusing a particularly exciting menu.

"Omnom?" he babbled questioningly, but didn't wait for an answer - without hesitation, Pura pushed his head into Osprey's open mouth and slurped up the soup of drool and crushed bug like it was a rare and foreign delicacy.

I'd have loved to do that but Junior quickly bypassed Audrey's age, lol... that said, I have used her as a bit of a baby-talk reference. :)

Osprey Jr. shook her head and prepared to say something in response when Pura went pecking at her mouth like a baby bird. As his nose pressed enthusiastically against her tongue, it triggered her gag reflex and the young puppy suddenly was vomiting. The upchuck splattered at her little black feet, bits of it flinging onto both herself and Pura.

Peregrine ranged closer, eyeballing the two. "You sick?" he said to Junior, who smiled blithely at him. She felt much better now, though her mouth still tasted sour. She stuck out her tongue again (it was empty now), causing the Alpha male to bend down to sniff at her, his nose wrinkling, "Damn, that's some rank breath, Junior."

Pura, meanwhile, was probably enjoying a late night snack of chunky vomit stew.

The buffet only got better. Pura barely had a chance to taste the insect stew before Osprey Jr. heaved a clot of sour-smelling puke onto the ground. It looked a little bit like the pulpy take-away meals Uncle Perry and the other adults brought home for dinner, but the smell wasn't right. This had spent much longer in Junior's belly, and the acid had turned it into something entirely less appealing.

Pura didn't know that, though, and bravely shoved his freckled maw into the mess. This was followed by an explosion of movement and a wail of "NOOOOO. NO NO." Pura Virtúte scuttled backwards, pawing desperately at his own face. The hydrochloric acid burned his nostrils, and the taste was nothing like the gourmet meals that Peregrine produced. "YUCKY," he roared at Junior, hugely displeased with her efforts in the kitchen, "NO NOM NOM."

She grinned wider, apparently proud of her bad breath—or at least mistaking her father's light comment for praise. Her ears then twitched and she faced Pura as the boy wailed and pawed desperately at his face. She watched this temper tantrum of sorts with fascination, unaware that Pura was throwing it because of her, specifically.

"NOM NOM!" she parroted him, leaping toward the silver boy. "NOM NOM POO-WAH!" Junior added even as she attempted to nip the side of his face. His name came out very forcefully, enunciated in two loud, distinctive syllables.

Ugh, that fat cow! Junior didn't have an ounce on her that wasn't supposed to be there, but Pura Virtúte loathed the fact that both of Peregrine's girls still had the upper hand when it came to a physical fight. She pounced on the paler pup, bowling him onto his back whilst he was still spitting and huffing from the unexpected taste of her vomit.

"NOOOO," he roared, slapping at her face, "NO OH-PEY, NO!" But it wouldn't help - whereas Ty and Saēna could be stopped by soiling their coats with mud or shit or drool, Osprey Jr. had proven herself to be the group's foremost squabbler. Pura wouldn't be able to shift her weight unless he won. To do that, the smaller pup would have to fight harder and dirtier than his cousin. He braced the paws of his rear legs against her tummy and the front two against her chest, pushing so hard that a fart escaped into the night air.

Perhaps nip was too light a word, then, as the two pups crashed together and went tumbling to the ground, Osprey Jr. in the highly-prized position of top dog. Whatever pleasure she felt about this was short-lived, as Pura immediately began flailing all four of his limbs, one forepaw spanking against Junior's right cheek and both hind paws scratching painfully at her pudgy pink belly. Although it hurt, Osprey ground her teeth together and bore down on top of him, forcing all four of Pura's legs to press back against her.

The sound of his abrupt toot took her by surprise and a well-timed shove from below toppled Osprey off her feisty victim. "YUCK!" Osprey bellowed indignantly, the word aimed at his behavior rather than his gaseous emission. "POO-WA BAD!" she declared. Didn't he know his place in the puppies' pecking order? "BAD, BAD, BAD, BAD, BAD!" she huffed and puffed even while climbing to her feet and preparing to pounce him again.

There was rather a lot of shouting and scolding from both parties, but the exchange was far more lighthearted than situations that involved the other two girls. Junior was tough little biddy. She could already take a punch and with time would likely trade insult that would make her own father's ears drop off. With her, it was the last two minutes that mattered.

Pure hee-hee-hee-ed until he was wheezing, and it left him unprepared for the next attack. Stupidly, he rolled onto his belly, and when Junior pounced a second time she would have him pinned down in a position that kept the little boy's legs from scrabbling at her chest and stomach.

She dropped on him with the force of an anvil, her weight mashing against his back and forcing him to the ground like a pancake beneath her cast iron skillet will skwillet. As her belly pressed into his back, an instinctual impulse rose within her and she shifted to straddle him. Dominance mounting completed, she then lightly bucked her hips to really show Pura his place in the scheme of things.

Pura had an overwhelming sense of convention being turned on its head, biologically speaking. Instead of pulling at the ruff of his neck or batting him around the ears, Osprey wiggled harmlessly above him, and the confused boy frowned deeply and twisted his neck to find out what the oppressive little tyrant was up too.

"Waoooo? he grumbled, eyes widening at the sight of Junior's smooth girl-crotch dancing around above his flattened hips. The questioning tone quickly turned into a "Wuh!" of great disapproval - Pura squeezed his eyes shut against the gross display, paddling every leg at his disposal like a rabid sea turtle in his attempts to get away. He wasn't one to take losing very personally, but this was emasculation to the point where he might as well paint his lips red and become a lady of the night there and then.

Although there was nothing sexual about Osprey's thrusting (it was purely a matter of power), Pura was understandably put off by the sensation of her hips slapping against his backside. He voiced his disapproval loudly, then struggled to escape her embrace. Junior growled and nipped roughly at his shoulder, yet let him slip out from beneath her. While he recovered, she stood by with a smug look on her face, feeling she'd succeeded at putting Pura in his place.

With that business finished, she turned away from him and romped after another drifting firefly. The entire episode with her cousling seemed to have erased her memory of the bug's awful taste... that, or she simply couldn't resist the urge to snap at the wafting insect. Luckily for her, she missed, which left with only about ten thousand others to pursue.

The freshly violated boy of the litters (or litter - that line was quite blurred) got slowly to his feet, staring uncertainly after Osprey as she galavanted off to inflict herself on some other creature. He knew that the smack had been laid down, but didn't have the presence of mind to do anything about it. If Pura was ever going to develop into a truly dominant wolf, those traits had yet to surface - he enjoyed a tussle, but only stood above the other two girls because one was a cry-baby and the other so small. Osprey would have dominated them all even if she had been born a roach.

Still perplexed but content to accept his fate, Pura swivelled his ears forward and toddled off in the opposite direction to forage among the plants. There were bugs out there that tasted good, but they were the slimy ones that had to be dig out of the ground .