Redhawk Caldera Who did the thing?

Getting this event up now because I'm probably going to be too busy (or dead) to do it on the dot.

It was an ordinary day in the den. The babes were wriggling, or eating, or trying to sleep. Titmouse, as per usual, was his ornery colicy self — screaming ceaselessly despite the adult's best efforts to soothe him. His siblings had reached their first milestone a day or so ago, and now it was his turn. One by one his eyes popped open, first appearing as slits of murky darkness, then slightly more ajar, and then they were wide and bright and amazing! Except that he couldn't see shit, and ended up just getting lots of dust in them. His squeals of pain increased tenfold after that — and little Titmouse decided he'd rather squish his eyes closed forever! So he did. Except... That meant the dirt was firmly stuck in there too. Smart kid.

Orca's eyes had opened an hour or two before Titmouse's, and she had spent the time since then rolling from side to side and looking at everything that she could. Of course, her vision was not at all clear, but it was nice to be able to match shapes and shadows with the smells that she was so familiar with.

As usual, Titmouse was hollering his little head off, so Orca turned and stared at him unblinkingly with her milky blue eyes. This was the first death glare Titmouse would receive from his sister -- but it was certainly not the last.

No! No! No! Aside from being the first word he'd (presumably) learn, it was the first clear feeling he could identify besides hungry and wet and maybe even cold. Titmouse wanted to nope his way back in time to when he hadn't opened his eyes (involuntary as the action might've been) because it just hurt so much. He sort of spazzed, which wasn't much of a surprise, but didn't open his eyes too much. Every time he began to, Tit's reaction to the dust lodged behind his lids was the same: squish those eyes shut, suck in a breath, and scream! It was the end of the world and everyone should know it!

Despite the fact that her ears were still folded flat against her skull, Orca could still hear some muffled version of Titmouse's screaming. Usually, she didn't mind it; in fact, it had become the background noise of her existence, something that was there more often than not. But that didn't mean she had to like it. She watched with squinty eyes as her brother continued to pitch a fit, and then she decided to shut him up.

With unwieldy movements, she tumbled towards him. Seeing everything move and shift around her made her a little seasick, and by the time she was at Titmouse's side, she was stifling a burp. She squeezed her eyes shut and -- her mission to make him stop screaming forgotten -- she unceremoniously barfed right next to him, surely splattering him with a bit of her vomit.

From somewhere overhead, there was a sigh from an adult, and then Elwood began patiently cleaning the two puppies with his tongue.

With uncoordinated shuffling of his legs and a few spasms of his head (shaking, head-banging to tunes that weren't there, that kind of thing), Titmouse managed to connect his limbs with his face and rub some of the dust out from his eyes. But he was still bellowing a cacophony out of his tiny lungs; half crying, half screeching. And to top it all off, his eyes were useless. He didn't want to keep them open because of the dust that would get in there, the light that stung them, and now (if he did manage to slip them open even a crack) the irritation of the sclera.

He didn't see the puddle of soupy puke, but he did feel it, right when he lost his balance and plopped in to the warm, gooey, acid-scented puddle. One of the adults noticed this and groaned - but they didn't intervene, likely too tired of the constant clean-up to be intimately bothered by this turn of events. Titmouse was much the same; he actually liked the warmth of the fresh throw-up. It distracted and comforted him (marginally) and gave him something to fixate on, for the smell was quite intense, and he nearly forgot about his eyes as he rolled through the muck.

Lucky Orca was cleaned by her godfather, but the Alpha male must have just wrinkled his nose at the mess that Titmouse was making in the puddle of his sister's vomit. Happy to be clean and relatively dry, Orca wriggled and purred and flexed her little toes -- until she became aware of the stench of her brother. She turned her bleary gaze towards him and when she saw his wet, grimy fur, she gagged.

"Nononono," Elwood said overhead when he realized that the she-pup was looking nauseous once more. He swiftly plucked Titmouse from the barf pile and began cleaning him, for the sake of all the puppies -- because if he didn't, he suspected that Orca would throw up again, and again, and again.

Orca watched, her head pitching drunkenly from side to side as she tried to track her brother's movements with her eyes, and hiccuped loudly.

Whee! He was scooped up and attended to next, but squirmed and kicked at Elwood the entire time. And when Tit was put back down, he waddle-stumbled back over to where Orca was waiting and the puddle of puke sat idling. He bumbled in to Orca and grappled at her with his mouth, dampening the fur of her face and anything else he could grab ahold of - but he left the puke pile alone, briefly forgotten.

Poor Elwood endured the repeated punches to his face as he cleaned Titmouse. Somewhere in the background, he could hear @Finley snickering. Orca observed the whole ordeal passively, concentrating more on keeping herself upright in this strange new world. When Titmouse was plopped back down near her, she gave a squeal of delight -- until he started gnawing cheerfully on her face.

Orca flailed her head to the left and the right, trying to remove her barnacle of a brother, but to no immediate avail. She turned her big blue eyes up to Elwood, who just shrugged and said, "You're on your own, kid."

Titmouse grew tired of the game pretty quickly. When it was obvious the adults wouldn't intervene, he went on with gusto until his energy level began to decline. Being a very young child, that didn't take long. He would end up falling asleep - or very nearly - with his mouth still tightly held across Orca's nose. She'd be able to escape easily enough, but he was a useless lump. Maybe someone would scoop him up and hide him away from Orca or the other pups but currently, he was a blob.

When Elwood didn't offer any assistance to Orca, she looked back at Titmouse, her eyes crossing as she gazed at her up-close-and-personal brother. Rather than struggle, she gave up; and when Titmouse fell asleep, so did she. They would remain attached at the mouth until one of them stirred.

Above them, Elwood rolled his eyes.