Hideaway Strath when we arrive, sons and daughters

The Lotturos are five weeks old today! Many of us have multiple characters but @Chusi, Hemlock, Arturo, and PPSirius are also invited. This thread is not mandatory, but it’d be nice to all get together now that the potatoes are growing legs. No posting order and no rounds; we will just do whatever we like.

Per the WOLF Guidebook: “Pups will begin to appear outside the den and can be found near the den entrance. This is the time when the pack will begin interacting with the pups. Their ears will perk up around twenty-seven days and by day thirty they should have relatively good hearing and straight ears. The tips may still be floppy. Pups will develop their canine teeth and premolars during this time. By the four week mark, their heads and paws are comically large and play fighting for dominance begins. By the five week mark, pups may accompany adults on short trips away from the den.

Equivalent Human Age: 1.5 — 4 years
Vocalization: Growling, whimpering, stronger howls, barks, lots of babbling.”

Dagfinn and Lotte had been separated before, and for far longer than a five week stretch — but this time was different. Both of them knew it. Dagfinn had a bad case of itchy paws, and Lotte could easily understand her kaksonen’s plight, having experienced her own measure of it on and off since Lærke had disappeared from Donnelaith. Still, there was a certain jealousy involved in his return to the tundra — even if he was returning to bear good tidings of her new life in the Teekons. Her sharp, practical mind told her that this might be their last goodbye — if war sprang up in the tundra, if her joyful twin succumbed somehow to misadventure, if he found a mate and started a family of his own somewhere in the great In Between — and although she had miraculously kept her composure when he’d initially departed, the well of her longing for his nearness now seemed endless. She was too weary for tears in the face of Eirlys’ near death experience, but she was primed for a crying jag of epic proportions. The weight of it hung heavy in her chest.

Fortunately, the snowdrop had finally caught up to her siblings in terms of activity and feeding. She was a little underweight, but it seemed she had hit her stride: she nursed as though she was making up for lost time, and Lotte often joked that Eirlys was making up for time before she’d even been conceived. The young mother had left her sleeping brood just after dawn, running down and devouring in hearty gulps at least eight pounds of fresh groundhog meat and chasing it with another five or six pounds of fresh salmon. Arturo and Chusi kept the songbird well fed, but this was to be the cubs’ first experience with regurgitated meat — a tad late in the game, but there was very little about this pregnancy that had been textbook. Now that the cubs could hear, she sang the tule kotiin call to summon them to her side, naming them each in turn when her song was through: “@Mallaidh, @Roarke, Eirlys, @Ceallach, come here! Tule tänne!”

Curling her coal-capped tail around her hips, Lotte lowered to her haunches and basked in the early afternoon sunshine to wait for the appearance of the four little bears.

First out of the den was Eirlys, much to the soot-stockinged rogue’s surprise.

“Eirlys, tule tänne,” she crooned in a soft singsong, adding an undulating whine of invitation to cement her meaning. “Come here, little snowdrop, lumikello.” She embellished her command with a visual cue, lightly patting her paws against the dew-dappled grass. When the pale little puppy complied, Lotte beamed encouragement. “That’s right,” she urged, chuckling at Eirlys’ hip-wiggle of excitement.

Swinging around to look eagerly for her siblings, Eirlys tilted her head to the side so hard she knocked herself off balance, tumbling onto her side in the soft spring grass. A growl ticked in her throat as she batted at the pale green blades, then sprang forward to bark defensively at them. They were everywhere! She whipped around, turning circles and tangling herself up, and it was all very exciting until it abruptly wasn’t. Eirlys had scared herself, and she sprinted headlong to äiti to bury her face against one soot-stockinged leg.

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Roarke’s ears perk to the song his mother sings them when she wants them to return to her. Ears swivel to the sides of his head before they slick back to rest atop his skull as she calls his name. Roarke. He cannot speak yet, only vocalize incoherent baby babbles, but he recognizes his name now as his. As he grows cognitive moving beyond the bland ignorant stage of the potato pup he is insanely eager to soak up all the words even if many of them are just sounds. Some he understands and any time he tries to mimic them back they are not even remotely close. The “word” that typically ends up spilling from betwixt his lips in breathless excitement that he manages vocalization at all is some form of alien language, surely, for it is not tundrian or common. Eirlys beats him out of the birthing den, and his paws pound the earthen floor like a war drum as he careens out of the den, nearly stumbling as his butt throws him off balance. He regains it, still getting used to the pudge of his body now that he is walking and has long since left army crawling long beyond him. That was for the worms, anyway.

The world outside is so bright. His steps slow as he nears Lotte, squinting milky blue eyes as they adjust to the unfiltered sunlight though the towering king sequoia offers them plenty of shade. It is bright and so green! He realizes that there is more beneath his paw than just raw earth and he inspects the grass as Eirlys barks at it and scuttles to hide against Lotte’s leg. He presses his paw to the earth watching as he smushes the blades underfoot and lifts his paw to find that while some spring back, defiant, others remain woefully trampled. He sniffs at the indent he has created, noting that grass smells different than dirt and stone. It is …cleaner, refreshing (not that Roarke knows such words but he likes how grass smells). Winter’s bane sneaks a peek at Lotte to make sure she isn’t looking before he ducks his head like a child about to steal a cookie from the jar and slowly nibbles at a few blades of grass, making a blech noise as it’s taste fills his mouth. He scrapes his tongue against his sharp baby teeth trying to scrape the taste off. Mother’s milk tastes so much better.

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It is not often that their mother is away from them and Mallaidh never likes it. She’s a little more squirmy and disruptive for the ones that watch her but she rarely causes too much trouble. Today, however, feels longer than ever and the girl feels a little more antsy than usual. She wobbles around the den, stumbling over any little thing that gets in her way, and mimics the equivalent of pacing back and forth. She isn’t perfect on her legs by any stretch of meaning but each day is easier than the last and she’s becoming rather mobile.
 
Her focus is disrupted when she hears the familiar call of her mother’s coming home. Her heart beats heavily in her chest and she spins, spins out, recovers, and then spins forward again, this time with a gust out of the den. Both Eirlys and Roarke have beaten her outside but they will not beat her to Lotte. She surges forward, unaware of who has beaten her to her mother, and careless of the destruction she leaves in her wake, and crashes into the closest part she can reach.

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Ceallach is slightly more cautious than his siblings, who had run out to greet their mother in varying displays of all the intelligence puppies of their age had to offer. His sisters seem both to crash into Lotte, while his brother does something odd in eating the grass. The face that Roarke makes does not promise any pleasant tastes though he still struts forward, little tail twitching behind him as he leaned down to sniff along the path his siblings have taken. It's different; different texture, different feelings completely. He looks around for Chusi and Arturo, expecting their presence before he remembers that his mama has called him and he comes forward, leaning up as high as he can to try and lick her chin sweetly.

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"This is a special morning." Hemlock had cooed to her young ward, bathing him for the second time since he had decided to undo her hard work with a bath of mud. After talking with Lotte some it had been decided that Eirlys is strong and active enough that she would be bringing the cubs out to explore some and Hemlock was not going to miss it. She had gathered up Sirius and made sure he was in tow, catching him a small rabbit to satisfy his ever-growing appetite. His illness seemed gone now, and he was more than making up for it with his growth and activity. It was enough that she no longer spent her time fretting over her charge and the smallest of the Fearghal brood.

"Now, when we arrive, you are to be on your best behavior. We must let the puppies explore - and remember, they are smaller than you, so be gentle." Of course it was hard to curb the enthusiasm of a puppy at the prospect of seeing his playmates and though Hemlock has brought him about she still fears the difference of his size to the younger children. Soon they will be so close it will be hard to remember who was born first or not - and more terrifying then is the prospect of taking him to meet his parents. When the arrived near to see Lotte with the gaggle of children about her feet Hemlock smiles; it is a genuine, real thing - and with it comes the realization that most of her smiles involve Lotte and her children these days.

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Lotte beamed brightly as Eirlys and Roarke catapulted from the birthing den to gambol and frolic in the spring sunshine, carefully detaching herself from the little girl when she made to hide in her äiti’s skirts. Banríon was fiercely loving and fiercely protective, but she had strong opinions about fostering anxiety and dependency in her young. “Run and play, Eirlys, lumikello. You are safe,” she instructed gently, tipping the bridge of her muzzle against the snowdrop’s shoulder to nudge her toward her siblings.

The young mother whipped her head around at the sound of a soft “blech” — she hadn’t puppy-proofed the area, feeling that it was more useful for them to experience the world just as it was — but the smell of crushed grass filled her nostrils and she only chuckled. “Are you a deer, Roarke, little winter’s bane?” she teased him playfully, her breath huffing from her lungs when Mallaidh collided softly with her flank. “Oh, my girl, my brave girl,” she crooned lovingly to the darkling female, nosing her cheek and tickling the curve of her firstborn’s ear with a well-placed boop of a cold, wet nose. “Mallaidh, did you miss me, little firecracker?” She drew the most ferocious of her bear cubs nearer with a gentle paw, drawing a warm kiss across her fragile crown.

Ceallach was more cautious, and Lotte, still bent on not coddling her offspring to the point where it might later become a detriment, called encouragement to him. “That’s right, Ceallach,” she praised him as he marched forward with a soturi’s purpose and pride, tiny tail ticking like a metronome as he too explored the big wide world. “Brave warrior, strong warrior,” she crooned to him, her coal-capped tail picking up speed as he drew near to her. When he leaned up to lick her chin, a feat made easier by the way she bowed down to meet him halfway, it triggered a natural desire. Saliva pooled in the divot beneath her tongue as she stepped a few paces away and deposited a pile of partially chewed meat upon the earth. Licking her lips, she stepped away from the pile and called again to her children. “Come and eat,” she encouraged them, calling them each by name as she so often did to cement their understanding of them.

Stepping away from the pile, sweetly fragrant with the scent of fresh meat, Lotte fairly bounded over to Hemlock and @Sirius. She was overjoyed to see the both of them so healthy and hale, and she made to nose companionably at the healer’s shoulder before dipping into a playful bow. With a warm, slow smile, “Good afternoon, liekkikukka,” she offered in as blithe a murmur as she could to the red-furred woman. She pushed the part of her that pined for Dagfinn further and further down, though she couldn’t help but do a quick scan of the horizon. Part of her still expected her kaksonen to arrive at this momentous occasion in the cubs’ lives. Part of her still resented that the rosy dream she’d thought up, of him being alongside her, the “cool uncle” who helped the Lotturos break rules she’d set, had died before it’d begun. “Good morning, Sirius,” she added. “How are you today?”

As Lotte had hoped, Eirlys discerned that despite her trepidation, she had nothing to fear. Her trembling quit and her breath came more easily; she bumbled away from her mother and gave her downy fur a mighty shake that knocked her off balance and had her plopping unceremoniously down in a clot of grass taller than she was. The rush of air produced by her slight weight sent the fluff of a dandelion flying high and wide, and Eirlys giggled even as her eyes fought to track each spindle with limited success. She yapped at them, prancing with exaggerated steps through the grass that she wasn’t altogether sure she liked, but soon grew distracted with the appearance of her father. A rush of affection for Arturo billowed within her tiny breast, overflowing her growing heart, and she switched her target from the dandelion fluff to his forelegs, her skinny body still so clumsy upon her paws that by the time she got halfway to him she was being called away again.

A scent she didn’t understand filled the air, and her attention was piqued by it. Oversized ears shot forward upon her skull as she looked from Arturo to Lotte, then back again. The tule kotiin call decided her, and she spun around to run back toward her mother, black nose quivering as she regarded the fragrant miniature mountain that filled her with hunger but not so much with understanding. Boldly she moved forward, not really sure what to do with the stuff she didn’t have a name for, her hackles prickling with a measure of unease.

Sirius right now: click!

"Mom," the boy complained sassily as Isley groomed him again— feeling irrationally suppressed. Sirius was only just recently beginning to have as big of a verbal personality as he did a physical one. Too much downtime had certainly made him a bottled up creature, serving up several pawfuls for whoever had to keep an eye on him at the time. His mother had pretty good handle on things, though, probably having found her stride with the rambunctious boy after a stressful month of nursing him back to health. He'd never be one hundred percent, unbeknownst to anyone, but you wouldn't be able to tell this by watching him; the boundless boy that was not unlike a Tasmanian devil. "You already tolded me we got a speshul day!" Stop telling me already!

He pouted up at her until she freed him (or gave up on settling him) and then bunny-hopped after her as she led him to the Banrion's. Hemlock reminded him that he needed to be careful with the other children, to which his face screwed up. Be gentle was a phrase she used when he was getting a little too rowdy with his needle-toothed gnawing. "But.. but how'm I s'pose to play wif'em? You said I could play wif'em—!" he raised his voice, though he appeared to be more worried than angry.

Was this about to be... boring?!

He forgot what he was protesting when Lotte galloped over. The silver-blue queen infected the boy with her energy, and he increased it tenfold in that magical puppy way— his tail wagging so fiercely that his hips were nearly being thrown side to side in the momentum. As long stockinged legs lowered into a bow, Sirius jumped forward and attacked her chin with an overly enthusiastic mouth. He was so excited that he ran— very quickly— around her, and then under her, where he squoze himself beneath her lowered chest, and pawed at her padded breastplate from his squirming back.

It would be another moment, before he'd really notice the other kids.

Mallaidh forgets about her siblings as she buries herself in her mother’s fur. It doesn’t take much to get her any closer to enjoy the kisses of the larger woman and her tail swings back and forth with enough gusto to wiggle her rump. Her feet dance and flail about beneath her so much that she does, eventually, lose her balance when everything changes all at once. Eiryls has disappeared and attention is altered. As Lotte moves away from her, Mallaidh rights herself up and bounces on her back legs to garner more attention.
 
And it isn’t given to her.
 
Her eyes widen in surprise when regurgitated meat is deposited on the ground and then they are left alone to inspect it for themselves. Her baby blues follow her mother as she walks away toward another but she doesn’t let her concern go with her. Instead, she zeroes in on what has been left behind and moves forward swiftly. Eiryls has noticed it first and suddenly there’s a tightness in her chest she cannot explain. She wants to see what it is first! Mallaidh rushes forward without concern of her younger sister and does her best to force her presence between the meat and Eiryls. Her nose drops to inspect it and her mouth instantly salivates, telling her way to do.
 
She does not need any more encouragement than that. Immediately, she digs into the nearest section available.

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His mother's tender reassurances were enough to coax the boy from his shell, and when she leaned in for his kisses his tail was a flurry of motion behind him. Ceallach tilted his head as Lotte stepped away, sounds coming from her until she delivered a thing from her mouth onto the floor. It wasn't exactly pretty, but there was a strange sensation in him to investigate and his sisters responded in a similar fashion. Mallaidah responded as she usually did, roughly shoving at Eirlys to keep her away as she did as she pleased. It was about the only time that Ceallach really seemed to respond strongly one way or the other, quickly moving to his pale sister's side to reassure her. He nudged her sweetly, making a crooning sound before he sniffed at the pile and took some for himself to try. It was new, definitely, but so strange! 

His attention was so focused on this new substance that he didn't notice the arrival of Hemlock or of Sirius - and once he did he might be more excited as he liked when the pair came by. Maybe in a bit he'd be more aware. Instead, he's filling his stomach, working at the new thing with a gusto - only looking back briefly with his milky blues to try and encourage Eirlys and Roarke too.  

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Hemlock has only one complaint about motherhood, and it is that she is not a mother but a placeholder. At this point Sirius has spent more time with her than without, but she still frets over the propriety of what ways she should behave around her young ward. She offered him a little smile even as he protested his bath; she didn't correct him when he called her mom - her heart might have burst at the feeling. Once they were on their way she occasionally would playfully bop his rump or kiss behind his ear, scampering a few paces away and ducking behind a tree before coming round to surprise him. "You can my dear, but, we must wait until they come to us to play." She reminded him, not chiding, but being as gentle as she could.

"You know how sometimes when we visit them they just sleep the whole time? They are getting older - they will want to be active more and do more, and you my little weed are going to help teach them what to do." Hemlock said with a smile as they came to the clearing. Watching how Sirius behaved with the others made her heart soar - he wasn't a malicious boy, he never had been, and it was an interesting dynamic to her to see how he and the younger children behaved together. The moment that Lotte swept closer Hemlock turned to nuzzle into her, teasing a few kisses behind her ear and along her jaw. "It is a lovely day," Hemlock murmured happily, settling down on her rump to watch the little children she'd grown so fond of as they explored their world. She gave a little nod to Sirius; encouraging him to explore some too - maybe one of the puppies would end up following him in a game or perhaps the adults could lead them on a little game of tag. 
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His head lifts towards his mother when she teases him for eating grass though her words are mostly little more than adult gibberish to him; though his understanding is developing. He knows when he hears the sounds that combined make up his name: roar—ick that they mean him; but this is simply because it’s the most important word he knows (because it’s his word). Roarke’s attention is abruptly divided as his mother upheaves regurgitated meat and his siblings flock to it — Molly pushing aside his snowdrop twin but a lift of his lip is all he can manage because Ceallach is quick to step in and encourage Eiri that she, too, can eat. Simultaneously, the winter’s bane notices the new child. He is slightly older than them and though he recognizes him in the vague way Roarke recognizes everyone that isn’t immediate family he feels a violent flare of envy and protectiveness — though he has no words for these things — rocket through him when the older boy rushes over to Lotte and paws at her. He forgets about the food, instead pulls himself up to his full height, puffing out his chest with raised tail and barks sharply at the older boy, low growls emitting from his throat. Back off my mum, his bristled hackles and curled lip command of Sirius, pudgy muscles tense beneath his frosty pelage, prepared to rush at the older boy if he does not cease and desist bothering (in Roarke’s mind) Lotte. For that instant, he does not realize he is smol. Roar thinks he is tol, as big and as strong as Lotte and as fearless as the mobster he will be artfully grow to be.

Lotte threw back her head and laughed heartily as Sirius fairly launched himself at her, his needle teeth tattooing her chin as puppy slobber flecked her cheeks. Silver eyes flicked up to meet Hemlock’s viridian ones, a throaty rumble humming in the young queen’s throat at the trail of kisses that trailed warm spice in a thin crescent that swept from the base of one triangular ear to the blocky curve of her jaw. For a moment it seemed her eyes clouded over as the pleasurable sensation took hold, but an enthusiastic kick to the chest brought her around. “Silly little bunny,” she cooed to the heather gray cub, watching in amusement as he batted at the plush fur of her breast. One ear twisted, followed by the graceful sweep of her muzzle as she turned to regard her children. Mallaidh, the little spitfire, appeared to have bullied Eirlys away from the meat — and as far as Lotte was concerned, that was natural as they settled into a natural hierarchy, but she vowed to keep her eye on it nonetheless.

Sharp argent eyes registered that Ceallach, the little peacemaker, had swept in to comfort the snowdrop — and Lotte relaxed, turning to Hemlock with a bright smile. “It is,” she agreed, her black velvet banner flagging the air. “I am so glad that y — ”

A series of babyish growls from behind Lotte immediately caught her attention, and she whipped back around. Instinctively she knew it was Roarke who was doing the growling, attuned as she was to sounds and voices, so her moonbright eyes immediately honed in on him. The noise he’d made was childish, but the protectiveness he felt was clearly very real. It filled her warrior’s heart with pride even as it made her briefly anxious — she wanted the children to get along, but she wasn’t particularly skilled in making that happen. In her home settlement, the cubs ran around much more freely than they did in these greenwilds, and everyone knew each other in one way or another. “Roarke,” she sang softly to him, trying to redirect his frosty stare. “Sirius is our friend. He has come to play with us.” She wasn’t honestly too sure what words the little winter’s bane understood and what words he didn’t, but she gently disengaged from the little storm cloud to let the boys see each other more clearly. “Roarke, do you want to play?” she asked him, dropping into a playful bow to illustrate her meaning. “Play with Sirius?” She decided to distance herself equally from both cubs instead of comforting one or the other, and sidled up next to Hemlock instead.

Mallaidh has one focus and one focus only. Food. It’s new to her but she doesn’t need encouragement for what to do. Milk has started to become old and tiresome and she knows she needs more and whatever this is, it definitely fits the bill. She pays little attention to what goes on around her. Eirlys has retreated into her youngest brother’s arms and is likely still at risk of being stepped on if she gets too close. Her front half is easily buried in what they’ve been offered and she eats until she gorges herself silly or someone intervenes and pulls her away.

Sirius' attention was abruptly stolen by the charging of young bull and aspiring domineer, Roarke Fearghal. One day he would be quite fearsome indeed, but for now Sirius was not to be cowed by the young warrior. He scrambled to his feet, dropping into a playbow as the boy charged at him. Lotte attempted to intervene with a kindly worded redirection, but the starchild saw nothing wrong with the younger's competetive nature. It was something he had missed growing up against Hemlock's belly on his own, but the instinct to spar and dominate was not lost on him.

Except, Sirius was a thousand times more interested in being involved rather than actually being in charge. He spun out of the snowball's striking space, ran this way, dashed back, and then charged at Roarke again headlong. If no one intervened physically, he might bowl the smol boy over with his rampantly playful galloping.

Siri rn *click*

Lotte exchanged a quick glance with @Hemlock as @Sirius attempted to engage the slightly smaller @Roarke in a playful spar, and turned to her daughters and her quieter son with a quick, decisive turn. She kept her distance as she approached the pile of meat, watching @Mallaidh lord over it for a time. “Mallaidh,” she crooned lightly, not wanting the puppy to gorge herself to the point of regurgitating. “Come away. Come away for a moment.” She attempted to guide her girl away with the sweep of a paw, though her movements were wary — she wasn’t altogether sure that Mallaidh wasn’t going to try to eat her leg in addition to the food.

Mallaidh does not hear her name. It isn’t until she feels the sweep of a paw that someone is talking to her but her eyes widen and nose flares, quickly gulping at what food she can before it’s taken right out from her jaws. She sucks down what she managed to pull away and exhales a soft huff. She growls when she realizes how far away she has gotten from their breakfast and she quickly tries to go back for it, likely to result in another forced retreat anyway.

Mallaidh's spirited nature pleases her gunmetal-and-steel mother most of the time, but the little growl is a warning signal that the alpha female does not appreciate. She can't afford to ignore the insubordination even if Mallaidh is her favorite daughter — a fact that she conceals moderately well, though the snowdrop has felt the distance and responded to it with distance of her own. "I love you, my girl, but you do not growl when your alpha — mama or not — commands you. I said come away." She punctuates her tightly uttered statement with a snakestrike of her broad muzzle, seeking to close the girl's scruff in a controlled grip and hold the little spitfire until she stops trying to make a beeline for the food.

Mallaidh is not able to understand the words by her mother by the time she’s snatched from the ground and hanging in midair. It is not the first time she’s been taken by the scruff but it is the first time with such speed that she immediately squirms and tries to fight it. It takes a lot of her energy out of her and her swollen belly anchors her down, the added weight making it uncomfortable. Eventually, her legs come in to her trunk and she becomes slack in her mother’s grip. For several long seconds she remains in place, trying to point her nose up to see Lotte’s face but she cannot and she whines, softly, and she is finally given reprieve and set on the ground. She remains a blob on the dirt, staring at the meat that is being taken by her sister and brother and not her with distaste but she does not move again until she is allowed to.