Moonspear rendezvous

✴        That was it—the creature had been awake and yearning to satiate his hunger for too long, and impatiently waiting for the next round of food-stuffs to come fill his belly up. It had probably only been ten minutes since his last feeding, but the future leviathan was never happy about his meals. He was always gluttonous for more, and found contenment in stealing away from his slumbering brothers and sisters whenever the chance arose.

Today, he was awake and roaming without them. They were food-drunk or slumbering, he wasn't sure and he wasn't mindful enough to care; but Revui had wandered out of their little hideaway and in to the open light of the spring sunlight, feeling the warmth of it and finding it pleasant in its own right. He felt invigorated by this need to eat. The boy waddled and rolled his way along until he came to a steep (at least to himself) declination in the surface of the ridge, and peered over it without so much caution as perhaps, boredom, as if he expected a larger obstacle for his mightiness to overcome.

A few reaching limbs later, and he was petering very close to a good face-first tumble; but he managed to brace himself with his forelimbs on the other side, and was left with his silver-toned rear end stuck upwards like the empty end of a see-saw. He cooed, he muttered, and eventually began to crow loudly for assistance—his little voice suddenly very loud and reaching like the rest of him, calling all manner of attention down to the foolish child that had misjudged his abilities to scale the tiny bluff.

Unfortunately for Revui, the first thing that took notice was a large bird of some sort. It's feathers flashed red and gold overhead as it soared, and upon seeing the glint of his mercury-clad tail flipping about in the light, dropped from its high altitude and came to rest in a nearby treetop. The hawk watched idly as the child struggled, but did not make a move—yet.

arcturus lifted his head from the den floor sleepily, his weary eyes focusing on the harsh glare of the world outside the den -- and the figure that cut across it. he stirred slowly, unraveling like a grub unearthed -- and with a yawn trundled dutifully after his brother.

he slowed as the piercing intensity of daylight assaulted his eyes. blinking profusely, he was delayed in trailing revui's descent. once his eyes had adjusted he caught the sight of his silvery sibling -- or rather, the sight of half of his body propped down at an uneven kilt. the raptor above remained unnoticed -- all arcturus had eyes for was his brother's distant form.

revui's cries urged him to hasten towards his brother's side, and curious, arcturus glanced over the promontory. as he did so, the significance of the drop swam to his vision and he pulled back instinctively, losing his footing and bumping into his brother in the progress. without anything to hold onto, and his balance lost, arcturus tumbled down the incline wide-eyed -- until he landed in a dusty heap a few feet below with rocks clattering all around him.

✴        Soon the silver child was rocking in every direction, sliding along the slope to try and free himself, but it wasn't until the arrival of a shadow that things really got moving. The bump of one body against the other did free the leviathan, but not without a price. Revui watched as his sibling went tumbling along the escarpment until the dust swam in his own vision; he squealed his discomfort and went tumbling not too long after Arcturus had met his fate, only to collide with his resting form at the bottom of the incline.

The child coughed and spat dirt. He had gone face-first after his brother, and had collided with his resting body at the bottom; now the dust was settling, but a strange piercing cry rang out across the subduing chaos — the shriek didn't mean anything to him, but as Revui rubbed dust from his eyes he looked to his dust-covered companion as if to say, what was that?

arcturus smacked with the ground, the breath sucked from him. he didn't stir, even as dust and stone clattered around him -- even as something grey and silver also fell atop him. an unfamiliar sensation of the void consumed him, as if he was swallowed by interminable black. his sensations swam and he stirred against them and yet, felt as if a current was pulling him under and everything from breathing to moving suddenly seemed alien and impossible to him.

the cry of the raptor overhead was unheard -- or even if it was heard, it remained unregistered in his wildly expanding, wildly kaleidoscopic consciousness. he was only aware of pain, and of something unfamiliar seizing his chest. air -- he had no air -- and with loud, haggard gasps, started to convulse in place as his lungs failed to draw in new breaths, and his temples started to shrivel and a malign,unfamiliar sensation of blotted consciousness overcame him.

A new sense of duty in these recent weeks had done him well. Jarilo had been loitering nearby as he helped guard and hunt as needed, but the yearling still didn't know what all the noise was about when he heard squealing. By now he well understood how noisy the pups could be, fussing wasn't usual, but the tone urged him to go investigate. A few long, springing strides later and he was at the den's entrance, sniffing and snooping around until he was able to better pinpoint what the commotion had been about.

He had to hone his path in a little better to find the brothers, and as soon as he did, he went bounding to their side without a second thought of how or why this was. He expertly skimmed the incline that had clobbered them both, making short work of it and hardly thinking twice about it with a lifetime of such slopes at his back. The steely Ostrega did notice they looked distressed (although not necessarily the cry that rang out from elsewhere) and that was far more worth his focus. He closed in--not that he knew how to really read this situation with wolves this small and pretty new at living still. "Hey! You little things okay out here??" he barked out before he even reached them, nose low and searching as a particularly worried look swept over the dark Arcturus, who he went to go nudge at first.

✴        Revui did not realize the danger he was in, nor the perilous state he had put his brother in to, and did little more than wriggle with discomfort atop the warm body that was Arcturus. He didn't like the sensation of his boney little body beneath him, but after a few seconds to adjust after the fall, he was clamboring off and naturally poised as if he had just fought in a great battle and won. His little tail was wagging across his back, and he lurched to his little feet and bumbled around a step or two, looming over his indisposed shadow sibling - which was precisely when the adult arrived. Revui babbled something and faced the oncoming body, boldly squaring off as if to defend his fallen brother, and with a sound not dissimilar to a broken food processor, bore his fangs with a defensive, Gwwwrrrr!

revui, broken food processor - LMAO <3

his world swam around him. arcturus gasped as he looked up, the sky a swirling vortex of brilliant blue suddenly swallowed by black. the air still did not come; he sucked in deep breaths and it was as if a vacuum existed within him, pulling everything out into some unknown and swirling orbit.

and then that pressure suddenly released; arcturus was aware of the shift, and unaware of his brother's implications in it. he blinked slowly, feeling his sight and breathing slightly restored, though he winced with each breath that caused painful stirring in his chest. still prone on the ground, arcturus glanced up at jarilo who had just nudged him, his voice meek as he spoke: "'rilo?"

Well, he barely got in close with the poke of his nose before one of them (the gray one that always caught his eye because of really obvious reasons as the other gray brother now) was aiming noise and teeth back at him. Arcturus still looked a little out of it, not that Jarilo got much chance to tell because he backpedaled a step when that grating ugly sound came out of his sibling. "Hey!! Okay!" he yapped, getting the point and all but ugh; he flared up his hackles and gladly showed back his own teeth, although he didn't advance any with them, not even playfully.

He just didn't want any more of those noises and he already knew how sharp the pups were, so he was a little keen to keep a bit of distance. "Yeah yeah yeah, very fierce--is Arc good though?" he asked at them, still thinking he seemed a bit off, and none of this really explained what they were doing out here exactly. He did know that it was making him feel like he should really usher them back to where he was used to finding them, and he hoped he could make that happen without meeting up with the pointy parts of them anymore...