Bearclaw Valley her perfume crucified me with memories

by all accounts, merrick was a swiftly growing, if not colicky child. the chagrin of his birth had left him rather prone to stomach upsets, but they were mild and did not deter the boy from his detailed exploration of the world into which he had been born. in only a vague way had he noticed the disappearance of the older children, taken off by lauren to a rendezvous site — it left for the rotund cub more space.
presently, however, as dawnlight began to lighten the dark-layered details of his mother and her body within the den, merrick hovered near the entrance, quietly fascinated. it had happened many times before, but today it brought him a strange confidence. and when the sun had brightened until its warmth could be felt, fat little merrick toddled out of doors, planted his forepaws, and began a yipping and cacophonous howl by which he meant to call down the sun.

indra had been sleeping, and was unaware of merrick's stirring. what little sleep she gleamed was suddenly and coarsely ended by a cacophony of shrill howls and yips. startled out of sleep, indra immediately rose -- and whacked her head on the roof of the den in result.

slumping immediately and cursing the smarting pain that rounded her aggrieved noggin, indra cast her sullen gaze on her son as he summoned the sky with his tiny howls. despite the ringing in her ears, she could not begrudge him the quiet smile that crept across her muzzle. ok, he was kind of cute -- even if he had just scared the daylights out of her just then.

a glance sideways tapered off the kid's howling; his whiplike tail began to flog about his hips at the sight of his russet mother. here was the sum of his world; his father was recognized but in indra's presence went largely unnoticed. "mahm," merrick crooned, butting her affectionately along the line of one foreleg.
presently, the boy turned toward the denmouth, peering up into indra's face before turning his round muzzle toward the spill of light. "we go ohmtside?" he garbled gravely toward her; merrick expected only one answer.

heck he cute. as the dark cub turned his sunny gaze to her, indra felt an emotion clutch her heart; devotion, mother's love, protection, and an immeasurable sadness all at once. though her affection for her child had been slow to bud, its roots were deep - and had taken firm hold of a heart indra had done her best to close shut forever.

a smile played her lips, and the woman stepped over the child at her limbs and threw her sharp gaze to the world that waited beyond their den. "yes, we'll go outside." she confirmed, already taking long strides towards a bright patch of sunlight.

stigmata prowled about the valley fringes, inuring himself into bearclaw's fold without necessarily being social. privately, he wanted to be accepted, but more than this he wanted to be respected -- feared, even, if that's what it took. but in an effort to purge himself of such grievous wants, he kept to the outskirts and let others approach him. it hadn't happened yet; everyone here seemed preoccupied with children or something he was just as disinterested in, but stigmata was not a fickle creature and he would remain until it became a detriment to his health to do so.

but keeping to the periphery of everyone had an unintended side effect that left him feeling underappreciated. so in looking for some recognition, stigmata spent the hour or so before dawn, when the smart grazers rise, sweeping the woods for fresh prey. he managed to turn up a weasel turning in for sunrise, and he dispatched the long-bodied vermin with a dispassionate bite to the spine -- but not before it had managed to offensively bloody his muzzle with a few smarting scratches.

he brought his catch directly to indra's den, as he felt most familiar with her and thought he would best appreciate some acknowledgement from her. weasels weren't typical game, but he hoped she, nor her brood, would be picky on the matter. he deposited the gift a few tail-lengths from her doorstep, and stood back so that he might be observed in the act before dismissing himself for a well-earned nap.

potentially a cameo: just so it looks like he's been doing pack stuff :p

as he had smugly assumed, indra concurred with his want. merrick was not an unfair god, however; he bestowed a nip of gratitude to the back of his mother's elbow, before prancing in all his milkfat glory beyond her and into the pool of golden light.
but gobsmacked he drew up and bumped back against indra. a monster had appeared, a blackened deviltail thing, with eyes that burned cold moonlight above wicked red slashes. merrick stared, aghast, fascinated; it was not until the devil turned away that the boy found his breathless voice. "MAHM! WHOM DAT IS?" he piped with the shaken, broken-volume-knob wonder of a child who has seen something about which they will dream that night.

mother and child both were departing the small den-mouth when a shadow crossed it; indra's ear flicked back as a nip pinched her elbow, yet her attention was fastened on the predator that lurked outside. her heart had fretfully skipped a beat at first, to think they were endangered -- but as the sun lifted out from the canopy, stigmata's presence was revealed.

she cast her gaze to the offering flung not far from their stony keep - a tattered weasel, freshly dispatched. before the weasel stood the proud man, muzzle bloodied by his conquest -- it was then she caught merrick's form pressed against her, shivering from some moral high ground only toddlers seemed to occupy. drawing her limbs underneath her, indra primly sat and regarded stigmata, and his gracious offering.

but what -- or who -- was stigmata? besides the pizza delivery boy (a title that somehow, indra imagined the male would resent). a packmate, perhaps, but that deportment in itself was a complex concept for a child young as merrick. "that is mommy's friend, stigmata." indra decided to answer, nudging the boy affectionately before dipping her head in gratitude: "and he brought lunch -- can you say 'thank you', merrick?" oh boy - indra should have known better than to issue such a statement, which also often translated in toddler-speech to "can you show everyone how defiant of a little hellchild you can be, and embarrass mommy in the best way you know how?"

the waspish wraith gave pause and greased back his ears to catch a boy's trembled inquiry. he turned his head slantwise so that he might see her stricken whelp with a single ironcast eye, and stigmata studied what he could of the shy child. it was a pitiful thing, he thought -- a precious creation, too small and too beautifully innocent for this world. a charcoal cherub, destined only to be burned.

his fog of cynicism was swept away by indra's introduction. he remembered how his frigid looks made the beta feel, so stigmata laid his eyes pointedly at  the refined set of her paws and stilled at the nadir of a slight bow as he waited in a soldierly fashion to be thanked by his superior's mothchild.

stigmata. mommy. friend. lunch. three of four words made sense, provoking a little swaying around merrick's hips, but he peered toward the man he was to thank with a child's perturbation. vaguely in the recesses of his rapidly growing brain, the boy understood this was a natural interaction of their kind. however, it vied with the child's more intense desire to do as he pleased.
shaking himself free of indra's embrace, as if his mother had been the one to draw him into it, merrick inched glibly toward the limp thing upon the earth. small hackles stiffened; kittenlike he placed one large paw over the carcass and sniffed the air slowly in stigmata's direction. "MINE."
it was a statement of intent toward the pair of adults; merrick hefted the body and let it fall to earth, looking to indra for approval and validation of his claim upon someone else's offering.

naturally, no token of gratitude bubbled from her little tyrant's lips. an unapologetic smile stole from her features: her child, already emotionally tall as any tree and nary a few months old. he would make a proper wolf, once fully grown -- indra's eyes seemed to flash with something akin to quiet pride as she glanced upon merrick and his new prize.

she canted her muzzle in approval to the little devil, turning to to her packmate who had up until then regarded her son silently. "what he means is 'thanks'." indra would not chastise merrick - for he was royalty in bearclaw; his cousins were royalty, his aunt their leader, and his mother a close second occupying beta's rung. indra had no plans to raise a mousey, quiet whelp. it had been her mistake to be timid, to fearfully watch the world through wide doe-eyes. merrick would have no such experience on this green plane: indra would teach him to take what was rightly his, before it was taken from him.

perhaps this boy was not so brittle, stigmata thought, watching the lone child with a fascination not often spared to pups not fathered by himself. the flashing look was cursory, gone even before settling, and he gave a scant nod to the summer-red beta in receipt. her son's "thank you" had been sufficient to him -- he imagined that it would be refined with age -- and the dark hunter cued to as much when a sly, approving expression wrinkled the long line of his scratched, ashen mouth.

the first signs of amusement in the male disappeared with a swift swivel of his head, as he turned and slunk silently off to tend to his minor wounds.

merrick Did Not mean Thank You, and whirled on his mother with a huffing glance. however, his attention snapped back to the bloodied man as quickly as it had been diverted. but stigmata was turning away; merrick watched with equal raptness until their packmate had disappeared from view. now his focus belonged to himself; he pounced upon the weasel and worried it with his needleteeth.
dragging it proudly back to indra, he deposited it at her paws, haunches swaying with the force of his tail's waves. "what dis is, mahmee?" the boy chirped, glancing between the ragged pelt and his mother's face with an expectant look.

fleeting as the expression was, indra caught it: the ghost of an approving look, thin and insufficient and gone quickly as it was caught, like liquid falling through a sieve or the passing of a brittle shadow on the wind. in silence the beta watched the smoky male's departure.

already merrick had flung himself upon the offering, worrying it with little teeth and fretting its naturally smooth fur. indra eyed the glossy figure and then gave merrick a gentle nudge with her muzzle. "it's a weasel - food, or a toy, or both. your choice."

weasel. or a toy. merrick pawed at it, lowering his small muzzle to nose through the fur once more. "it weezow, mahmee!" the boy repeated in a pleased crow. and yet in the next moment his gaze had swung in the direcion stigmata had gone. merrick's small brow furrowed.
"where he goin'?" again his inquiring stare climbed to indra's gaze; this was the age of questioning, and no one answer would be satisfactory. merrick wished to glean as much information about his surroundings as was possible, and who better to plague than his sainted mother?

o god not the toddler inquisition

a soft smile blossomed on indra's features to hear her son's rendition of 'weasel'; and like a flower it faded petal by petal, replaced by a more stony type of stoicism. a toy, a meal, it mattered not -- so long as her prince was pleased.

she lifted her gaze from the tattered weasel as merrick's inquisitive query finished, her eyes searching among the bent leaves for the quiet departure of their packmate. "to find you more toys, of course." she rumbled, snagging the tail of the weasel and dragging it enticingly across the stone with a secretive smile.

no one expects the toddler inquisition lolol

his eyes widened; merrick's ears swung forward. "MOW toyz? for ME, mahmee!?" he exclaimed incredulously, tail beginning to lash with excitement at his hips. this was fantastic. in a fit of joy, he leapt at stigmata's first offering, growling low in his small throat and feinting around its limp body. on his hindlegs he went if up his mother pulled, and finally he gave his first true snarl, yanking mercilessly on the thing.
a thought struck merrick then; he paused to spit fur from his tongue and regard indra quizzically. "what kind upm toys, mahmee?" rad ones like this? different things? he needed her to categorize the gifts coming to him with a quickness, please and thanks.

indra had hoped dangling the weasel might slow his inquisition, or at the very least, abate his quick wit enough that he lobbed no more questions in her direction. often questions, particularly questions posed by a child, were challenging or disappointing to answer, and gave disappointing answers in return.

merrick pounced on the tattered corpse, eking his first snarl (SO CUTE, MAMA'S LITTLE HOMICIDAL PUPPY) into its' soft pelt. she gave the weasel a hearty yank just as merrick spat fur from his tongue and leveled his mother with another question. indra lowered to the ground and considered her answer carefully, a scheming glint in her eye.

"all kinds of toys." she propped the purloined weasel between her paws, nibbling at a broken limb as if inviting merrick to seize the pelt from her. "but we won't know until he brings them. you'll have to impress him with how well you play with this toy, to see what he brings next."

she was cunning. merrick took the literal bait, practicing another growl as he trapped the weasel's dangling foreleg in his puppy-sharp jaws and lashed his head from side to side. for a length of time the boy did this with the focus of a kickboxer training for a tournament. and when his tongue finally lolled, his panting quick and prideful, merrick ended the match.
a stream of urine aimed along the weasel, for he had clearly won the match, as one-sided as it might have been. however, merrick did not take a moment to consider that the toy was still held in his mother's jaws; that was secondary to his own goal.

EW!!! #NOTMYBAPTISM

as they played, even the cold-shouldered indra let her guard down -- the spirit in their game was relaxing, and for a while she forgot the heavy troubles of the world that rode her shoulders like a burdensome cloak. too late was it for her to notice her son's posturing, the unmistakable heave of a hip --

no harpy ever fled faster from a sword, nor any spider ever recoiled so violently from a vial of light, as indra did that day when she saw her son in the fits of his power..

typical men, always thinking with their dicks anyway -- but besides the point ---

the toy was left where it was, but indra's muzzle was not free of insult as she felt something uncomely, warm, and terrible trickle down her cheeks. with a hiss of anger for a moment she seemed she was about to strike merrick down in his insolence, yet the storm that gathered behind her gaze seemed to suddenly lift as she recollected her wits and, in disgust, turned on her heels to find a source of water.

LOL momraege

lettuce fade this and have another :D

merrick blinked after her; what had he done? a chuckle burst from him when he considered that she had pee all along her cheeks; that was definitely not where it went. and while her baleful gaze had seemed to spell a certain doom for the boy, she had not seen fit to punish him. perhaps when his mother was done being upset, she would think it was funny, also, because it was.
happily devoid of any empathy in regard to the fact he had pissed in the very face of the birthgiver, merrick trailed indra at a saucy gait, soon catching up with his stalking mother with a pithy little laugh at her own expense.

yes!! i will start this time <3

her steps away from her son were clipped and quick. as if she were eager to put distance between herself and the shame merrick had induced upon her. it was better she was moving; an anger stirred in her gut which bloomed in irate clouds about her vision, followed quick by the aftermath of guilt.

she would bathe her cheek and her insults in the river, and quickly forget this memory.