Arrow Lake Death is only the end if you assume the story is about you

20-24 weeks: "Begin appearing outside of the den and playing near the entrance." All welcome, Drago is outside the den so other pack mates can also meet him!

Aurëwen continued to take her long excursions away from the thicket, and her still-suckling babes continued to flounder in her absence. It was possible Isilmë was adapting better to their mother's disappearances, but Dragomir was a different beast altogether. He grouched and wailed whenever his stomach began to rumble with hunger while she was hours away, leaving helpless sitters to deal with his tantrums, and even shoveling dirt into his mouth was proving ineffective for comfort. A lot of the time, the dark-haired pup was fit to be tied, and when he got to nurse, he did so very aggressively.

The only benefit was that Aure's lengthy departures hastened the weaning process considerably. The pups had to turn to the regurgitated meat presented by their caretakers. Dragomir had no choice but to conquer his sensitive stomach, and soon enough he was bolting down meat sludge alongside his sibling. He had just finished one such meal, courtesy of a recent visitor, and was licking his chops contently when the sound of something outside piqued his interest.

Pressing his large ears up, the pup peeped a quiet note of curiosity, then fled forward and out into the wider world beyond the thicket that served as their densite. The sound that caught his notice was actually the sound of water falling from the sky and colliding with ground and tree alike, and little Dragomir took a raindrop to the face with a wild shake of his head and an offended sneeze. Raaaaah! he yelled at the clouds just in time to for another drop to plonk down on his nose.

though naturally biased towards his own children - even despite considering all pups to be some kind of egregious breed of leech - the ironhound was loathe to completely ignore the presence of another brood in diaspora. he paid as much attention to them as he could afford, and by attention he means that he remained vigilant around the thicket and allowed no threat to exist near them. he often spied on aurëwen's denmouth, but hardly ever came near enough to determine who was present or absent at any given time.

he was only passing by when a spring drizzle started up, and for the first time since their birth, he saw a lovechild of the dove and titan emerging. it was a dark one - the son, he surmised - and experiencing his first witting battle with the elements. stigmata did not often feel compelled to cater to children, let alone those that were not his own blood, but despite (or maybe because of) his selfish tendencies, he recognized the significance of earning a wolf's affection when they were young.

he approached with a tall tail and forward ears; curious to see how the boy would react to a dominant approach, even with the distractions of newness afoot.

A tiny, split-second growl burst from Dragomir as he faced off against the dark clouds. It didn't matter. Another drop hit him square between the eyes, eliciting a yip as he spun around in search of his unseen assailant. His tail stilled, quivering slightly with tension, as he strained his young ears forward. Plink went another drop, causing him to flick the targeted ear in irritation. He was so focused on this battle with the rain that he was completely blind to Stigmata until the man was practically on top of him, at which point Dragomir stopped trying to fight the clouds and whipped around to stare at the grizzled leader of the pack.

Dragomir had no notion that this man was a figure of authority who required the utmost respect. He was just a young pup still new to the entire concept of a pack; until recently, his world had consisted of about five or six wolves at most. Stigmata was wholly unfamiliar, however, and the skyward fling of a tail hearkened to Drago's ancestral instincts. He sank back against the earth, allowing his tail to wiggle appeasingly as he craned his head up and attempted to lick the man's chin as though begging for food.

It was impossible, of course. He was tiny and Stigmata was huge. He lapped at the air instead. This went on for a few seconds before his concentration on the General was broken by a particularly large raindrop hitting his outstretched tongue, earning a reflexive snap of his jaws and another shrill yawp at the sky as he turned to face it.

expecting to feel some overwhelming sense of detachment towards the child of foreigners, the sandraudiga patriarch found himself stricken instead by the (newly) familiar impulse to purge his stomach for the lad. the supplicant attitude - aimed about his muzzle - only caused this strange suffering to build, and he began to salivate even before determining for himself if he wanted anything further to do with the boy or not.

as the dragon-child sought toothy retribution  against the anomaly that was the falling sky, the general abruptly gagged and hocked up his most recent meal into some sort of steaming marmot stew. he stared perplexedly at the scene unraveled before him, and hoped it wouldn't be like this every time he came across a cub that was dragomir's age.

stigmata wasn't terribly surprised at this sudden outcome; he could only imagine how he might react to them, given his natural disposition towards everything else, but he could not know for certain, having almost no experience in these sorts of matters himself. for in all his years as a breeder, he had never been this involved in the lives of pups so young before, so this was all experimental and in the interim he would just go through the motions instinct bade him to, rather than trying to determine the action's value right away.

Dragomir's piercing bark did nothing to deter the sky despite loudly echoing over the mountains, but his indignation at this was short-lived. There came a horking sound from above that begged his utmost attention and he turned his muzzle back up to his General just in time for a steaming pile of chewed meat to splatter their paws. With a delighted squeal, the dark cub forgot all about the rain and dove into the meat, showing no concern whatsoever for the unsuspecting adult who had just thrown it up.

For a minute or so his focus was solely on his impromptu meal, but once his belly began to feel food, Drago dashed down a couple more chunks and then peered messily up at Stigmata. His tail beat happily against the ground and a soft whimper issued from his snout, almost like a request for Stig to join him at his meal, or at least a plea for the adult's attention.