Sawtooth Spire It was the 14th of October, had that T-shirt off your shoulder

Short post challenge, you can do it. >:)

The air outside the den was warm for once, heralding spring's imminent arrival, and Wylla yearned to to go out and stretch her legs in it. Alas, there were no trustworthy babysitters at hand for her to foist her two adorable burdens off on, so she was stuck at home with the tykes, not unlike the rest of the world these days. There weren't any good home activities available so she was in the troublesome position of trying to entertain two wolf cubs who were right on the cusp of opening their eyes, if they hadn't already.

Well, Thade certainly hadn't. Everything about the boy seemed... well, slow. He wasn't as energetic as Tiercel had been and not even as energetic as his sister, which was a marvel considering Phaedra's near death experience at birth. He liked to nap and lay around and eat a lot. There were no alarming signs, but he seemed to lack basic motivation so far, so no surprise to see his lids were still tightly sealed after a mid-morning tongue bath.

As for the other one... Wylla replaced Thade at her side and reached quickly for the light-haired @Phaedra, whom she already anticipated would be a little bitch about bath time, because that was what Tiercel had always been.

to assume makes an ass out of u and me, mother. 
the cygnet had first been napping while wylla went about the rote task of bathing her firstborn under the slant of warm sunlight, but by the time thade was replaced and phaedra was due for a wash, her mother would reach back to discover her daughter was not, as expected, within reach. 
rather, the child had retired to the rolling sea of pelts and cast of shadow. she arranged herself under the tan-flecked pelage of a hare—though her dipstick of a tail stuck out and would no doubt give her position away. she hadn't hid on purpose! finding herself sepulchered in the furs was a convenience served by coincidence.
this to her felt like being pinned under wylla’s armpit anyway, despite smelling significantly more pleasant.

Black ears snatched back when she realized Phaedra was not, as expected, at her side. Wylla's yellow eyes flit frantically around the den, passing over the tiny fair-haired tail poking out from under the pelts at least twice before she noticed it. The unwelcome press of panic against her heart subsided, replaced by a scowl and a grumble.

If you wanted to suffocate you should've said so before your father saved your life, grumped Wylla, grasping the pup's tiny tail none-too-gently with dull incisors and tugging on it.

with a start, phaedra instinctively dug her claws in and braced herself when wylla found her out and began wrenching her from the luxurious, warm shawl. nein! she mewled in protest when she felt her rear-end nipped by the open air. 



the phaedra-sized lump underneath the pelt shifted and scrambled, but alas, she did not struggle for long and there was little use in doing so—she was at a very yeet-able age, you see. 
once the pup was fully unsheathed, she poked her head up to blindly search the den for the target of her ire. 

Wylla remained blissfully ignorant of the fact young children were capable of some decision making. She grunted through her nose when Phaedra proved harder to budge than first expected. No more milk for you, she silently vowed, you fuckin' chub. No kid of hers was going to turn out fat, thank you very much.

A few seconds and a small struggle later saw Wylla yanking Phaedra out from under the furs. Instantly the pup's head was in the air, her paling nose taking aim like a tiny heat seeking missile. Yeah, yeah, Wylla grumbled, reaching awkwardly to try to grasp her kid around the midriff, beat me up later, you're disgusting and I need to fix that before your father berates me. With a snort, she hoisted her muzzle into the air and mocked, Vylla, the children are so dirty. Vylla, you must vash behind their ears!

were there worse things than a bath? irrefutably. war, famine, geese, the cromwellian conquest of ireland, mother's sour breath in the morning. these were all things that ticked each box of the "list of bad things" list. NATHELESS! the one she, phaedra, sagtannet's princzessin, regarded with more disrelish than any of those things, was being b-a-t-h-e-d. if she was meant to be in one place, the celebrity in the sky wouldn't have furnished her person with such perfect feet for running and playing and tagging with. it was simple math. 

unfortunately math was not a subject (but it would be! perhaps not when she was princzessin, but when she was queen!) when bathtime cameabout and nothing equated to a grumpier phaedra than being stationary against her will. 

ah beans. once mother's mouth seized hold of her venter, it was like she could feel her overindulgences slosh and curdling in her tummy. the moon's daughter worked a burp free and a touch of spitup came with it stamped return to sender.

she could feel the hot breath of her momma muttering and the contortions of her tongue purling against phaedra's fur as wylla spoke to (let's be honest) herself, child en evoyage. accursed with a ticklish belly, the girl squiggled and giggled, kicking her feet out in reflex. 

She succeeded into grabbing Phaedra, but not without a rebuttal from the kid, who she immediately dropped between her forepaws as if she'd just discovered mould on her underside. Fuck, she swore, scooting her white paws back and away from the little glob of vomit-or-whatever-the-hell-that-was on the floor. Can you not be completely disgusting for just one day? It was nothing on Thade's occasional bouts of diarrhea but still.

Where were the perfect, precious little bundles of baby breath and soft downy fur? The ones who suckled gently, burped elegantly, slept peacefully and didn't test their mother's patience on a minutely basis? She'd hoped maybe Tiercel was just all of her bad karma come to bite her and this batch would be the promised perfection of infancy, but that was nothing but wishful thinking. So far, they weren't making a good case for babies and she was strongly considering sterilization before there could be any more repeats of this.

Attempts to clean Phaedra only resulted in the child giggling and kicking, which would've been okay if not for one of those surprisingly sturdy legs socking her straight in the nose. Stoppit you little shit! she snapped, attempting to catch Phaedra's entire leg between her teeth to hold it still so she could awkwardly try to bathe it within her own mouth.

since this is old and we're both y'know. just gonna phone it in and archive lol

no, she could not not be disgusting for one day. thirty minutes was asking too much, for that matter. there was always something to be cleaned, and at this moment, it was her, and phaedra wanted NOUGHT to do with it. she belled giggles, peddling and thrashing against wylla's muzzle as the mother just tried to bathe her child for all that was good and holy. it wasn't her fault that she didn't have any spatial awareness and one kick just happened to clock her square in the snuffer.
that guilty foot was seized gently between teeth and wylla practically sucked on it like a popsicle in order to clean it (to prevent further stem-post defacement, ofc).
this deactivates the phaedra. she wasn't sure how she felt about this sensation which effectively lulled her. 
quentin tarantino, is that you?
after her gams had been washed, wylla marinated the rest of her daughter in her saliva, removing all the dirt and body waste. 
well, when she licked her behind, phaedra couldn't help but piddle a little bit. isn't nature beautiful? the unruly child had tired herself out by kicking and resisting bathtime and by the end of it, she was far off in dreamland sandwiched between her mothers legs.