Sun Mote Copse A cross between a zombie apocalypse and big Bobby "The Brain" Heenan

Maybe @Towhee? Can probably forward date it up to a week so it's at a point where her visiting makes sense?

Manual dexterity wasn't a thing Alyx would have for a while, but what minimal mastery she had over her limbs was already being put to good use. Specifically, she'd already figured out how to soothe herself. It wasn't exactly rocket science, but to Alyx, it was a sign of superior intellect that she'd figured out how to shove her own tiny paw in the side of her mouth so she could suck on it.

And suck it she did. If she wasn't nursing or crawling around the den, she was lying on her back or her side with her paw in or near her mouth. The thin fuzz on her foot was constantly gummy or wet. The first few times she'd managed to jab herself with her tiny nails, as evidenced by a minuscule scratch right above her lip, but now she was pretty good at it. In fact, it was already becoming a bad habit to stick her paw in her mouth in lieu of whimpering and whining when she was uncomfortable.

Like now, stranded in the middle of the floor away from Niamh and Quetzal and Primrose, sucking furiously on her foot.

Having just gone through this herself a few weeks back, Towhee liked to think she intuitively understood @Niamh's head space at present. Even without her personal experience, she knew how to conduct herself around a freshly postpartum mother and her newborns. No matter how much Towhee wanted to get inside that den with them, she held back and instead kept vigil just outside as frequently as she could manage. Sometimes, she brought Meerkat with her but, mostly, she left her daughter in the care of another trusted adult when she came to loiter.

She was alone today when she appeared and slowly approached the den's mouth. She had welcomed Niamh to see Meerkat nearly right away, though she knew her friend would likely have her own timeline. Towhee didn't push any of it, nor take it personally. She simply settled near enough so she could sort of peer into the dim interior, hopefully without bothering the den's inhabitants. She would patiently await an invitation that might come today, tomorrow or a week from now.

In the meantime, she spied one of the puppies sprawled some distance from its mother and siblings. Towhee inhaled, nostrils flaring, sussing out some tidbits of information. This was one of the twins, a little girl. Alyx? Or Quetzal? Unsure at this point, the Regent smiled to herself as her orange eyes adjusted to the gloom and she saw that her whatchamacallit (niece? daughter? naughter?) appeared to be eating her own foot.

She was cold. She didn't know any way to indicate this to anyone short of crying, and she couldn't cry with her paw jammed in her mouth, so Alyx just went right on suckling her paw and waiting for something to change. She didn't know that right that minute, she was being observed by a third caretaker. If Towhee continued to watch, she would likely see the newborn's face wrinkle into something resembling distress moments before she urinated on herself and grew even more cold.

Finally having enough of attempting to comfort herself, Alyx popped her wet forepaw out of her mouth, drew back her tiny gums, and released a piercing shriek for Niamh to wake up and pay attention to her, which Towhee may or may not recognize as a cry by sight.

When the baby girl's tiny faced screwed into an expression of displeasure right before the soiled herself, it evoked every maternal instinct Towhee possessed. But her sense of self-preservation was also strong, so she glanced over at Niamh (missing Alyx's wailing entirely). Her friend did not stir. It was tempting to let the woman rest and take care of cleaning the puppy herself and Towhee would gladly have done it, yet she refused to violate Niamh's inner sanctum until properly invited.

Her eyes skittered back to Alyx, finally noticing her open mouth, then back to Niamh. It didn't really surprise her that the crying didn't even make her stir; giving birth and taking care of newborns was exhausting work. But Towhee raised her own voice, hisspering, "@Niamh? You awake?"

Apparently, Niamh was still peacefully locked away in La La Land, leaving a cold and dirty Alyx seemingly alone with her discomfort. It was a crucial lesson from the school of hard knocks: sometimes you just had to grin and bear it, even if everything sucked absolute ass. Crying wasn't getting her what she needed and soon enough, she stopped. Lucky for Towhee that Alyx wasn't aware of her; if the babe knew someone was nearby who could help, she'd have gone on making a racket (or portraying a racket in her facial expressions, at least) for days.

Instead, she crammed her soggy paw back in her mouth and began sucking furiously on it, curling in on herself like some kind of pill bug. She had to kick her survival instincts into gear and somehow knew that this was an okay way to conserve body heat. There was more than enough ambient warmth in the den that she was in no danger, although she certainly felt like she was. Cold? Wet? These were not the states a princess ought to be in!

Around her paw, she whimpered.

Niamh did not react and Towhee ground her teeth in frustration, attention dropping back to Alyx. The pup no longer appeared distressed, though she was absolutely filthy. Towhee sucked in a sharp breath as the pup jammed her paw in her own mouth to self-soothe. The Regent was definitely between a rock and a hard place here, with her friend unresponsive.

She could've raised her voice and tried again, yet Towhee knew that Niamh must really need her rest if she was that dead to the world. She gave Alyx an apologetic look before withdrawing from the den and sending up a howl for @Phox instead.

Fully conked out, Niamh reacted to very little when she fell asleep. Often she would move in her sleep if she sensed one of the kids had left her side, and would sweep them back to her side with a movement of one of her long legs- but generally, when she took a nap, she really took a nap. Her sleep was dream-filled, and she found it very hard to pull herself from her vivid, wildly unrealistic dreams even when the kids cried, sometimes. That being said- it was more during her naps, than during her sleep at night, that she found herself really crashing hard and fortunately, that only happened about once a day. 

So when Towhee spoke her name, nothing registered. But when she heard the howl, she groggily lifted her head. "...But there was supposed to be a parade," She murmured, and then shook her head. "And...birds, feathers...Wait, what?" She asked loudly, finally snapping herself out of her haze. Her gaze was drawn to her kids, and as per usual, when one was out of place, they were gently pulled back to her side, and began to clean her up. "Poor thing, all piss-covered an' starving. Sakes. There," She said, in between licks, as she cleaned Alyx up, and nudged her toward a teat. 

Another sniff allowed her to catch Towhee's scent. "Towhee?" She called, uselessly. She picked up the nearest bone, leftover from an earlier meal, and tossed it out the den's mouth, hoping to catch her attention if she was still within sight.

While Niamh slowly came to, muttering nonsense, Alyx rocked herself side-to-side, on the verge of a full-blown tantrum. Sucking her paw wasn't helping the way it normally did, and she was growing absolutely inconsolable. At around the same time Towhee sent up a call for Phox, Alyx began to cry. Loudly.

Thankfully, it came at the same time that Niamh woke up and it wasn't long before Alyx was cleaned, warmed and placed back in the proper spot. She popped her paw out of her mouth at last and pressed her gummy foot into Niamh's belly, kneading gently as she sucked milk down her voracious gullet. She felt Niamh shift when her mama threw the bone out the doorway, the teat eluding her mouth and eliciting an offended shriek. Alyx recaptured it moments later and continued guzzling down milk at a rate that was certain to put her in a food coma shortly.

Alyx is skippable now!

After calling for her brother, Towhee glanced at the den's mouth again, biting at her lip. What if Phox didn't come? Surely he'd heard her but there was no way for him to let her know. She fidgeted for a moment, considering marching into the den and shaking Niamh awake, even if it meant the new mother would tear a hole in her hide. Better that than let Alyx suffer.

But then the Regent had a better idea. In the split second before Niamh tossed out the bone to get her attention, Towhee spun on her heel and trotted away into the copse, a heat-seeking missile. She would track down their baby daddy and fetch him back here herself.

(Of course, when this transpired, they would return to find Alyx clean, content and comatose beside her weary mother... much to Towhee's relief.)

I figured this would be a realistic twist, haha. Let's have another soon!

Nothing. No response, so she was left to assume that Towhee had been in to visit, but had left shortly before she woke up. She shrugged and chuckled to herself as some memory of the dream she'd been having came back to her, now that her child was safely tucked against her side where she could be warm and fed. Given the return of peace that cameto the den following Alyx's tantrum, Niamh took every advantage she could of the quiet, and settled back in for another deep nap.