Sun Mote Copse What up, I'm Jared, I'm 19, and I never f*cking learned how to read

Referencing mama's note on development log: - Pups will be allowed out of the den around April 27-28. Before this time, Niamh will pick them up and bring them back in. She feels strongly that until they can see and hear well, they should stay within the den. Anyone who is welcome near the den is welcome to join! Tags for reference :)

 

Quetzal woke up pretty early today. It was rare that she ever woke up before Alyx or Rosie, but today that just seemed to be the way the cookie crumbled (or, they could have woken up earlier and just been napping now... Q slept like the dead, so she would never know). Once again after blinking the sleep from her eyes, Quetzal, whose right ear was thus far still flopped over (the other had pricked right up a few days ago), surveyed the den. 

It was totally quiet. 

Which meant it was a good time to do whatever the heck she wanted. She always got closest to victory when mom, or dad, was asleep. She never succeeded entirely of course; by the fifth or sixth time, Niamh was much too clever to not realize her tasmanian devil of a daughter had again attempted her great escape. 

Q nosed @Alyx. Whether her sister liked it or not, Q liked to engage her in these ventures. She wouldn't admit it to anyone, but it was too scary an endeavor to do 100% alone. Even if Alyx didn't wake up, it still gave her mind a comfort to know that if anything happened to her Alyx would know. Not actually, but that was baby-brain logic. It just made sense. She couldn't wake Rosie (@Primrose); he wouldn't be happy that she did anything that 'upset' mom, because it upset him too she thought. 

Rosie was important to her someway, somehow... but he always cried, and that just wouldn't vibe on her escape mission. 

Q then waddled toward the entrance quiet as a mouse (likely not as quiet though). Slowly but surely she made her way up... and out... and was not, immediately, brought down again. Q squinted around at nature; it was a cloudy day, but still far brighter than the den. Her head popped out at first, and as nature stirred her floppy ear pitched upward too as she better listened to the world around her. Then she army-crawled the rest of her little body out, still laying as she looked all around. 

A distant howl captured her attention. Q was now seated, and though she could not interpret the cry Q mimicked it in a little wooooooooooo,. Her tail waved as she listened to the howl; the wolf had much more lung capacity than her, but was still calling. Woowooowoooooo! She answered, not that they would hear her. 

But anyone near the den would. Q had already forgotten that her mission was meant to be covert.

Despite going to bed much later than usual last night, Meerkat rose at the usual time. She hung out at the rendezvous site, chirping at the various passerby, until Towhee returned from her early patrol with breakfast in tow. They ate together, then the Regent motioned for the pup to join her as they went to visit Niamh et al.

On the way there, Meerkat's right ear twitched in response to the howls traveling back and forth. -"WHAT'S THAT?"- she asked Towhee, who gave her a quizzical look and a, -"What's what?"- -THE..."- She paused. "AWOOS!"

An aha! look came over her mother's face. Towhee did her best to explain her deafness to her child for the first time. She wondered if Meerkat would understand. Surely she wouldn't grasp it completely, though there was a very thoughtful look on her face as they drew up beside her Neema's den site.

She immediately spotted little Quetzal parked in the doorway. -"HIYA!"- Meerkat exclaimed, bouncing toward her smaller cousling and sniffing noses with her before declaring, -"GUESS WHAT! MAMA'S HEARS DON'T WORK!"-

Towma and Meer were soon in sight; her howl dwindled (woooooooooo...) in favor of the more exciting thing before her very eyes. Quetzal had seen the two of them before, not that she was aware of her earliest memory of them. She just knew she liked them, and that was that. She scrambled to meet Kat (narrator note: author laughed) halfway to sniff and nose-bump excitedly. 

Whatever Meer was saying wasn't translated at all. Her ears had just popped up two days ago after all. Q would soon get the grasp of it all, but she still answered Meerkat with just as much verve as Meer had brought: IIIIIIIIIIIII!!!! Thinking this a proper verbal greeting. Q bounced around her cousling and then made to headbutt Towma's foreleg, every ounce of love in her tiny bean body produced at the affectionate tricerian display. And then she was back to Meerkat again, yelling: UTTTTTT!!! EEE???? As though any of what she said make sense. 

Of course, to Q, it made perfect sense. She was asking if Meerkat knew anything about the food situation out in the great open around them. Q imagined Meerkat was trying to relay the same information to her, but hadn't the right words for them. Q would babytalk her through it. It really didn't matter, the three of them were in this—whatever this was, of course—together.

Quetzal gabbled loudly in return, none of the words making any real sense. Meerkat smiled at this, watching as her cousling butted against Towhee. Her mother reached out to ruffle the furs on little Q's head before retreating a few steps. She made a sort of shooing motion toward the two little girls, indicating they should play with one another.

Meerkat didn't need to be told twice. She turned to face Quetzal again and announced, -"I TEACH YOU HOW TO TALK, OKAY?"- For her, talking encompassed both speech and signing. Along with her verbal gobbledygook, Meerkat noticed Quetzal's lack of signing. At least, her forelimbs moved in no meaningful way whatsoever.

-"OKAY!"- she hollered in the next breath, just hoping Quetzal would pay attention. -"SAY 'HI, I'M BABY!'"-

While Niamh certainly worked at teaching her children Towma's language, Q's grasp of it was about as crude as her reception of the English language. Her ears might twitch naturally while she listened to things, and now and then someone might be fortunate to watch her speak and ptero at once (if it was not a trick of ones own eye)... though anyone with decent observation skills would see that the ptero and the "word", of which she had yet to form one quite yet (or at least use correctly), did not translate to the same thing. Especially since no words could be said, yet. 

There were things Q was beginning to understand though. "Yes", "no", "hi" for instance. "You" too was a word she heard frequently, but that word was used on all her siblings. So, to her, they were all "you". She looked over her shoulder and saw she was the only 'you' present, and looked back to Meerkat with an ecstatic grin. Q was in, whatever it was. 

Now and then, mom and dad would say "can you say". 'Say', then, was the familiar one then... but even still Q did not grasp its context. She responded anyway, probably not at all like Meerkat had hoped: AYYYYBEE! EECHUUUU! AYBEKAY, mashing the words together with a nod of her head, and, for good measure, mimicked the final gesture—correctly, actually. But she didn't know that. Her head tilted comically as she gazed at her cousin, thinking they were getting somewhere. 

All this was about food, right?

Meerkat couldn't help it: she cracked up at Q's attempt to mimic her. The little cherub giggled for several seconds, glancing over at Towhee as if to say, Are you seeing and hearing this? (Her mother's deafness had already slipped her mind.) She totally missed the one correct sign Quetzal managed to make while her head was turned.

Meerkat eventually collected herself, turned around and said, -"YOU NOT A SNEEZE, SILLY! YOU A BABY! SAY, 'I'M! A! BAY! BEE!'"- This time, she enunciated each syllable but did not think to do the equivalent with her signs, which she performed rapidly and smoothly. She grinned the entire time, thoroughly enjoying this absurd "conversation."

Q giggled when Meerkat did. 

What a hilarious inside joke they had—and Towma was in on it, too! Giddily Q looked up at her, before Meer went on to speak again. Q, wanting her to laugh again, mimicked again... very poorly. Also again. OONAHKAY!!! AY. MAH!!!! BEEEE! She repeated, signing wrongly and entirely off pace with everything. She did not speak slowly, and in fact, reiterated, BEEEEE! BAYYYYY! Bouncing toward Meerkat with a grin and a waving tail. 

That had to mean she had snacks, right? She giggled hopefully, gaze turning to Towma. EEEEEE? BEEEE? Did she know?

It wasn't quite right but Meerkat bobbed her head, pleased by the smaller child's efforts. -"YES, GOOD!"- she praised, beaming, rump wiggling with the energetic swing of her tail. She tittered when Quetzal bounced toward her, swiping out a forepaw to bat at her shoulder but gently, like a kitten.

She heard Towhee say something behind her and turned to catch it. -"Sorry, kiddo, my tank's empty,"- she was saying to Quetzal. Meerkat noticed she spoke slowly and signed emphatically, more so than she did with Meerkat or others. The pup cocked her head, a sort of knowing smile passing over her face.

Turning back to Q once again, Meerkat's attention span showed its brevity as she gave up on speech therapy and instead asked her little cousling, -"YOU WANNA PLAY, CUTE BABY?"-

Quetzal babbled right back, all of it nonsensical. She giggled as Meerkat engaged with her, though her attention was mostly for Towhee and her (un)bountiful food source when she answered. Q seemed to understand suddenly there was no food to be had here, and she looked at Meerkat with a huff; she mimicked the way her aunt and her voice sounded to her, and answered with a disappointed: beboot!!! 

OOOOOT! TOOOOOOOT! she answered once again, tail waving. Food! Food! That had to be what Meerkat was saying this time, right? This was it? Q looked beyond Kat, and saw what she thought was the holy grail. The fountain of youth. 

A low-hanging tiddy, as she saw it. But truth be told, all were pretty much the same to Q. Silent but deadly, and annoying like the fart, Q was not easy to miss at all as she made a bee-line for the cafeteria lunchline, rearing on her hindlegs that couldn't really support her like that quite yet, and falling on her back in a total wipeout.

Quetzal ignored her and made a beeline for Towhee instead. Meerkat snorted in amusement and ran after her, laughing out loud when her younger sister overturned. Her mother beat her—reaching down to nudge the topsy-turvy pup to rights—but Meerkat arrived swiftly, nosing Quetzal all over to make sure she was okay, even as her eyes twinkled.

-"YOU OKAY, TOOTY BABY?"- the sandy youngster asked before cracking up at her own question.

Lucky for all involved, Q was born resilient. She was loud enough to begin with, but all around her were spared screaming wails. A little gasp of surprise was emitted but that was it, and as Towhee righted her and Meerkat sniffed at her she beamed as though nothing had happened. Giggling right along with Meerkat, she answered, afaoby ootttttt, relaying her groundbreaking discovery. 

And then she reared again, but with 'Kat near Q was able to get purchase on her and not be unbalanced as she made another attempt to go for a good ol fashion(ed tiddy), off the rocks. Whether or not she was able to get anything from this was as of yet unknown, but she sure tried her best.

Quetzal made a rudimentary attempt to mimic her and Meerkat began to laugh in earnest. -"YEAH! BABY TOOTS!"- she hollered. She was definitely a fan of potty humor. -"BABY POO—!"- she exclaimed with her very next breath, cut off when the baby reared, half her weight coming to rest on the spot just behind Meerkat's shoulder blades.

The sandy pup twisted her head to get a better look at her cousling, cackling as Quetzal tried to snatch at Towhee's underside. -"GEDDIT!"- Meerkat cheered, a truly supportive big sister.

That lasted all of two seconds, as Towhee sidestepped out of Quetzal's range. Although happy to be her little sister's stepladder for as long as necessary, there was really no point now. So Meerkat turned her head again and snuffled in the direction of Quetzal's armpit, hoping to tickle her into play.

So close, she could almost taste it!!!! There was nothing but empty space left between she and her beloved, and Q wasted no time. But Towma proved to Q she would need to be quicker than that with her evasive sidestep, to which Q looked to her with confused alarm. Does not compute, her expression easily read, and then Kat stepped away and she was on all fours again. 

There was no time to mourn her rumbly tummy, though, because soon her big sister was tickling her. That being a particularly ticklish point upon her, Q was sufficiently distracted by letting out a laugh of surprise (she had been caught off guard) that was more goose honk than cherubic giggle. Oh, she hated this! No concept of running away on her mind, Q pushed toward Meerkat while still honking and then the thought occurred to her to run back to mom. 

Mom had snacks. 

So, she turned and full-sprinted back into the whelping den, dive-bombing inside; a decent Irish goodbye.

The smaller puppy laughed and squirmed, which delighted Meerkat and compelled her to shove her nose toward Quetzal's closest ear. Experience had shown her that ears were quite a ticklish spot too, so she first sniffed, then licked, before her sister suddenly vanished!

She blinked and saw her little black tail disappear into the den. Meerkat immediately braced to give chase when Towhee's foreleg struck out to block her. -"It's going to rain soon, so we should head back and find some cover,"- her mother explained, tilting her swarthy snout skyward.

Indeed, the morning had grown dim. Something about the sight of the darkening sky (and perhaps the changing air pressure) suddenly made Meerkat's eyelids droop. Her lack of sleep was catching up to her now.

The two turned to go, though not before Meerkat tossed a loud, fond, -"BYE, WEIRD BABY!"- over one sandy shoulder.