Cedar Sweep First Light

Malguk's eyes had still not opened.

The sun had been bright. She had fought furiously against the nights, and in the day, she nursed aggressively. Big belly burps and a nice warm tummy. Life was good when mama was awake to nudge her and give kisses! Even better when she fought against her siblings and growled angrily when they got in her way! There was more than enough room, and yet she toppled over them in greedy onslaughts. One was not there. She searched relentlessly for the third, the other! Malguk knew there had been another. She would not find him. He must have been under Mama, sleeping away.

When bellies were full and the day soothed, there was stillness.

No one explained how sunlight was insatiable.
How there would not always be the warmth of another at your side.

How your heartbeat would not always settle in the arms of a father, and how you would not be sung to sleep with the hums of something greater.
How you were lucky to experience the affection of family, and how you flourished when others could not nourish. How the rise in your heart, too, was a treasured feeling, because one day you would learn how it fell. How the song of morning, too, was temporary, and it would not be forever. How the elevation of your soul was a feeling to be tasted, and the bliss of a day was only temporary, and a temporary to cover in cherry blossoms.
There is only once.

Sundown invaded her eyes in golden hour. She had been late to see the world, a patience of wait that went on with each passing day. Engulfed by the hum of sounds and gentle sleep, and terrible wakes. Ears openened, and yet drifted away in a darkness far, far beyond each siblings first light. Closed lids.

A choice she had not taken. Until now.
Timeless.
Malguk's eyes jolted open.

A big, bright smile pulled clumsily at the baby's mouth and she cried with laughter! Her heart poured and she squealed so loudly to unsuspecting mama, flopping around as much as her legs allowed.

If he could count, maybe he would have noticed one less among them. If he had any care at all beyond the basic necessities (food, warmth, occasional attention) maybe Sisamat would have cried for the brother he would never know.

With his eyes open and his interest in the world growing, he did notice something—a familiar greenlight, sprawling through the ulaq towards where their mother sat curled up around the body of their brother. It pulsed from time to time. It was mostly formless, this light; and judging by the way nobody else reacted to it, Sisamat presumed it was only a dream-thing. Sometimes when he slept he was in different places—and this was much like that. A sensation only he could experience. Something not wholly there.

The boy was wedged among his siblings. He was a little bit uncomfortable, being directly on his tailbone, but he was so transfixed by this play of light upon the ceiling of the ulaq that he did not mind. The sun was setting; the light grew stronger as golden hour ebbed in to an early evening. He watched the flowing light until something else caught his attention—a sound; laughter.

When he looked for the source, he saw the blurry blob of gold that was his sister. She was laughing! What was funny? What had he missed? Oh—but Sisamat remembered the greenlight, and when he turned again to look for it, saw that it was gone completely. There was only the blackness of the ulaq.

A squeal erupted from Malguk, and Sisamat rolled towards her with the intent to make her stop! She had scared away the light! Why did she do that?

Atausiq too was transfixed. But not even her sisters laughter could distract her. Each day this happened, but like Sisamat today was the first day that she had noticed! And as Sisamat turned his head away, Atausiq rose to follow the moving shape that looked to be slowly pulled away, out of the mouth of their den. Whether that was innate hunters instinct, or the common curiosity of a cub, was unknown. Atausiq, also like Sisamat, found her motivations linked to survival. So it was unlikely that this was different, but perhaps it could be. 

When she waddled near the lip of the den, she was quickly overtaken and brought right back to Sisamat and Malguk. She grumbled, but now it was the moving of Sisamat that attracted her attention. 

Toward Malguk. 

Atausiq had forgotten the fading light, blessed with the memory of a child, and now watched them. Her tail slowly thwapped against the denfloor as she did.

Asivaq had left the children to their own devices as she prepared their brother for his final resting place. She was only a second away if anything were to happen, but kept a distance and shielded their eyes from the sight of their sibling. She was somber as she examined her third-born and carefully placed flowers and bones around his body; she hoped he would find these playthings in the dancing lights.

She carefully began wrapping a beaver fur around his body, but she took her time, knowing this would be the last time she'd see her son's face. My son, she murmured to herself in the language of the sunshine people, feeling tears well in her eyes as she looked upon him, feeling an overwhelming force of grief crash upon her. You had so much life to live ... It was unfair that he'd been taken from them so quickly. He still had so much life to live! She bowed her head and shook it, hesitating to cover his face.

Malguk's laughter shattered the still and silence that'd settled in the den, and her heart skipped a beat as she turned to see what was going on. There was a look of panic upon her, despite the happy notes her daughter chirped, as she studied the situation. Her worries dissipated in one long exhale as she realized there was nothing wrong—it was the opposite, actually!

Finally, her daughter's eyes had opened.

She quickly finished wrapping up her son before she stood and moved to join her children. Aya! she praised, eyes still brimming with tears but with a happier emotion behind them. My sweet girl! Look at you! You can see! She said, curling around her middle child and gently grooming her head. I am so incredibly proud of you.

She giggled in only the way that children did, pure and light as Sisamat bumped into her. Though things were blurry and uneven, and certainly disorienting, it was not all that terrible. No, instead, she could make out the big details. Malguk had waited each day that went by, because the way the sky changed its light and the way that other came and went scared her. Now she was tumbling towards new things with a smile and one that went to flop right upon Sisamat. 

Grumbly growls tried to maul his head with her gummy mouth before Mama intervened with a loving tongue.

Fhere were little thumps somewhere, but between Mama's arms, and especially now as she beached herself on her back, she couldn't see. Which way was she supposed to turn to find the thumps? Atausiq evaded her! But what did not evade her were the fluttering giggled from her lips and her ticklish belly. Life was okay. It wasn't all that bad. She wished she could sleep as soundly as Pinasut did.

He fought with her for as long as he could! Someone should be punished for scaring the light away, and if mother wasn't going to be laying down the law, Sisamat would do it! Except, he couldn't really do much. Plus by the time the siblings were in their first puppy-spar, Asivaq had grabbed one of them and that was that, game over.

Didn't anyone else see it? Sisamat rolled, pushing away from everyone and then looking upside-down at Atausiq, chirruping in that mindless way of a baby, as if to ask, did you see? Did you? But he was alone in this; nobody else had seen the greenlight.