Blacktail Deer Plateau quest

For any sibs or the parentals! <3

The concept of time was a foreign one to the boy, though it passed nevertheless and suddenly it had been nearly a month since the Cairn children had been welcomed into the world. Arrax had been granted the gift of sight and sound a few weeks back, but the senses had taken a while to fully develop. It had been a shock, but the boy took the developments in stride with a quiet sort of self assurance.

His milk teeth, too, had begun to make themselves known, and with them came a discomfort that could only be relieved by gnawing on whatever was within his grasp.

Today his chew toy was to be @Tyraxes dark ear. Clumsily, Arrax hauled his pudgy self over a sleeping sister (@Hilda), blue eyes locked onto the small dark triangle sitting so tantalisingly vulnerable atop his brother's rounded head.

The interruption of her beauty sleep was not appreciated. Every day it was something different- the offensive odour of one of her siblings relieving their bowels, one of her siblings crying out because their father could not provide them any milk, one of her siblings sinking their emerging teeth into one of her limbs.

Being stepped on was one thing- but being nothing more than an obstacle on her brother’s route caused her to rear her head back and squeal as he hauled the weight of his milk-bloated belly across her back. 

He would be punished with a set of smelly milk-farts, as if each step pushed the wind out of her. She knew no shame- but whined nevertheless as her own odour began to offend her as well.

Solveig slumbered, a solid sleeper in spite of the cries and mewls of her children, awakening only when one of them mouthed her a bit roughly, now that they were beginning to teethe. 

The smell of her daughter’s flatulence only caused her whiskers to twitch. She sighed, stretched, and rolled over on her side a bit more, before she began to snore again.

Alas, his pursuit of a chew toy was halted by a foul smell that wafted up from beneath him. Not unlike a landmine filled with gas, as Arrax's weight tripped the loaded fart bomb that was his sister, she released a cloud of odour that filled the den. Her brother's face scrunched up in an expression of pure revulsion, and he looked over to his mother in a desperate plea for help. Her pale form sighed and shifted, but offered no help to her poor baby boy, instead turning over as if she wasn't even aware of his suffering!

Still slung over the back of his sibling – no doubt crushing both her bowels and spine – Arrax desperately began to peddle his back legs in an attempt to remove himself from her squealing, farting body.

In a way, it felt better to have some of the pent-up gas released from her bowels, and she drew in a breath to breathe a sigh of relief. As she did, however, she felt little claws rake down her flank and catch on her skin, tearing through the tender flesh and causing her to bleed. 

She whined at first, before the sting of the open wound caused her to wail and cry. She wriggled to get out from underneath her brother, chomping her nubby teeth together in a vain attempt to bite the creature that wounded her.

The heavy, foul scent of puppy farts was not enough to rouse an exhausted mother- who knew the scent to be natural, healthy even. Mewling cries did not perturb her either- even asleep it seemed she could determine a hungry cry from a gassy baby cry. This cry, however, was not a typical Hilda note. Solveig awakened to see light scratches on her daughter’s flank. 

”Little one, your first war wounds,” She said in a voice calm and reassuring. She nudged the boy carefully off his sister, tucking him closer to her side. She sniffed the girl, and caught just a faint whiff of blood. She sighed and smoothed her tongue over her daughter’s scratch with a chuckle. ”It will not leave a scar; you will have many more in life that will.”

He wiggled both this way and that, struggling to haul himself over the obstacle that was his sibling. Unbeknownst to Arrax, his sharp puppy claws had caught on her skin, leaving light scratches that prompted her to assail his ears with a piercing cry. First his sense of smell, now his hearing – who knew sisters could be so troublesome? Fortunately for both the pups, their mother was quick to remedy the situation now that she had been fully roused from her sleep.

Her quiet, measured voice stilled him, and Arrax put up no fight as he was removed from his position and placed into a far more comfortable spot at her side. If he had understood her words, he would have been very pleased indeed that he had been the cause of his sister's first war wounds – they had both come from two fearsome warriors, after all.

Flipping onto his back, happy now to be free from the predicament that he himself had caused, the boy began to knead at his mother's fur, content.

Her mother’s tongue smoothed the fur along her side, but caused the wounds to sting momentarily. Hilda tensed and stuck her legs out, trying desperately to escape the onslaught though it lasted only a moment or two. As soon as the cleaning stopped, the pain went away- but she was left in bad humour. 

Not knowing how to handle her budding emotions or her thoughts on what pain had been like, the pup began to cry, with short, gull-like wails.

One child settled, thankfully- but the other fussed and fretted. Solveig heaved a sigh; while children were adorable, they were not without qualities that she did not enjoy. The high-pitched wailing was among them, and she lowered her head to begin soothing the child with a quiet lullaby she had learned with her first batch of children- and continued grooming the girl with loving strokes of her tongue.