Moonspear i want to have the same last dream again, the one where i wake up and i'm alive

Thick, warm, delicious liquid was forced down his throat and Scion couldn't help but drink, the suckling so soothing that he fell asleep despite himself. He jerked awake an unknowable number of minutes later and tried to open his eyes again, to no avail. His ears still didn't work, either. With nothing else for it, he began to fidget, exploring himself and his surroundings with the only senses left to him: smell, taste and touch.

Nothing made sense. He could recall with perfect clarity the run to the canyon, a path the four brothers had taken countless times before. He remembered Tacoma's playful shout and the piece of gnarled wood tossed in his direction. He even recollected sailing over the edge of the ravine, though everything faded to black right about there. Had he hit his head? Did he have brain damage?

He couldn't help it. He flailed and fussed and unwittingly loosed his bladder and bowels everywhere. Somehow he wound up on his back, his forelegs flailing uselessly in the air before they grew tired and flopped onto his belly. Still crying under his breath, Scion absently kneaded his own warm underside. It felt softer than he remembered. And, with slowly dawning horror, Scion realized that an incredibly important part of his anatomy was missing entirely.

His mouth opened wide as he bawled.

Vela had been resting when she first felt any indication of disruption amongst the sleeping children. She was constantly ebbing and flowing into consciousness, only catching attention when events as they occurred around her. The previous mishaps had been minuscule in comparison to the hell that Galaxy rose and with her attention caught, Vela felt her first spark of curiousness. 

Succumbing to intuition, the Upsilon turned her head from where she had been facing her mother and towards the cause of the disturbance. Unsure of how to control her body's movements to benefit her desires, Vela struggled to scoot towards her sibling and somehow found herself laying on her side in a puddle of her sibling's urine. 

The sensation of both wetness and the smell that the liquid gave off did not appease the pale baby. As awareness of her condition became more apparent, a jolting realization to the brand new life, the child joined into her sibling's cry with one of her own, expelling the air out of her lungs with a shrill wail.

Others are welcome to roll in 'ere at any time. :)

He was a she?!

Scion was now so confused, frightened and upset that he she abruptly vomited, frothy white milk bursting from his her mouth and nearly asphyxiating him her due to his her upside-down position. Frantically, he she rolled right-side-up even as the liquid continued to gush from his her mouth. Forelegs flailed uselessly, apparently too short to reach up and swipe at his her mouth.

Soon, there was nothing left to give. Totally emptied from both ends and practically paralyzed by distress, Scion wilted into the rapidly cooling mixture of bodily fluids. Mom! he she screamed inside his her head. Dad! Help! Where were they? Where were Avalon, Mirai, Sienna, Sequoia and Tacoma? The rest of the pack? And where on earth—or outer space, for all he she knew—was he she?

Her cries did nothing. Regardless of how loud she voiced her discomfort, the concoction of scents still plagued her. Concern rolled into flat out frustration as she realized that the smell wasn't going anywhere. Instead, it marinated in her nostrils and was swiftly driving her mad. She crescendoed in her pleas, the pitch in her voice turning desperate as she attempted to escape her life's first irritation. 

Her legs would move occasionally, their control still foreign to Vela, but when fully extended her feet hovered close enough Galaxy to grab her attention momentarily. This would never last too long, though, as the scent of pee would always get her back on track for her complaining.

Something soft just barely touched her, surprising Scion into a gulp followed by silence. She tensed, waiting to see if the sensation would come again. When it didn't, she sought it out instead, nose wriggling as she attempted to sniff in that general direction. Her neck felt weak, her head heavy; it wobbled precariously. When she tried to push herself up onto her feet, she found herself completely incapable of doing so. Another bolt of dread and fear passed through her.

Then came a flashback: her (at the time, his) body crashing into the canyon wall just before everything went black. Perhaps her legs were broken? If that was the case, why wasn't she in pain? And how did that explain the sex change? Scion felt a trickle of fear in her lower abdomen, like a swig of ice cold water hitting her stomach. Perhaps it had fallen off during the accident? Once more, she gulped.

And then all her thoughts scattered entirely when there was another touch, harder this time. Scion had unwittingly put her blunt little snout right in Vela's range, earning a sound boop to the snoot. Her lips parted and she gave a startled cry. Hey! But language seemed beyond her, just like pretty much everything else, probably due in part to an inexplicable lack of teeth.

Now mixed in with all the terror was a thread of frustration at this sudden onset Helen Keller mode. Scion gnashed her gums, silently cursing Tacoma for doing this—whatever this was, exactly—to her.

She weathered the last days of pregnancy and first days of puppies much the same--in a tired, strange haze, with Charon coming and going most of all because he remained the easiest company for her to have (not only because he brought food and meant a guarded vicinity). Still recovering from birthing the little blots and trying to stay ahead of keeping the four clean, she went through the motions and stole her rest when she could, however fitful it was.

Her nose quivered at the fresh scent of bodily fluid. She lifted her head as that realization set, blinking sleep off her eyes to turn upon the whelps to find one, a messy one, rousing the chorus of complaints. Her ears fell back, and the more she beheld, the worse it was. Another seemed to realize this, followed suit, the other two squirmed a bit but were far enough from ground zero to not see the effect yet. Before she could watch the entire litter descend into vomit-piss-feces-soaked chaos, she plucked the upside-down offender away from the rest with her jaws.

Sighing to herself, she put that one between her forelimbs for an aggressively thorough cleaning. When the worst was managed, she reached around and spared a few swipes of her tongue for the other pale girl, and realized she was a little messier than she realized at first glance. Next she put her at front legs, and alternated between grooming them both better. The other two, the smallest ones, stayed tucked back near her hindlegs--hopefully fine enough to go ignored for now.

The extension of her limbs became as sporadic as the variants in her tone. Contact with Galaxy's body, which had once been so steady that Vela had grown somewhat accustomed to it, became absent when Amekaze snatched the girl away. The absence of her pale sister went unnoticed as Vela found herself from no distractions from the stench. 

After what seemed like years of crying, which had actually been mere minutes, Vela was collected by her mother and placed between the adult's outstretched limbs. Silence soon comes over the babe she is soothed by the rhythmic brushing of her mother's tongue. With the scent clearing from her general vicinity, Vela finds herself at peace again with the world-- that is until the next life-changing disturbance comes her way.

Scion had always preferred Sequoia anyway. But thoughts of her brothers were scattered when something suddenly grabbed a hold of her. There was a sensation of being airborne—cue another flashback to sailing over the cliff—and then she was placed gently against something big and soft. Before her brain could catch up in order to formulate a reaction to this development, something warm and wet pressed against her, again and again. A tongue! Scion realized with a little jerk.

None of this hurt. Actually, the tongue bath felt quite good. But Scion couldn't make sense of what was happening or how any of it was happening. It was almost as if she was in the wrong body entirely. That thought made her freeze and go limp even as the bathing continued. It didn't make any sense but what other explanation was there?

Wait, Scion thought even as that bittersweet tongue poked in her ear, tickling an unwitting giggle from her. Did I die...?

She would never know the fullest extent of the freshly emptied one's dilemma, or what troubled her (his?) thoughts there and then. Outwardly, and to her, it just seemed as typical, messy, puppy problems such as I am cold/wet/hungry/achy/etc, help. Simple enough. Not her favorite sorts of moments, nor the most glamorous, but thankfully a phase that passed quickly. She knew she liked the puppies a whole lot more when they were less immediately dependent on her alone.

They had made a pretty good mess of it.. but the new silence was definitely good now that the puppies were mid bath. She was relieved when that helped as much as it did, finding it too early for any of them to establish themselves as too noisy.. Anyway, Ame worked diligently to tidy them both up, top to bottom, side to side. In her efforts, she ended up with them both pressed together to one little ball of puppy, and as she finished up, she parted her forelegs to put them both entirely on the ground again--to free her up for a moment to situate the others, getting ready to rearrange them all just enough..

All she needed was to scoot them all over and sit herself differently, but this was made into a delicate maneuver with too many steps with four little wolves around her. She moved herself first, edging over just a few mere inches, then the two at her side, then lastly the two up front; a lot of fanfare for not really going anywhere. The two small ones gave some grunts of dismay, then settled quickly when she stopped her own moving. The two lights, she left on the floor but circled them on only one side with a leg for some dry wiggle room with relative security still on one side, if they'd take it. She wanted to see what they'd do.

The day has already presented Vela with a colorful assortment of emotions. Going from distraught to content with little time in between, the freckled child soon finds herself tired by everything that she had endured. Though the attention granted by Amekeze is not constant, as it is distributed between the two pale sisters, Vela finds herself as she had been before the mishappen: cuddly and sleepy. 

Taking advantage of the proximity to her mother, the child turned so that she could rest her head upon her mother's arm and gave a heartfelt sigh once settled. Though she did not go to sleep immediately, the pale girl found herself both satisfied and lulled in her current state despite the fuss that had lead up to it.

Scion's parents had mentioned the afterlife a time or two, referring to places called heaven and hell, where the spirits of the righteous and evil went respectively when they died. Somehow, she knew this was the explanation for everything. It just clicked. But which one was this? Heaven? Or hell? She had gotten into a fair share of trouble during her short life as a wolf pup growing up in the badlands of Mexico. She had picked on her sisters quite a lot, in particular... but surely that didn't make her evil...?

With a jolt, she realized that no matter where she was now, she would never see her family again. Despite being cleaned and coddled by the unseen and unknowable wolf who had been licking her, Scion's mouth opened to let loose a long wail. The idea of never seeing Mom, Dad, Avalon, Mirai, Sequoia, Sienna and Tacoma again made her heart break in her little chest. She wanted to weep, yet no tears came from her sealed eyes.

Another realization slowly began to dawn on her: perhaps this wasn't so much an afterlife as another life altogether? Was that a thing? She couldn't remember ever living a life previous to her short duration as Scion, though perhaps this was only her second go-around? It was beyond belief but somehow, she innately knew it was the truth of the matter. Scion had died, yes, but this wasn't heaven or hell. Instead, she was reborn.

A third and final conclusion came to her: the owner of that soothing tongue was her new mother. Although there was an ache in her chest from losing her previous dam, Scion abruptly clung to the large, soft shape of her—as much as she could with her hammy little limbs, anyway. She might have been stuck in a tiny puppy body but for reasons beyond her reckoning, she was fully cognizant and she knew this she-wolf was her key to surviving this new life.

They stayed close, and seemed far less bothered than before. Relief began to spread through her tense shoulders soon afterward. Relative quiet among such newborns would have to be treasured and enjoyed to its fullest extent. She gave them both a few more slow, soothing nibbles and eventually began to ease herself even further.

With the newborns tucking in close to her chest now, she lowered her head around them and would attempt to rest before the next round of squealing went up.

All too content in the current state of the world, Vela soon found herself drifting off as the previous ruckus had tired her out considerably. Voicing her fatigue, the child's jowls parted in a wide yawn before she hunkered down for the long run. Given everything that had happened, and even though the duration had lasted mere minutes, Vela would be out for quite some time. Still fragile, she would regroup for her next bout of consciousness and the adventures that life would bring her then. 

But, for now, would sleep. Sighing with evident satisfaction, Vela nuzzled into her mother and retired the interaction, favoring the sweet comforts of snoozing over her awareness for the mysterious world around her.

Oh, man, she groaned inwardly when she realized something else: she would be subjected to all the pitfalls of childhood all over again. She sighed out loud, clutching tighter against her new mother, reminding herself that she was at least not alone in this. She would miss her old family terribly but she had a whole new family to get to know. This was a new beginning, a fresh start...

Oh, Tacoma, was Scion's penultimate thought as she curled naturally into a ball and began drifting (it seemed Scion would not lose any sleep over this immense revelation). When she slipped under, she dreamed of them, all of them: her parents, her brothers and sisters, the pack living in the badlands of Mexico. She started out looking down at them from a bird's eye view but gradually swooped lower. She swore she saw her mother holding a shaking Tacoma. They were both staring at something. The entire pack was there, all of them forming a circle and facing inward, looking at...

Oh, smuck, Scion thought as she looked upon her wet, broken former shell. Then the dream ended abruptly—tumbling into some abyss, forgotten for now—and she fell into a peaceful, dreamless void.