Wapun Meadow don't you bleed out an apology, you'll always be a liar to me

@Kierkegaard & puppies welcome

the peal of thunder sounded overhead, black gouts of clouds roiling low and suspended. caught in the gale and clearly panicked, caiaphas desperately retraced her steps. one missing, somehow slipped off and unaccounted for. the other children assembled at the lip of a cave, tired and mute as their parents worriedly canvassed the area.

no luck, and the first splatter of rain began to fall. slow pats turned to heavy gobs; in a matter of moments the sylph was drenched and wretched. the ground was dark and slick, the skies aphotic with a sheen of sickly yellow -- and caiaphas, dredged up like a miserable supplicant, pressed on in the wilds after the rain-logged trail of her wayward son.

Svalinn could hardly stand to be left behind these days. His ballooning paws itched to follow the suit of his foster parents whenever they went, and without any stern declarations for him to stay behind, they could always find him playing in their shadows. 

He let Caiaphas go out of sight as she began to quest for Ephraim; but in recalling no order to remain there after she had looked over them and counted one missing, he dove from the cave's mouth and pounced in the general direction she'd gone with pomeranian leaps. The heavy moisture accumulating in the air distracted him, so he was well behind his intended target when the rain started up.

He yelped once as he was caught off guard by the landing of a fat, cold drop of water in his eye, but it didn't send him careening home just yet. He tucked his tail, surprised but unhurt, and scurried away from the spot while the storm railroaded in and flattened his dandelion puff. He tried to course-correct in the direction of Caiaphas, and quickened his stub-legged pace in a flawed attempt to find her.

thick sheets of rain fell, and drove the sylph back. with visibility to a minimum and the heavy torrent obscuring any hopes of tracking, caiaphas was forced back as kierkegaard pressed on into the wilderness. a mother's panic had set in her chest; where had he gone, would he be okay, good god, don't let anything happen to him -- she even felt herself repeating through gritted teeth the mother's mantra; please don't get hurt, please don't get hurt, please let us find him, i'll do anything -- anything.

yet there was nothing she could do; kierkegaard had delved into the wild and her remaining children's safety was jeopardized if both parents were gone. overwrought with worry and fearful of her remaining children caiaphas hurried for the makeshift den, catching the tumbling form of svalinn trailing after her.

if she had not been so blinded by absolute hysteria, she might have thought him adorable. but right now, all she thought about was how she could lose him too; she pounced upon him and, should her aim prove true, would drag him desperately back to shelter.

Svalinn was beginning to pant already -- the stress of being alone, in the rain no less, pushing his anxiety cap toward its limits. He was ultimately relieved with Caiaphas pushed through the grass ahead of him, her dark head shining like a beacon of reprieve in this strange and unending wildland. Sodden, but invigorated by the sight of her, he puddle-hopped awkwardly in her direction. She had already taken notice of him, and approached with the swift plunge of a hawk -- a move Svalinn recognized as an attempt to pick him up.

But this was a child who'd been carried most of his life, and now could balance on his own four feet; it meant that he had since then been a very reluctant passenger. His ears folded and he dropped suddenly to his side, cringing and rolling onto his back so that he might prevent her from grabbing his scruff. Weakly, the soggy biscuit tried to paw away her muzzle, making a sort of groaning sound that sounded suspiciously like no.

Tried to see if anyone else would hop in, but I cain't wait nomo.

as the clouds gathered around them, their faces ominous, caiaphas felt a strange sense of desperation grow. kierkegaard would find ephraim, caiaphas could see no other outcome -- yet this certainty in her mate's abilities did not assay the doubt that wormed sickly and heavily in her stomach.

as she reached down for svalinn, he flopped obstinately in the mud -- in any other situation, it might have endeared her to witness his willfulness. not today, and not now -- she hunkered down next to him and fixed him a pointed stare, her lips pulled back and a growl rumbling darkly in her throat. there was no option, she seemed to say -- and without much care for the pain she might exact extricating him from the ground, caiaphas plucked at whatever was in reach -- be it limb, tail, or stomach.

later, she might feel sorry her irritability had possibly hurt svalinn, but for now she was too consumed in her own annoyance and worry to do much more than teach him, rather coldly too, that when she wanted something, she got it.

Svalinn was hypnotized by the serpent's display before him. Caiaphas' pose was in such a way that the black of her head obscured most of his view and her loom took on a frightening disembodied quality as he lay transfixed by her stare. The glow of lanterns he normally felt safe and guarded beneath had suddenly turned bright, and sinister, and searing. It was like looking at acid and imagining it pouring over you; Svalinn could only shudder in response to her unspoken demand.

It was the first time he felt that she was something more than his mother. This creature -- loving and terrible, who gave life as easily as she took it -- was God. It was concept he might never come to know personally, but he felt it right then and there: the age old instinct that tells an animal when they have met more than their match. It was a power that left him stricken and cowering -- submitting -- and in one feeble lift of his hide leg to (inexplicably to him) show her his belly, he found that leg clamped upon painfully as he was up and plucked like a tart, wriggling berry.

Hurt and turned dangling into a proverbial Christmas bell, the golden-headed bastard jiggled, jingled, and whined the whole way back.

he is the cutest christmas-biscuit kek

svalinn's pitiful whines went largely ignored -- at least on the surface; inwardly, caiaphas roiled with both guilt and fierce anger. she found herself slipping into a dulled state of panic, wherein the entire world seemed to suddenly have an obscure film about it, and the only thing that mattered were the puppies, both present and not.

she slipped back into the den, where raleska had been left alone and trembling. overhead lightning snarled and the storm continued, beating down on their tiny world with mighty fists.