Heron Lake Plateau the intermittent shuttering of shadow
28 Posts
Ooc — KJ
Offline
#1
All Welcome 
Kite has eyeballs. Open to anyone allowed near the den.

Raven and Quixote’s pale fledgling blinked open her eyes fully for the first time on day twelve. Over the past twenty-four hours, slivers of baby blue had cracked through the veiled seal of her nascent gaze, and now she turned her bobbling head — with no small measure of effort! — to stare blindly at the nearest light source.

The intermittent shuttering of shadow fascinated her, and she began moving toward it, drawn to the blur of light and color like a flower to the sun. With soft grunts of determination, she worked her forepaws; her typical “gait” was slow and painstaking at this stage, with each wildly quivering limb moving in an exaggerated circle like the paddle of a canoe. Right paw. Stroke. Place. Left paw. Stroke. Place. The trembling of her tiny shoulders as she pulled herself forward with fluttering kicks of her hind limbs was unnatural and odd — but it was all Kite had ever known.

Peeping all the while, she wormed her way toward the light, burbling delightedly.
97 Posts
Ooc — Bryndel
Offline
#2
Eyeballs?! Ooooh. Why didn't they mail me any of those
@Phoebe find u some spiders creepy peepers and git in here


It gradually dawned upon Owen's fuzzy little brain that something was... different. Suddenly one side of him did not match the other. He rolled from side to side a little, a small brown boat rocking on the waves, as he tried to make sense of this baffling new addition to the world—just when he'd thought he was starting to get a handle on things, it up and changed on him, sheesh!

He had been surrounded by warmth, and then suddenly was not. He twisted his head to his left and stared, head swaying, one eye cracked halfway-open and the other still sealed, as he realized his recently-vacated side seemed to be glowing. It took him a bit to make out the gleaming white-and-gray form of his tiny sister bobbling its way out into the glow, which on balance was not actually directly at his side but was beaming blindingly in from the great beyond somewhere. It, too, was warm, though more weakly than his siblings' body heat. Owen made an interrogative noise in his throat and (after a quick mental check to make sure the organ was adequately filled for a journey into the great unknown) began the slow, awkward process of scraping his belly around to drag it along after Kite.

As he scrunched along he kept having to turn his head sideways and then adjust his course again as this motion pulled his legs off-center. Despite the time-consuming frustration of this process he did ascertain that there was one point at which there was a split: off to left was an earthy, rich darkness, and off to the right of it the all-consuming brightness. Owen's lifted head regarded this strange sight for a long moment before he set off to investigate. And then stopped with a yelp, as he ran nose-first into the corner of the den entryway. Owwww! He snorted and snuffled, trying to clear his nose of the dirt he'd dislodged even as he started to whimper and whine at how it stung. Stupid glowy stuff: it bit him! He swiped a paw ineffectually at it in revenge, and then even whilst he still sniveled he started to wallow toward Kite to try and warn her before it found itself another delicious puppy victim.
138 Posts
Ooc —
Offline
#3
There was commotion again, not that she could hear it still. Potentially a good thing, for it was just the faintest, glossy-eyed sliver that she watched Owen crash and burn in a glorious display. This was not the first glimpse of disaster she had gotten at the heels of poor eyesight, for surely there were others.

But was she inclined to investigate? Nah.

Right now she had found a prime position to snag her favorite teat, and was none too inclined to detach and and venture in the way at least two of her siblings were. Besides, @Vasa was somewhere around there, wasn't she? With Owen deciding to find friends out of dirt and spiders and Kite headed for the Great White Light of elsewhere, the darker haired pair weren't punching bags or step stools or steadying rails.
612 Posts
Ooc — Jennifer
Offline
#4
He was just returning home carrying a small hare -- probably a young one from a reccent brood since the damn things grew so fast.  Spring and summer were pretty great for that.  Hopefully the populations would keep up and they'd have no problem feeding everyone big and small through the seasons.

Anyhoo, time to go say hi to Raven and see if everyone was cooperating today or if they were trying to start a tiny riot again.  Or at least he was pretty sure that Raven was the one home at the moment.  Quixote set the hare down just next to the entry, Ray, I've got a hare out here for you if you wa--  Something was amiss -- kind of -- there was a slow-moving pale pup ambling up towards the sunlight.  A new development!

He crouched down at the entry, head basically on his paws so he could get close to eye-level with Kite, his tail wagging wildly behind him.  He wasn't really blocking the entry, more just standing on the doorstep.  Anyway, a quick shift of his tone, too, from dude who just got home from work to something close enough to babytalk that he wouldn't want Colt hearing, Aw, are you making a break for it?  Honestly he was more curious what she was gonna do than anything.  And a faster moving Owen wasn't too far behind her.  Check out themthar pups -- they weren't just little fuzzy earthworms any more!
28 Posts
Ooc — KJ
Offline
#5
The unsteadiness of Kite’s gait made it easy for her to be overtaken in any match of physical prowess, so it was with embarrassing ease that her stronger sibling caught up with her and bumped her off course. She whipped around instinctively to vent her indignation with her teeth, her head bobbling wildly as she declared war in a series of high-pitched, peeping cries — “How dare you? Prepare to die! A little bit. Kind of?”

— but she drew up short as something large and dark blocked out the shadow. She quailed briefly, but the scent was familiar, warm and reassuring. She exchanged her warbling battlecry for a litany of soft peeps, squeaks, and gurgles. Her wibbling, wobbling head tilted as far back upon its axis as it could go, and she laughed delightedly in her father’s face. One shaking step, then the other; she trembled wildly, grunting as she tried to lever herself up. Though she failed ultimately, she managed to scoot near enough to set her paws on either side of her father’s nose, and proceeded to test the resistance of his leathery nares with her wide open mouth.
97 Posts
Ooc — Bryndel
Offline
#6
First Owen felt the wall pummeling his nose, then his sister's leg beneath his foot, and then Kite's head sideswiping him, too. It was only a passing blow, but Owen cried aloud anyway to let everyone know just how terribly unfairly the world was treating him. Probably his other sisters and the big smelly male were going to join in next too, his pessimistic side insisted. This whole exploration of his newfound seeing abilities was turning out to be a really bad idea.

Despite Kite's ominous threats and his own melodramatic wails he did not die, however; didn't even bleed, truth be told. And despite his disgruntlement at her inadvertent pummelling of her brother (at least, he thought it was inadvertent...hmmmm) he still kept trying to wobble after Kite to keep the light from chewing on her too, to paw awkwardly at her and forewarn her. Turn back, turn back now before it is too late and doom is upon you! His gait was faster and steadier than hers, at least; her unheard and unheeded war cries failed to deter him. But what did stop him was that damn milkless stinker of a male again, getting in his way again omg. How did this infernally big hulking interfering beast have such perfect timing in thwarting his son, always?! Not fair, not fair— and Owen didn't think Kite had gotten the message despite his best efforts, which muzzily concerned him. Stupid brute, what was he doing here again getting in the way and never once offering any of them so much as a drop of milk! (Though now a new suspicion crossed Owen's tiny mind: maybe the frequently-visiting male had snuck in some milk at some point, and his dumb sisters had gotten it all instead?! Hmmmm. This would bear some close watching-for, now that he had at least one blurry blue eyeball to do it with.) He didn't really care if the glowing monsterlight out there ate him instead, the big bully. Owen just wanted to make sure his tiny sister was kept safe from it. He didn't think the other two were in any danger from it as of yet, but he did swivel his head about to squint blearily toward them, head wobbling, trying to make sure they weren't putting themselves in reach of the monster whose dirty bite still had his nose stinging, here. Did he have to play the protective knight in shining armor with them as well, or could he maintain his laser-like focus on teeny Kite, here? Nah, once he made out their blobbish dark forms against their momma's dark belly @Phoebe especially seemed pretty stubbornly intent on hogging the entire milk bar, as much as her small black body was able to anyhow.

Owen let out a long, huffling half-grumble, half-moan of a noise of exasperation and pawed imperiously at the nearest bit of his dad that he could reach. Right, let her go, you dumb oafish bully, there's a lightmonster lurking about here that's doubtless right now trying to take a bit of her too! Owen remained concerned and wanted to make absolute sure Kite got the message, but even with a bit of visual feedback added in it was so ridiculously hard to maneuver when there was a big fat dad-head in his way. Sheeeeesh. ... Wait a moment... was Kite trying to eat the intrusive male, now? What. A perplexed Owen paused with a small dirt-smudged ivory paw half-raised in midair.
1,002 Posts
Ooc — Houkie
Midwife
Master Medic
Offline
#7
Raven was glad when Qui showed up, because she was loath to dislodge the two kids who were actually behaving to go disrupt the mischief of the two who were not. She had been just about to pull herself to her feet to intercept the wanderers when their father arrived, and Owen (of course) immediately made his displeasure known. The two of them had a strangely combative relationship, which had resulted in many laughs for the observing mother. It was no different today, and as she chuckled at their antics, she mentioned fondly to her mate, "Their eyes have opened." He'd probably noticed, but there was a chance he hadn't. Things tended to happen quickly around here!
612 Posts
Ooc — Jennifer
Offline
#8
Quixote lay down properly then, watching both wobble towards him with levels of fascination that pretty much could only come from being a completely inexperienced first-time father.  Yeah, it was probably bordering on terrifying in a way -- then again, that was probably a good thing because it kept him from doing anything outrageously stupid because he was afraid of hurting them.

Anyway, sorry Raven, you're not the only one able to crack this jerk any more: now there was a puppy chewing on his nose.  Quixote did his best to not move, not wanting to knock either of the uncoordinated pups off their feet by accident.  Had it been any pup other than Kite who was seeing if his nose was actually attached to his face, he probably would have just licked them, but instead she'd just get a few nose-wiggles and an exhalation from a stifled laugh.

He was pretty much awestruck by the little buggers, his voice quiet and probably a little garbled from the fact he was trying to hold still, So I see.  Do I need to bring them back down?  And I got food up here for you.  I think Kite's trying to eat me, though, and surprisingly, Owen hadn't really joined in other than a few swats.  Let's be real, though, the pups were definitely attention magnets, so he whispered to them faux-conspiratorially, I'd offer it to you two but I think you're maybe a little small still, huh?  He looked over to Owen, halfway expecting him to just decide to charge the rabbit instead or something.
28 Posts
Ooc — KJ
Offline
#9
The nose wriggling spurred a tiny “brrrt!” of a growl from little Kite — an instinctive declaration of, “Hey! That’s mine!” or possibly, “Hey! Where do you think you’re going?” — but the huff of Quixote’s breath and the ensuing speech tickled, and she burbled a laugh, her jaws releasing automatically as she spilled to the earth like a jiggling puppy-shaped mound of haupia. She was immediately up and searching again — an easier feat now that she had another sense to add to her arsenal. Blurry as her vision was, she could still easily make out her father’s dark shape against the light of the denmouth. “Bee-roo-roo!” she bayed at him, a piping tune that started high and dipped low. She wormed toward him doggedly — and abruptly became distracted by the sight of her more brightly colored brother. “Hey!” she squeaked, prelude to the saucy yaps and yips that would color her near future, and bulldozed toward him, wibbling and wobbling wildly as she tried to catch his waving paw in her mouth.