Lost Creek Hollow i was once like you are now, and i know that it's not easy

if you've ever wondered what the aftermath of getting punk'd by a fistful of quills looked like, well, it looked something like this:

following the insulting extraction of about eight hundred bajamillion quills by a patently patient @Gannet, and then following whatever salve was applied (be it saliva or actual salve), and then having to bashfully explain to the very annoyed parents (@Rannoch and @Liffey, she's still your favorite amirite), and then having to endure the relentless torment of her siblings, the aftersmack looked something like this.

once put to bed by adults that Knew Better, sionnach fell to a fitful and teary-eyed sleep.

the next day, her face blew up. the hundreds of little needles sticking to her little snout had been insult enough to send her immune system into hyperractive overdrive. turns out sionnach had a sensitivity and adversion to porcupine quills, who would have thought?

her face became so riddled with lumps, to the point that sionnach looked like a numpty, frumpty, flinging, gumpty, very miserable gumdrop. and since she was very miserable at this present second, sionnach lazed about the den with the occasional wistful cry, or (the way more frequent) dramatic sniffle designed to invite the attention of her lackadaiscal parents that frankly, should be paying way more attention to her. really, it was all their fault.

"What the--" was Breccan's initial reaction when he approached the densite to visit his siblings. He almost hadn't recognized Sionnach with her swollen face, and his eyes rounded in surprise as he took in the new shape of her head. One of their parents, who was keeping watch close by -- since Sionnach had proven herself to be quite skillful at getting into trouble -- explained with a single word: "Porcupine." "Ohhh," Breccan said with a knowing nod, then redirected his attention to his miserable-looking sister.

He flopped to the ground near her, his tail thumping the ground behind him. She looked pretty sulky, but he was willing to accept the challenge of trying to cheer her up. Although, he realized, smiling might be painful for her; he bit his lip to stifle laughter at the thought. "You wanna play?" he asked, as though everything were normal. He figured that pointing out the obvious would only make her mopier, so he avoided mentioning her lumpy countenance.

sionnach's wails for attention went unanswered by her parents, likely because like the little boy that cried wolf, sionnach had wailed loudly just one too many times. she cast them a doleful look, her gaze baleful as cerberus' -- how dare they, after she had her face stuffed with quills like a sewing-needle pin caddy.

she snuffed loudly as breccan entered, scowling deeply as she saw him freeze, likely readjusting to her new balloon-shaped features. frankly, it was an injustice that the prettiest child in their litter suffered such a malady; sionnach huffed loudly, not even roused in the least by breccan's invitation to play.

it would take a bit more convincing to extract sionnach from her sulky shell today. in answer to breccan's question, the lumpy little girl turned her very lumpy head (and body) away from breccan, and plopped her head on her paws with a loud sigh of obvious suffering.

He wasn't exactly surprised when Sionnach gave him the puppy version of the cold shoulder. He couldn't blame her; he suspected that if the roles were reversed, he wouldn't have felt much like playing, either. But he didn't want to leave her to just wallow in her misery -- and this was partially because he truly felt bad for her, and also because the attending parent (let's say it's @Liffey) looked like she needed a break from Sionnach's self-pity.

"Fine, I guess I'll just have to go play with this cool thing all by myself," Breccan said, giving his head a toss and shrugging his shoulders when Sionnach huffed and turned away from him. He pushed himself back up to all fours and padded a few feet away where he began to dig at the roots of a large tree with over-exaggerated motions.

how predictable and so very much like an adult -- the second sionnach turned away, breccan's attention was elsewhere. obviously, her brother was not one to work for her affections.. which meant he should never get a cat, because a cat would never stand for such treatment.

she was busy wallowing to herself when she heard her brother turn away, announcing his interest in something 'cool'. if sionnach had learned anything in her short time on this earth, it was that adults and children often had conflicting ideas of what was 'cool' -- and besides, how dare he think she was that easily manipulated into play! she huffed loudly, about to remonstrate rather loudly that she was not that stupid (really, that diversion tactic was like on an aengus-level of stupidity, and she was way above that tbh) when she saw breccan was playing with her favorite root.

"EY!" sionnach roared, rising on stumpy legs in indignity. that root was HERS! it had HER chew marks all over it, and only SHE was allowed to play with it! busily, the girl marched her lumpy ass over to breccan and with a growl, instructed he scooch the heck over or she would bite.

So it didn't seem like Breccan's tactics were working at first -- there was no response from Sionnach, and he peeked over his shoulder just long enough to see that she was still turned away from him. Maybe he had been spending too much time with Aengus, which would explain how he wasn't quite up to her standards of play; whatever the case, he kept digging for a few more seconds and his mind started to drift to other things.

Suddenly, though, he heard a shout from behind and paused to look back. Sionnach was marching toward him, her misshapen face looking even more so with her deeply furrowed brow and big ole' frown. She growled at him, and he blinked down at her as she approached with bared teeth. "Uh-uh," he said, shaking his head and staying put, "this root was mine waaay before you came along, pipsqueak." It wasn't quite the reaction he had been going for, but at least she wasn't wallowing in her own misery anymore!

yup, sionnach was marching -- lumpy face and all. at a rather brusque pace, the boil-faced girl set herself besides her brother indignantly, and pushed against his leg with a swing of her hip as if to say move it. the trick usually worked on aengus, though pound for pound, breccan had a bit more heft to him than sionnach.. which meant her hip-check was likely more of a nudge, and nowhere near the force intended.

"nuh," sionnach protested possessively, placing a paw on the root and fixing her brother with a lumpy-faced scowl. it was obvious her push was not going to budge her brother, so the girl did what any self-respecting puppy (or budgie, take your pick -- both equally cute, both equally bitey) would do -- she swung her misshapen head towards the leg nearest to her, and attempted to  c h o m p.

She wouldn't be easily deterred; Breccan was surprised at the amount of force Sionnach put behind her shove, even if it didn't have much effect on his larger frame. She was certainly a determined little thing, and had he known his grandmother Finley better, he might have likened his younger sister to her. Either way, he wasn't all that concerned since he clearly had the size advantage, even as Sionnach placed a proprietorial paw alongside his on the root.

But then, she surprised him. He wasn't looking directly at her when it happened, but he saw her shift in his peripheral vision, and then all of a sudden he felt pressure on his foreleg. And it was enough to make him yelp and jerk the limb back, as Sionnach's small, sharp teeth sank into his fur and skin.

"OW! Hey!" Breccan cried; he was the one frowning now. "You can't just go around biting people, jeez!" he continued, giving his leg a shake in an attempt to dislodge his sister.

critical hit! sionnach's little teeth sank into skin with ease, mostly because her brother had not expected it. hah! that was your first mistake; sionnach was a crocodile dressed in soft cottony-wolf skin, always waiting for the right moment to test her chompers.

she was shook off quite quickly, but that was as effective as shaking a pant leg when an ankle-biter was around; like a chihuahua, sionnach was heedless to her brother's admonishment and lunged again, this time for a tender toe.

the root was hers, and she was absolutely stalwart in defending it from her brother. unluckily for her, she was but a pup, and if he so wished he could probably pick her up by the scruff and really show her who was in charge here.

Little bit of powerplay as he tries to pull her off his toe, let me know if you want it changed! :)

He managed to remove Sionnach's miniature fangs from his foreleg, but only for a second. She was resilient, even with her puffed-up face, and before Breccan could do anything else she had pounced again. This time, her target was his paw, and while it still hurt, he at least was somewhat prepared; not enough to deflect her, but at least to not be surprised when it happened.

"Oh, come on," he said, using his mouth to peel her off by taking hold of her by the nape of her neck. As he pulled her away, she clung to his toe like a little leech, and it took a bit more force than he was expecting to extract her. Once his paw was free, he dropped her -- gently! -- onto the ground. Quickly, he held up that same paw like a stop sign in front of her face.

"Don't even think about doing that again! You can have the root, but you gotta mark it as yours," he instructed, now using the lifted foot to point at the tree. Its bark was scarred with his own teethmarks; she would have to add her own if she really wanted to claim it.

ofc! you can always PP <3

once breccan grasped the back of her neck, the tiny squirmy demon known as sionnach went limp. who knew that was all it took to subdue hell's tiny teeth? she glowered indignantly (not that you could see it through all the lumps) as he pried her from his limbs, placing her at the root and subsequently placing a paw in front of her lumpy face. sionnach squinted, the lumpy scowl still firmly affixed to her uneven features.

her jaws opened as she focused on the levitating paw, which was quite a tantalizing object for a miscreant puppy such as herself. she was just rocking back on her haunches (her front feet airborne) to launch up to bite said dangly peets when breccan mentioned the root. sharply, lumpy sionnach landed and jerked towards the root, gnawing its rough exterior with pipsqueak growls.

For a second, Breccan was convinced that he would be the target of Sionnach's teeth once more. But his instructions hit home and she turned her aggression towards the root, falling onto it and gnawing heatedly. Breccan's brows raised as he watched his sister apply herself busily; despite her misshapen face, she dug her teeth into the bark heartily, her work accompanied by miniature sounds of...contentment? Determination? Breccan wasn't really sure.

He took a step back and dropped onto his haunches, just watching her for a few moments. He had somewhat succeeded in getting her to stop sulking around, so he felt pretty accomplished.

<3

lumpy forgot all about breccan now that her mouth was occupied: conveniently, she also forgot she was lumpy. giving the gnarled root some fairly savage tugs for a tyke so little, sionnach worried and worried the supple root until her jaws tired and her eyes grew heavy.

yawning as she stood up, sionnach blinked and cast her gaze about her -- the root was no soft place to rest her angelic head, but she did not want to leave it for aengus to discover. tottering over to breccan, sionnach boldly inserted herself between his thin legs, circled twice, and then curled up into a little cotton-ball colored fluff-orb and slept.

<3!

Maybe he was more successful than he initially thought -- Sionnach dedicated a lot more time to the task of chewing the root than Breccan had anticipated. She worked at it quietly for some time, and he eventually settled back onto his haunches to watch her.

When she grew tired, she gave up the root and promptly moved to make herself at home between Breccan's forelegs. He smirked down at her, then shrugged and resigned himself to the fact that he now had to sit here until Sionnach was done napping.