Sun Mote Copse Gingerbread zombies

@Finley 

It was a beautiful summer afternoon. The sun was shining through the foliage and the clearing right outside the den, where three generations of Blackthorns lived, was warmest place of them all. Tired from early morning and mid-day adventures Elfie was lying there, letting the warm beams carress his little tired body, while he was dreaming of all the great things he was going to accomplishin the future (and which he would forget as soon as he would wake up). A prized toy of today - a fresh piece of antler that one of the adult figures had brought back from hunting - was hugged between his forepaws and it seemed that he had fallen asleep in the middle of a chewing session, jaws loosley around a part of it. All was peaceful and well.

It had felt as though life shouldn't keep moving along after Wildfire's death--that it should have just stopped right there and done a full reset. It hadn't though, of course. It just kept right on going, and little by little, the loss of the pack's founder became a little less debilitating. It would always be painful, that was one thing that would never change. But they were learning how to live with that pain, learning where to keep it so it wouldn't stop them from moving forward.

Overall, Fin was pleased with their decision to invite the younger Blackthorn generations to come live with them. She liked being this close with her grandkids, and she liked being there in those moments when their hurt slipped out of place and weighed them down so she could help them put it back. She hoped the arrangement was helping them to recover, meanwhile she knew that it was helping her to have them so near and to have them to give her attention to.

Speaking of which. Finley smiled to see her grandson falling asleep with his little toy snuggled close to him. If she'd had a camera, she would've taken a photo of him sleeping like that and put it up on instagram. As it was, she merely snuck close to him to plant a very soft kiss on his shoulder. She didn't want to wake up, but good lord did she love him and need to unleash some bit of the immense affection that swelled in her at the sight of him so peaceful and silly like this.

To make any use of the witty title and give a reason for the boy to wake up and not sleep for the next five or ten posts of this thread, let's say that Elfie's comfy and innocent dreamland was invaded by a pesky group of undead. They growled, they moaned and groaned and they began to chase the little boy, throwing body parts at him in hopes that they would hinder his escape. The boy's lids and muzzle twitched, his paws moved, as if running and series of growls and barks were heard, muffled by his closed lips.

This went on for five minutes or so and the boy woke up with a start. His heart was still racing and he looked around, feeling bewildered, until his eyes rested on Finley. And he smiled. From the stories he had heard of his granny's adventures, he was sure that no zombies (gingerbread or of any other kind) would dare to touch a hair on his head with her around. "Hey, Fin!" he beamed at her - it was obvious he adored her. "What's up?"

Shortly after her gesture of affection, her grandson began to squirm in his sleep. He apparently was doing battle with some unknown enemy in his dreams. She was just considering waking him up from it when he woke himself up, thus relieving Fin from the guilt she was beginning to feel over not wanting to wake him because he sure was awful cute in his sleepy struggles. Fortunately, he was also cute while awake. She grinned at him.

"Hey sleepy!" she replied, "Just hangin' out today. That's a sweet new antler you got there. I assume you took the buck down all on your own?"

"Oh, this one?" Elfie looked down at the antler and un-entangled himself from it, got to his feet and did some canine-yoga, which he finished with a hefty shake-shavasana. He had not given much thought, where it had come from and how. It had just been there one day and he had accepted it as a fact of life that things simply appeared out of nowhere. Just the same way as they disappeared.

"I dunno," he shook his head. "What's a buck?" he asked.

Finley nodded, taking a closer look at the antler and finding herself impressed that the Blackthorn Terror Collective (as she referred to the most recent batch of puppies, both hers and Eljay's included) already done a decent job of gnawing it to bits in a couple of places. But it still had a good while left before it went the way of the rest of their toys--which is to say, destroyed beyond recognition and retired to an early grave.

"A buck is a daddy deer," Fin explained, "They're bigger and taller than mommy deer and these antlers grow out of the tops of their heads as weapons that they can use kind of like how we can use our teeth and claws." It occurred to her that she wasn't painting the picture very well, but seeing as it amused her to let children come up with their own imaginings of things, she didn't bother trying to clarify.

The word "deer" excited a wag of Elfie's tail and somewhat dreamy look in his eyes, as he recalled the taste of venison. He had not seen the beasts in person, being still too young and small to be taken on the hunt for the big guys. Besides there were plenty of small game around to keep everyone fed, therefore it was not very likely that they would set out for a hunt soon. 

"Where is daddy's antlers?" Elfie asked, having assumed that all species, not just deer, got the head-dress. "Will I have them too?" this was even more exciting thought.

Fin smiled to see the excitement on the pup's face as she explained about deer and antlers and such. She chuckled gently as he asked about having antlers of his own. It was unfortunate that she would have to disappoint him, but she wasn't imaginitive enough to go grab some twigs and try to stick them behind his ears so he would know what it was like to be a deer. She probably couldn't have made that work anyway.

"Wolves don't have antlers--just daddy deer," she explained, "Wolves don't need 'em. We're already strong enough with everything we have without adding antlers. And hunting them wouldn't be any fun if there wasn't a challenge to it!"

No antlers - what a disappointment, but well, you could not be cool and have everything, right? While Elfie was ruminating on this, he missed the rest of, what Finley had been telling him and caught up on the last part only about a challenge. He furrowed his brow, trying to make a sense of it, but could not and let that unformed question to rest. 

"Is Weej going to be sad forever?" he asked her. He would have asked this to Eljay, but in his current state Elfie did not trust him to know the answer. Finley on the other hand seemed like a bottomless well of wisdom. "She does not want to play," he explained in a tone that indicated that this was not a simple matter of being bored. Rather of feeling a little lonely and misfit in his nuclear family.

Elfie seemed to be displeased with this news about his genetics, but he didn't pursue the topic further. Instead, he pivoted the conversation a bit drastically. Finley felt her heart wilt with sympathy and remorse as she watched her grandson. He had clearly been affected by his mother's death, but his reaction to it was about as different from his sister's as was possible. Her heart broke for them both, that they would have to grow up without Wildfire in their lives. But where Weejay was focused on mourning the one who was gone, Elfie seemed to be mourning those who were still there that had changed so dramatically from what he had known.

"Well buddy, that's kind of a difficult thing to understand," Fin told him, settling down onto her haunches, "The truth is we're all going to be sad about what happened to your mom forever. When you love someone like we all loved your mom, you don't ever get over losing them. But getting over it isn't what we need to do, because getting over it means she wasn't important when she really, really was. What we need to do is accept what happened and learn how to keep going. Your sister is just having a hard time learning how to accept it. So while I won't lie to you and say that someday, she isn't going to be sad about your mom having to go away, I can promise you that she will want to play with you again. She just needs time and for all of us to be patient for her and keep reminding her that we love her and that we're here for her, just like we love you and we're here for you too. Does that make sense?"

Elfie was a bright kid, but he did not understand a lot from, what Finley told him. The speech was too long and he managed to grasp some snippets of it, that struck him particularly. At the end he was even more baffeled than he had been earlier.

"But I am not sad," he told her quietly with a very serious expression on his face. "Is that bad?" Try hard as he could, there was not an ounce of grief in his heart. He had liked and loved his mom in his own way, he had been angry at her for being sick and dying and, once all had been done and said, he had bounced back into life, quite simply, because the living people were more interesting and easily to understand than those, who were not with him anymore.

Fin gave her grandson a small smile when he pointed out that he wasn't sad and shook her head when he asked if that was a bad thing. She couldn't imagine being so young and losing a parent like he had. She couldn't actually imagine losing a parent at all, though she suspect by now, she likely had lost them both. She had said good bye to them when she was only a year old, but that had been her choice. They had never been taken from her, and she had only parted ways with them once she had determined herself ready.

"No, it's not bad," Fin said, "Sometimes people can stop being sad quickly, and other people take a while longer. There's no right or wrong way to get over losing someone. And it's okay to take however long it takes, and to feel whatever you feel."

"Good," for a moment there Elfie had felt a little unsure, but Finley put any creeping doubts that might damage his self-esteem in any way, back in the corner, where they belonged. He also did not quite understand, what she had meant by "losing someone" - figurative speech was yet something he had to master. In his opinion, things were lost, whereas people... no, mom was simply not here. That was it.

"When will you die?" he asked then with innocent curiousity and there was no ounce of malicious intent in his tone. If moms died, everyone did, right?

Fin was glad to see her grandson look comforted by what she'd said. She was also glad when he appeared to drop the conversation topic. It wasn't that she didn't want to talk to him about Wildfire's death. She just wanted for him to come to a point where he didn't need to talk about it anymore because he was okay. Now if only she could get Weejay and Eljay to this point, then things might start getting back to normal. As normal as they could be with Wildfire no longer in the world, anyway.

The pup's next question made her laugh aloud. It probably wasn't the appropriate reaction to being asked that question by a child, but she just found it too endearing. "June 23rd," Fin answered promptly, for no reason whatsoever. She'd never really thought about when exactly she would die. At least, she didn't usually think about it unless she felt her own death were imminent, as it had been a handful of times in her life.

"I'm just kidding, little elf," she added swiftly, "I actually don't know when I'm going to die. No one really does. Most people don't die until they're really old though, not unless they suddenly get sick like your mom, or they get hurt real bad."

"Oh, okay," Elfie nodded and memorized Finley's death-date, believing it to be a fact of life and missing the part, where she explained that this had been a joke. It occurred to him that he had not the slightest idea of, what June 23d was, and unfortunately he did not have a chance to ask right away. He got back on the wagon by the time his grandmother was explaining about the prerequisites of dying - old, sick or hurt - and, when she had finished talking, he returned to the earlier inquiry: "What is "June 23d"?" Because, if Finley was going to kick the bucket on that day, then he had to be prepared.

This kid was a friggin' bucket of questions. Fin had had a lot of experience with kid questions after raising about seventy of them, so she had a few tactics up her sleeve for how to put a stop to them. "It's just a day waaaaaaaaaaaay in the future, nothing you need to worry about right now," Fin answered with a smile, "What you do need to worry about is--What's that in the bushes over there???" Her eyes went wide as she looked past Elfie's shoulder, trying to direct his gaze away from the antler so she could sneak it away from him and entice him into a game of chase/get-the-toy-back.

"Alright," Elfie nodded, but he was not quite finished with asking questions. And Finley's well-timed and experienced tactic of diverting his attention from her to something else did not work on him. His mind was occupied with a different problem, therefore he gave a somewhat indifferent look over his shoulder, saw nothing was back on finding more about this deathing business.

"What about Grandpa Elwood?" he asked about the first person that came to his mind right after Finley.

Geebus, this kid was such a Blackthorn. Though to be fair, a real Blackthorn would've been dumb/confrontational/possessive enough to have fallen for it. He was actually an oddball strand of Blackthorn that wasn't easily excitable. But seeing as not falling for it fell under the realm of being difficult, Fin still lumped him in with the rest of the batch as she sat back and settled in to continue talking about death and misery.

"I don't know, but I can tell you for sure it won't be before I go," Fin answered confidently, even though she was well aware that no one actually chose the date of their own demise. They'd made a deal, dagnabbit--which she could've elaborated on, but chose not to as it likely would've just confused him more. She slipped onto her belly then to get eye level with the boy, at which point she gave him a small smirk and asked, "What else you got for me? What other questions you got rattling around in that brain of yours? Gramma Flea is at your service."

This was more like it. Finley offered him to ask all the questions he had in mind and in the silence that followed Elfie went through a long list of interesting, awkward, silly and downright serious matters he wanted to find out from adults. Which one to ask first? Would it be, why Weejay and Nellie and for that matter his granny too peed as they did? And why did his dad and Elwood and uncle could do it standing on three paws? Or... hmmm.... then his face lit up suddenly. "OH, I know! What is a bastard?" he asked, having heard Pox and Crow throwing this word around. He did not know, what it meant, though he pretended he did. But for some reason, when he had called @Weejay a very pretty bastard, she had been offended.

"Ah! Excellent question," Fin proclaimed with a grin. She knew her grandchildren would likely begin to pick up on her vocabulary soon enough. After all, she used it, and she didn't stop her own kids from using it either. The question actually made her wonder if her kids even knew what the word meant. They clearly knew how to use it properly, but she suspected they didn't actually know what they were saying when they used the expletive. 

"A bastard is someone who's being mean or is a jerk, or otherwise not very nice," she explained, "I use it a lot when I'm made at someone or at something. A bastard can be anything from a coyote trying to steal from our caches to a tree branch that you trip on. If it makes you mad, call it a bastard. It's not a very nice name to say to people you like, so you shouldn't call any of your packmates a bastard. But a bird poops on your head? That's a bastard!"

My inner mom is cringing.

It could be that Elfie was the very first Blackthorn in existence, who had cared enough to find out, what the slang word meant. The rest of them used it freely as well as a collection of other ones without bothering much about the explanation behind it. Just like the "f" word in English and "b" word in Russian has 100 different meanings depending on the context, intonations and emotions put in it, when said out loud.

"What do you say, when someone is really nice and good? Someone like Weejay?" he asked, ready to apologize to his sister first thing in the evening.

The next question he asked was a surprisingly difficult one. What did you call someone who was nice? Nothing really came to her immediately. You didn't really call them anything that she could think of. Fin pursed her lips as she considered what to say, and more than that, how to make it make any sense to her grandson.

"You just call them by their name," she explained with a little shrug, "Or just say that they're nice. So since Weejay is a good wolf, you'd just say 'Weejay is a nice wolf' instead of 'Weejay is a bastard'."

"That's not much," Elfie gave his honest opinion, but he decided that it would be up to him to find those best words to tell to his sister. You could not blame Finley for not knowing Weejay as well as he did.

The next question came to him surprisingly easy, but he did not ask it outright, rather choosing one additional question, before he got to the point. "Do all kids have to listen to, what their moms' say?" he asked.

Fin couldn't help but grin at her grandson's lament over the apparently inadequate phrasing she'd suggested for complimenting his sister. Truth be told, she really didn't know Weejay as well. The girl had taken her mother's death very hard and was withdrawn because of it. It was hard to find her true personality buried beneath the devastation. Fin knew it would come out in time, though, once the girl learned how to be herself again in a world without Wildfire.

"Yes, and to their dads as well," Fin answered promptly. She saw the loophole a mile away in the way Elfie posed his question and she had no desire to leave the boy wondering if he should respect his father or not. She knew Eljay was not well and was not likely to inspire any obedience of his own accord.

"Good!" Elfie agreed cheerfuly, entirely missing the fact that at least part of that argument referred to him as well. That thing would occur to him later. "So you and Elwood could tell Eljay to stop prodding me every morning," he told her solemnly pointing out to his father's obsession of checking his children for lumps and bumps every day. If Elfie did not protest loudly, it would have been twice and thrice a day as well. "I don't like it, but he does not listen," he explained, already first spark of rebelling against the omnipotent "because I told you so" of parents worldwide.