Cedar Sweep a thousand points of light

based on this. tagging leaders of adjacent packs for visibility: @Raven @Quixote @Rannoch @Liffey @Colt @Phox @Towhee

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Insects are more intelligent than larger-brained creatures give them credit for. . .or, at least, it's a different sort of intelligence. Something collective, innate. A hivemind, if you will. In any case, the phenomenon within the cedars this evening was nothing short of extraordinary. What normally was a random assortment of flickers now seemed choreographed, scripted. A natural light show.

The fireflies were mating, and they were not content to do so without razzle-dazzle. Large swaths of them lit up all at once, golden glimmers in the twilight, like stars in a clear velvet sky. They would carry on for several nights, but this night would be most glorious -- the opening ceremonies of the mass event. Any audience they drew would, no doubt, be awestruck by the sight.

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Written by @Maegi

Towhee stood at the riverbank, head dipping down as she tore into the rabbit and then up again every few moments as she watchfully scanned the pass. Gloom gathered as dusk fell, forcing her to squint. By the time she finished her supper and kicked the bones into the water, night had fallen. But it wasn't fully dark; despite the new moon and a thick cover of clouds, what looked like a million million fireflies were glimmering in the sweep across the way.

The mercenary licked her lips as she stared at the sight. She might've ventured closer, to walk among the cloud of twinkling lights, but she must not abandon her post. Instead, Towhee swung toward the east, threading alongside the winding river until she struck the crumbling foothills and climbed the rocks. She didn't go far, just high enough to get a better view of the splendor down below. She planted her rear on shale shelf still warm from the sun, burnt orange eyes once more roving the passage, as well as the light show in the cedars.

Fig laughed aloud as he rolled away from @Fennec and cantered a few yards ahead of her. They were playing a game that they'd invented where Fig would hide and Fenn would seek. One might think it was called Hide and Seek, but this game was much different due to Fenn's blindness. It challenged her to seek with her nose and ears while challenging Fig to move as silently through the underbrush as he could so as to not alert her to his location. So long as he stayed quiet enough, he could move to avoid her as she was seeking him.

Unfortunately, Fenn was far better at using her ears than he was at using his quiet paws, so as he darted away from her that time, it was about her thirteenth win in a row. Fig was perfectly okay with losing, though. He just liked to play!

He was about to sneak off to start a new round of the game when he caught onto a scent trail that intrigued him. He raced back to Fenn to inform her of what he'd found and together, they took off to track down their mother--too excited and full of the fun of their game to think twice about going so far out of bounds. Where would the fun be in that, though?

The children had come up with an elaborate plan to sneak up on Towhee and scare her on their little trip to the pass, but by the time they arrived, Fig was too excited and too pleased with himself for finding her to do any sneaking. He bounded up to her with a happily wagging tail and his tongue bouncing out over the side of his wide smile. "We found you we found you we found you!" he cried as he darted around to face her. He also half-pteroed the words to her, but was bouncing too much for it to translate too clearly. Oh well. Praise your goodest boi!!

just gonna PP me some sister bc obvs

After a time, she grew bored of the light show and picked her way back down toward flatter ground. She had only just resumed her usual post when her son darted in front of her. Towhee swallowed back a growl of surprise, turning her head to face him (and Fen, of course) more fully. She smiled at his exuberant greeting, which was read more by demeanor than anything; both the darkness and his enthusiasm made it hard for her to see anything he was saying.

-"Hey guys, are you here to pick me up and take me home?"- Towhee quipped. She thought of pointing out all the fireflies' display to them, though decided against it, not wishing to risk making Fen feel left out.

Towhee was pleased to see them, which of course she was, who wouldn't be? Her words went over his head as he continued to bounce around her, and soon enough were lost as he was far too eager to tell her just what he and Fenn had been up to so she could shower them with praise.

-"Me an' Fenny, we was playin' finders!"- the boy explained, finally settling in to hold still in front of Towhee so she could actually read his paws (he unfortunately didn't realize it was dark out and his paws were dark but oh well), -"I go sneak around and Fenny has to find me by listenin' and snifferin'! She's really good! But I'm good too! I'm a good sneaker, but she's a good sniffer too!"-

If he'd known the word for it, he'd have been proudly stating for Towhee that he and Fenn were EQUALS! as though it was the single most wonderful thing in the world. Fenn, squiggling happily at his side, nodded her agreement.

1700 for m'boy (and m'girl, technically)!

It was hard to follow Fig's excited speech, though she caught bits and pieces and was able to glue them together with contextual clues to puzzle out the big picture. She was impressed but not surprised by her son's tale. The bond between brother and sister was as close as she had been to Phox in their youth, when Towhee's own brother had helped normalize her life despite her disability. That Fig was doing that for Fen—and that Fen was flourishing despite a handicap Towhee quite frankly considered much worse than her own—put a happy lump in the mercenary's throat.

-"I'm so proud of you both,"- the Kilonova said with feeling. -"Can I join your game?"- How Fig and Fen would want to split teams, she left up to them, supposing they were on-board with her infringing in the first place.

Fig had no idea how impressive his and his sister's relationship was. From the very beginning, Fenn had just been his other half--his partner in crime, his partner in... well, everything. When their mother had repeatedly shoved them away, they'd still had each other. When Phox left to provide for them, they'd had each other. When Towhee left to protect them, they'd had each other. Fenn had always just been his constant, so of course they would grow and they learn together so closely. That was just the way their lives had been built.

No, instead he just thought their game was super fun, and he was thrilled when Towhee requested to join in. "YEAH!!!" he shouted, his accompanying ptero officially too wild to be of any use. To show his enthusiasm, he pranced in a quick circle around his mother before he stopped again before her, looking suddenly quite thoughtful. -"Buh you can see. So... so we'll has to... Uhm..."- he peered at her, puzzled over how he and Fenn were going to defeat her. After all, sneaking was only good for making sure Fenn couldn't hear him. Towhee couldn't hear him, but she could see. How was he going to make himself invisible? His little brain was not computing this. There had to be a way to win, but how?

They both enthusiastically agreed to let her join, though it quickly became clear that Fig was stumped on how to divide up roles. Towhee shot him an easy smile and said, -"What if I do the sneaking, then you and Fen have to find me?"- She was pretty sure they'd both succeed without the other, though surely the notion of teamwork would be welcome too.

Fortunately, Towhee had a solution. Which of course she did, I mean, she's like, damn. A big smile burst across Figment's face as he nearly nodded his head off of his shoulders from enthusiasm. He turned quickly to Fenn and prodded her shoulder with his muzzle. "We can do it, Fenny!" he said merrily before looking at Towhee once again.

-"I'll close my eyes, so me an' Fenny both has to use our sniffers!"- he said and signed. It was only fair, after all. He had all three senses at his disposal, and there wasn't much he could do to prevent himself from using two of them. Fig snapped his eyes shut with unnecessary intensity then, his little face scrunching up from the effort.

I thought I'd kick this toward a fade if that's coo'?

Fig said he would close his eyes too, leveling the playing field. Towhee smiled, not bothering to point out that the darkness would've nearly done the job for him. She knew he only wanted to act fairly toward his sister and she'd never do anything to discourage that.

-"All right, you ready?"- she asked, laughing silently and shaking her head when she realized she was signing toward two effectively blind pups. "'Cause off I go!" she declared loudly, swiveling and darting off into the brush in the direction of home (the rendezvous site), the light show over yonder utterly forgotten in lieu of the game.

At first, she made no effort to silence her passage, though as they made it further and further toward their destination, the mercenary put their combined skills to the test by assuming the demeanor of a total creeper. ;)

Fig's ears twitched as Towhee spoke. It was strange to him, being unable to see. He never realized before how much he relied on both hearing and seeing his mother speak. And actually, he didn't even fully realize it then except for the brief acknowledgement of oddness in that moment that he moved past in the next without a second thought. He was too young for introspection, and besides which, Towhee was calling out and taking off, setting the game off to an exciting start.

The boy yapped eagerly as they took off. While navigating blind was quite familiar by now to Fenn, it was a wholly new experience for Fig. He quickly gained a new appreciation for his sister's disability as it took all of thirty seconds before he smashed right into a tree and fell over. He stumbled back to his paws, blinking bleerily around for a few seconds before he realized that was cheating. He smashed his eyes shut again quickly and then set off once more, a bit more hesitant this time as he attempted to follow Towhee's audible trail.