Noctisardor Bypass medgeda

skaigona did not want a true replica of bracelet, now that she had puzzled it out. she wanted a companion. worripa was focused upon his training. and now druid had someone else to share her time.
she put her nose to the ground, following along a trail.
it brought her to a cluster of feathers, which the war-girl explored in great detail, committing the airy scent to immediate memory. she followed along, and soon came to an open field.
a single tree reared here.
a gigantic tree!
skaigona gaped up at it, and then was startled by a weakened cry from below one of the massive exposed roots.

Oh, to be a mother. Not only of her own children, but also Praimfaya. Where had she gone, anyway? And why? Sequoia did not know the other mother's reasoning for abandoning her children. The first time had not been by choice. But the second? That seemed too convenient to happen twice. Perhaps she just wasn't mother material, but Sequoia was glad to have Skaigona and Worripa around no matter the circumstances.

She had been following the trail of the former, eventually catching up to the sprite when she encountered the tree. The tree was one Sequoia had seen from afar a time or two, but this was the first time she had ever stepped so close to it.

A small cry then, so quiet she had thought it was only her imagination. But Skaigona's focus had been on it as well, and that was when she approached the girl.

What have you found? she whispered, motioning with her muzzle to where the sound had come from.

skaigona was happy for the approach of sequoia. "i don't know!" she stage-whispered back, too excited to modulate her voice. finally the girl inched forward, and discovered a pair of dark eyes. it belonged to a tiny shape, huddled and wet beneath the great and arching roots.
skaigona gasped and danced back on the balls of her feet.
"it's a baby! but what is it?" and she craned her head to look at sequoia, tail swishing with the anticipation of a great answer.
in the meantime, the baby yowled one plaintive and pitiful note.

Sequoia was fairly certain the baby thing was not a squirrel, rabbit, bird, chipmunk, rat, or mouse, but she couldn't actually remember what it was called. What she did know was that it was food. Judging by Skaigona's reaction to it, however, Sequoia held off on eating it just yet. The poor thing looked in pretty rough shape, and even if Sequoia had been a medic, she certainly would not have been a small-animal medic.

Oh, hm. I have seen these before, but I don't recall the name, she said. Another lesson for Skaigona then: adults don't know everything. Maybe you could make up a new name? she suggested.

skaigona looked curiously at the little thing. it was odd to her that sequoia did not rightly know the actual name for the thing, but she was not yet old enough to truly want to question.
"a grass-rat," she decided. it did have a long tail and little claws, but its muzzle was not as pointed. yet that did not stop skaigona, who darted forward and grabbed the thing as gently as she was able.
"s'like bracelet!" she exclaimed to the piebald woman through her soft, thrashing mammalian mouthful.

my dog gambit is always drooling when i get her food out. thanks for the inspiration, weirdo dog.

Ah yes, bracelet. Sequoia quickly understood why Skaigona was so interested in the little thing. Druid's pet was peculiar, but Sequoia had not made any move to stop her daughter from bonding with the small snake. Children had all sorts of strange obsessions, and it seemed Skaigona wanted to be just like Druid with a pet of her own.

A grass-rat, indeed! she said. The poor thing did not look entirely pleased with the arrangement, but then again, it also looked like food to Sequoia. She resisted the urge to lick her lips, saliva pooling in her mouth and in small droplets along the edge of her muzzle.

Are you going to give it a name? Sequoia asked. Maybe it would be less appetizing if it had a name.

love it!

"hmm," skaigona hummed aloud. "druid is better at that." 
later she would take the thing, and have bestowed upon it the illustrious moniker of cleetus, but for now it was only grass-rat. "do they swim?" she asked nonsensically, sensing sequoia's hunger but not truly reacting to it.
"i wonder if there'sis more," skaigona huffed, grabbing it up again before the animal could run off into the night.

They might, Sequoia said, but this one looks a little too tired for any swimming. Skaigona asked if there were more of them, and Sequoia could only shrug. She didn't see any in the immediate vicinity, though that didn't mean there weren't any around.

As Sequoia stood there, looking at Skaigona. In the time since the girl's mother had left, the piebald caretaker had grown close to the two little ones. It was a different relationship than she had with her biological children, but she found herself considering both Skaigona and Worripa children of her own, too. And while it was not the story she wished was being told, it was one that she was loathe to give up.

this did not dissuade skaigona. she picked up her grass-rat again and pranced away from sequoia, secure in the mother's love that the woman had always provided to she and her sisters. "c'mon, nomi!" she exclaimed, the word surfacing alone from the spare number of memories she had from infancy. "i wanna show th'others!"
skaigona laughed around her fuzzy burden and dashed away, daring her mother to follow.