Dragoncrest Cliffs I'll get it figured out on the sidelines, just you wait

But he'd been getting up to his own things, hadn't he?

When evening fell and crickets fluttered his ears, clunky paws carried him away with a chiming beetle on his tongue.

He stayed out of everything. He wasn't close to his siblings. Not Miette. Not Tousaint. Not Chantale. Thibault was not sure how to talk to them. Thibault was not sure they liked him. Apart from ma, apart from Val, it was just him and himself. Never found the right way to make himself included. He wasn't as loud as Miette, nor as poised as Tousaint- not as aggressive as Chantale. They all were loud, in their own ways, but Thibault was not. It left a line, where his siblings had made their own persons, and he was left behind.  That was okay. He made it work! Me, myself and I. A quiet boy, little to speak, spare for when everyone had left and he was with his maman. Sometimes he tried with his siblings. Sometimes, when it was just him, he was pretty sure the ladybugs and fireflies were talking to him.

At least, their wings were a communication, weren't they?

But where did that leave him in this world?

Long drawn off in his freetime towards the wildwood, his presence flickered. This time, he trekked through the marsh, and though it was sticky, he was getting along just fine now. He knew where to step, where to go! Sticks were piled up in various spots, home to various little critters and bugs. Crossing his nose to the mushy stick in his mouth, he carried it across the way and towards the waters. The trash. Yes, it was smelly! SMELLY! But now he had it all organized, and he knew which were bad sticks, and which were good sticks! Little homes, all built up for little things far smaller than he, with lives much tinier than his own, but he didn't think they were all that different. For himself, he'd crafted a bed in thickets and bramble, with all sorts of shiny things and interesting rocks. Well, his favorite thing ended up often being fun shaped branches, or strung together vines from the trees.

Right now, he wasn't strong enough to break them himself, but the ones that fell, he thunked across the soils with! He liked those! He'd even bedded his little self-made den with moss, but he could not figure out why many of the plants he brought in died. Maybe he was squishing them? He didn't like when he did that. Already, he had learned very well to watch where his paws went, big as they were and as wide as his body.

The forest of their home spoke to him, where no one else did.

 In this strange little place he'd made, even if alone in a big world with big voices, the boy had found a way to keep himself busy; nurturing the less fortunate, nourishing the soulless. They were friends to him. He liked them, and he liked that they had their own communities. He observed them so carefully, with so much interest and observation, as if they were his village. As if they were his people. Right now, he was finishing up another hut for them, leaving the bad deemed stick to the wastebin, and taking a sworn good one in his jaws. Who would move in? Would the beetles next door finally switch places? What if he moved more rocks? He wasn't sure. But that was experimenting! And even if he didn't know what he was doing, he liked it. The will of life made even the loneliest make their own path, and this had been his. His outlet.

Astera had been looking for ways to make up to Tousaint. Feelings had been hurt, over a simple fox tail. She had allowed hatred to form between the younger pups, never again. In her mouth, a raspberry, plucked carefully from a bush. In the marsh, she spotted a small shape. Was it a fox? No, not stealthy enough. She called out into the evening. Tousaint?

His entire body pushed forward against a weight that had to have been double his size. A thick, hefty branch in his tiny teeth, his hind legs were slow and steady in their race. The boys legs came to a stop. Carefully letting go of the branch, his neck crawled to a cautious elevation, slowly looking about in a ducklings confusion. Big, sitting duck..

He'd never heard a voice here before.
It was no surprise to him, however, when he heard his brothers name directed at his ears. His small mind assumed that she was a friend of his siblings, soon to drop his head after responding to her. "He not here." Lifting up his stick again, he scrambled sideways, attempting to slowly lug it forward in various ways, with the expectation she'd turn around to find Tousaint.

Ah. It was timid little Thibault. Still, she crept forward, placing the treat at her paws. He could have it. There were plenty of berries to go around. Whatcha doing? She wondered if he had heard the news about the incident, a few nights prior. Would he be just as hostile?

This one needed to go to the good pile. Or maybe to his den- he hadn't decided yet. By his den, he thought his den. While a slow walk towards both, he was doing it. Naturally, he was fit like his maman under his big boy body, and he could use it.
He didn't like it very much.

He put his attention on her again, blinking quickly and wiggling his tail. "Buildin'. What you be doin' h-ere?" His voice rasped itself, and he cleared his throat to try and fix it. He pointed with his nose away from the marsh and west ended wildwood. He'd seen Miette and him off that way. "Tousaint probably goin' dat way." She brought a snack, and he did not touch it. Must be her snack.