Redhawk Caldera E.T. phone home

Last night, @Fox had told them stories. Tonight, Wildfire couldn't sit still long enough for something like that. She ran laps around the darkening clearing, her tongue lolling from her maw. She gave chase to any family member that strayed near her, sometimes running so fast that her ears slicked to her head and her tail wrapped between her legs. It was exhilarating having this much room to run, and she needed it to burn off all this energy.

Finally, her breath failed her sometime after the sun had sunken into its cradle and the moon had begun to climb into the sky. It was waxing, a little less than halfway to go before a full moon. As Wildfire flopped down, panting, and rolled onto her side, the sight of it captivated her. Not only could she see the moon itself, a fat white sliver in the purple sky, but from here she could see its reflection in Lake Rodney's glassy black surface. Licking her saliva-slathered chops, Wildfire admired the view as she took deep breaths of the cooling air.

I knew I was missing a thread somewhere!

It was rare that the kids (or any wolves, really) settled down during dusk. In fact, dawn and dusk tended to be Fox's most active times, and she spent the late nights and afternoons snoozing. Dhole seemed to have a similar approach, and Fox watched her chase around several other family members before becoming the victim herself. The mother played along, feigning slowness as her red daughter chased after her. Soon enough, there was another victim, and Fox moved to the sidelines.

The dark of night settled upon them, and Perry, Raven, and Nightjar were all settled in, but Wifi continued to be active and awake. Moonlight outlined her daughter's figure as Fox approached and gave her a nudge, whispering in her ear. "Whatcha looking at, Dhole?" Fox attempted to follow her gaze, but couldn't quite make out what Dhole was paying attention to.

Her eyes looked decidedly owlish, wide and bright yellow, when she turned to look at her approaching dam. "Mama!" she said, voice low but enthusiastic. She bumped her snout against Fox's chin, smiling at the nickname. "I's not dull," she protested. It was a joke her father had made around her several times and which had finally stuck. "You's a dull!" she added in a playfully accusatory voice.

Finally, she remembered that the Alpha female had asked her a question. Wildfire looked up at the moon again and said, "T'moo-in." She knew the name for it but she didn't know much beyond that. "Hey," she continued, suddenly noticing something else, "puppy moo-ins!" Of course, she had seen stars before but she had never really looked at the night sky like this before. "T'moon's a mama?" she queried, head cocking as she looked to her own mother.

"Picking up on Dud’s jokes, I see," Fox replied with a bemused smile. It wasn't the only joke Peregrine told, but it was certainly one of the more common ones he told around Wifi. Her daughter went on to explain that she'd been moon-gazing, to which Fox nodded approvingly. But it was her second statement that gave Fox pause, for she'd never thought of it that way. Kids say the darndest things, am I right?

"Those are stars," Fox clarified. "And I sure hope the moon isn’t the mama, because she’d have a very hard time keeping up with all those pups, don’t you think?" It was hard enough to look after three. Looking after... well, Fox was pretty sure there were too many stars to count. "I think they’re more like bugs. And the moon is a wolf." They didn't bother one another. They simply coexisted. "The moon turns around, too. It’s almost like it blinks really, really slowly." So slowly the difference between one night and the next was hardly noticeable.

Their conversation totally reminded me of this song, one of my all-time favorites! Check out the lyrics and you'll see why. :)

"Stars," Wildfire repeated in a curious, wondering tone. She smiled quietly at Fox's quip. In spite of her young age, she sensed the rhetorical nature of it. Her yellow eyes sparkled when her mother went on to describe the moon as a wolf and the stars as insects. That analogy was easy enough to follow and made nearly total sense to the pup. But the next statement confused her. She blinked even as Fox said the word blinks.

"Turns 'round? I dun' geddit," the youngster admitted frankly, running her tongue over her lips and then pausing in the hopes that Fox would explain in a way she might understand better.

"Sometimes," Fox replied, "The moon looks like a circle. Like your eye when it’s wide open." Fox opened her own eyes wide for this, looking down at Wildfire with dull grey orbs (lol, couldn't resist the usage here) that resembled the moon more closely than her daughter's. "Over time, it closes its eye, like this." Fox squeezed her eyes tight to illustrate the point, then opened them halfway so that she squinted at her daughter. "Between those two extremes, there’s a lot of squinting moon eye. For every three times the moon blinks, a season passes. For every twelve times the moon blinks, a year passes." Those numbers weren't exact, but they were pretty damn close.

"It looks like the moon has its eye wide open right now. it’s lookin’ out for us." The brighter the moon, the easier it was to see the world below. "New" moons made for more difficult hunting, even though they were just part of the rhythm of things. "If you watch it every night, eventually it will blink, and you won’t be able to find it up there."

It was a bit of an information overload, especially considering she knew next to nothing about the concept of time. Fox's eyeball analogy did make sense, though. Wildfire gazed up at the moon again as her mother mentioned that it was keeping an eye on them. Could the moon really see her? If it was an eye, did that make the sky a face? If it was, the creature must be enormous! And where was its other eye?

Suddenly, the entire concept spooked her. Wildfire's fur hackles prickled involuntarily and she shrank nearer to her mother. "Mama, I'm scared," she whimpered, trying to avoid that all-seeing gaze and the black monster that was the dark heavens. Maybe the stars weren't puppy moons or bugs. Perhaps they were freckles... Wildfire turned her head and buried her face in Fox's chest.

Fox's head tilted to the side when little Dhole proclaimed that she was frightened. She had to bite back a chuckle when the girl pushed into her chest. "Whatcha scared of?" Fox asked, not understanding how Wildfire had come to such a state. Perhaps it was something about the lack of light, or maybe there was a rustling somewhere that Fox hadn't picked up on. In any case, the motherly instincts were kicking into high gear as she tried to comfort her daughter with a soothing lick on the top of her little red head.

Her mother didn't seem to understand what was so scary. Fox certainly didn't seem frightened, despite the giant eye glaring down at her. Wildfire bit her lip apprehensively, withdrawing slightly to glance up at the silver crescent dangling in the sky. She shuddered when she swore she saw the silhouette of a great big beast up there. She buried her face again, assured that as long as she couldn't see the monster, it couldn't see her.

"T'moon mo'ster," she mumbled into her mother's soft chest hair. "I dun' like it." She paused, then said a bit louder and more plaintively, "Make it stop lookin' a' me!"

"Monster?" Fox asked, still a bit puzzled by the whole thing. However, when Dhole shot another glance to the moon above them, Fox finally had the "aha!" moment she was looking for. "Oh, my silly little girl. The moon isn't actually an eye. It just looks like one. Sometimes, things appear to be something they're not." Perhaps a concept too difficult for a child, but hopefully Wifi would understand on some level.

"You know how sometimes you pretend to be something you're not? That's what the moon is doing right now." Maybe that explanation was a little bit better, though Fox didn't think she was going to win any awards for her less-than-stellar communication skills. The fireball backed away just a little bit from her mini-me, hoping that Wildfire would understand that nothing was going to get her.

Fox did her best to explain and allay the child's fears, though Wildfire wasn't entirely convinced. She gave the moon a brief, mistrustful glance, then focused her amber eyes on her mother's face instead. It calmed her instantly. She cuddled closer to her dam, snuggling into the velvety fur on her chest again. There were many people and places Wildfire enjoyed, though right here in her mother's arms had to be at the top of her list.

And that's when Fox decided giving her some space would be good for her, to show her nothing was out there to get her. Wildfire squawked lightly, feeling both cold and strangely disoriented by the small distance. She wasn't so much worried about the moon anymore; she just wanted to be close to her mother. It was late, after all, and the youngster was finally feeling sleepy.

"Cuddles?" she asked in a quiet voice, pawing lightly at one of Fox's slender forelegs even as a yawn stole over her.

Last one from me!

"Cuddles," Fox agreed, pulling Wildfire closer to her (and probably half-smothering her in the process). They fell to the ground in a heap of red, and before long, Fox was out like a light. To anybody on the outside, they probably looked like some sort of crazy two-headed red beast. And that was far more terrifying than the great moon-eye above. At least the moon couldn't come down and do anything. These two, however, were going to cause plenty of trouble.