She flinches when she opens her eyes to the warmth and light filtered through the cypress canopy beyond, blinking away the rays of dawn broken through the mouth of the den. Beneath, above, she's bruised by the sleeping, hefty bodies of her brothers and lulled by the sound of her mother's heartbeat beside. The trill of swamp birds and bugs are just yet a dull chorus - the morning tune of early risers before the noon-orchestra, before the bustle of screeching birds and the ungodly croaks of bullfrogs and distant whines of boar in the thickets. Morning. The calm, the cool, it smells of moss and cypress and dew-sweet before the sun has a chance to spoil the black waters.

One brother gives beneath her and her chin tumbles into the empty space just as her lids close again. Another has a dream of leaping, and she catches a swift kick to the cheek. Their mother doesn't stir more than a twitch, the occasional roll - a furnace, sometimes she moves farther away but they find her again, again, again, pushed and leaned like the heatseekers they are. Yrsa has learned not to be so earnest, but she dares one more time to press her ear to her mother's side, just to listen to its drumbeat.

Morning, the world hisses, trills, croaks. Something plops into a wet puddle the size of a pond to a young cub. When the ripples turn one, two, four, six, each wider than the former, she feels curiosity pulling at her harder than before. She dreams of what has plodded to the bottom of that well. A bug? A stick? A three-eyed, two-mouthed beast? Yrsa shudders.

But--

She grunts and shoves her way from the nest of her brothers, stalking slowly to the puddle's edge.

pulled from slumber by her stirring, tuned in to the every move of his flesh and blood. he loves them, in his own way, no matter the gruffness in his voice when he admonishes them. corrections, made with firmness, determined to guide them to a future of greatness.

no children of his will be weak.

for a moment he watches from his spot beside her mother, the boys still tucked away in their world of dreams, but soon he is drawn to his paws. a heft of bulk from the packed floor of the den, his steps still near silent despite his size.

"Was hast du gefunden, kleiner Bär?" what have you found, little bear? a voice hushed and thick with sleep, peering past her to the disturbed water, wondering what had pulled her from her warm bed.

@Yrsa

the thunder of the drums, dictates

image by yumpy, code by corvus

The warmth of the den is in contrast with the gust of autumn wind outside, the dampness of every surface of the swamp, and the coming and going of October rains. The bearish Rike was finding comfort in the pile consisting of her husband and her children, something very unlike her. It reminds her of her youth when she and her siblings would huddle together in order to keep warm during the monstrous snowstorms of their homeland. It was a necessity more than a choice. Here, though, the winds lacked their freezing nip, and at times she moved away from the cubs, her thick pelt and their added warmth quickly causing her to overheat.

They always found her again, though, and sometimes she would shove them away half-asleep.

Often she wondered when they will be old enough to stop seeking her side. They must learn to sleep on their own.

The stirring of @Yrsa didn't wake her. Erna only curled around herself, and continued to sleep. However, once @Alaric's side was vacant, the long-toothed mother woke up at once. She stood to follow. It was morning, anyway, and soon she'll be on another one of her border patrols.

Erna found her husband and her daughter beside some puddle, her brow quirking with her approach. Well?

COUNTING BODIES LIKE SHEEP

DON'T FRET PRECIOUS I'M HERE, STEP AWAY FROM THE WINDOW - GO BACK TO SLEEP - LAY YOUR HEAD DOWN CHILD, I WON'T LET THE BOOGEYMAN COME - COUNTING BODIES LIKE SHEEP TO THE RHYTHM OF THE WARDRUMS----

Her apprehension comes in long, slow strides: soft pawfalls, careful footing, one long stretch of her body and the rolling machination of tender-pawed approach. Wouldn't want it knowing, of course. As if it had no eyes, whatever it was, and no means to sense the encroaching shadow as it pulls over the tiny pool. Careful nonetheless, as careful as she can be - she trips over a paw once, stops to gather herself with breathless repose, little heart pounding in her chest.

@Alaric's voice is thunder in his head, despite its softness, the rolling father-tone in its low resonance runs her hair on end with its suddenness. She turns with a gasp and almost skiddles right into the puddle, but takes two gulps of courage and steels herself. "Ein..." she begins, but is unsure of how to answer, because she doesn't know! The frightfulness of it the truth!

Oh but his words bolster her, kleiner bär, their courage moves her and she puffs her chest and straightens her spine, because, whatever a bear is it must be fantastic, and she will be fantastic. She'll show him.

In the depths of that small water-hole the murk sifts and floats, twirling and whorling its great green-grey silt in the blackness of the water and the slimy moss-laden stones that line its belly. Yrsa leans into it, but the vastness of it is terrifying to such a baby, so she rocks back on her heels when its depth stares back at her. But when she does, she sees Matta in the corner of her eye and dreams of the sin of disappointing her, and that is an even greater nightmare that what lingers in those turbulent, infinitesimal, hungry depths of a puddle.

So she leans back into her reflection over the puddle and waits for the dust and the algae to clear, but before it does --- something comes crashing to the surface and she cannot help but yelp and fall back on her haunches. "Ein monst-" she squeaks! But she is looking back to the speculative gazes of Alaric and @Erna, and something winds and curls and strangles that fear where it stands, and what comes gurgling from the pit of it is some sort of stifled sound of despair before she is padding through the swamp-wet muck of moss and mud with a cub-snarl.

Ein monster is a horrible, stinky thing that plops out of the puddle with its flat feet and slimy algae-skin dotted with a hundred horrible shut eyes (that she is terribly frightened will open at any time, but she stomachs it) and hop, hop, hops away from her every assault - until she lays a great big SMACK of her paw against those awful shut-eyes and stuns it.

When she lifts her muddy paw, the thing dares not move, its big bubble chin undulating ominously. But she notices (her body now half plastered in swamp-mud) the toad-slapped paw is putrid, and she looks back to her parents with some confusion. "Was tun?" she asks, the gruff high of her voice trembling on its last note with uncertainty.

german: what do?

There were so many moments like this since the birth of his younglings, where Alaric stepped so readily in to the role of a father. He found some joy in watching them learn and grow, and was more attentive and caring than most would have expected. He knew that there would be training to be had -- and indeed they had already had more than a few lessons -- but he also found the day to day life to bring its own learning.

He watched her puff and swell with pride and he thinks that she might turn out okay after all. Determination would serve her well, and she would need it in buckets if she was going to get anywhere in this world. As a female she was at a disadvantage, even if this Amaryllis seemed to be the kind of place where a female could lead as readily as a male. Alaric would ensure she had the training she needed to survive and thrive -- he would see no daughter of his knocked easily down.

Until the time came for her to carry on the family name, and then... then he would see.

"Es ist eine Kröte," he explained to his daughter it is a toad as her mother appeared by his side. Alaric steps to the side to press against her, briefly, though his gaze does not leave @Yrsa.

He is amused by her fire and proud of the way she swallows her fear. "Zeig mir deine Fähigkeiten, kleiner Bär."* A quirked brow at the small child, and a wave of his paw towards the toad. What she did next was entirely up to her.


*show me your skills, little bear.

Her wheat King & husband pressed into her, and she enjoys the warmth that seeps into her side. For @Yrsa, though, she has less than little patience, as the child appears to be dazzled by the bubbling of a mud puddle. She was fearful, tiny, and pathetic. At least the whelp managed some pitiful resemblance of a snarl as a reaction at the appearance of an ugly, giant toad.

There is a fight in her, Erna mused. It was a flame, still too frail and easy to put out.

The child even swats at the swamp creature, stunning it if only momentarily, but then failing to do anything else. Disappointing, really.

What was worse - she peers up to them for guidance. The bearish mother only gives her child a twisted scowl, as if disgusted by what she'd seen. @Alaric was far more open to explaining and urged their daughter to display some hunting skills. "Dann geh, Kind." It was a test, just like everything that Yrsa did. Erna would scrutinize her, seek out her reactions and scold her for her failures. If Yrsa thought that they would hold her paw along the way, she would be left disappointed. No child of Erna's would rely on someone else. They must find the answers by themselves, under her stern, watchful gaze.

COUNTING BODIES LIKE SHEEP

DON'T FRET PRECIOUS I'M HERE, STEP AWAY FROM THE WINDOW - GO BACK TO SLEEP - LAY YOUR HEAD DOWN CHILD, I WON'T LET THE BOOGEYMAN COME - COUNTING BODIES LIKE SHEEP TO THE RHYTHM OF THE WARDRUMS----

Yrsa searches her parents for a reply - but most heavily on her mother's face, not just because she prizes Matta's guidance most of all, but because it is becoming twisted and dark and she suddenly feels everything ball up and tighten inside of her. Though she can't believe it, because she is casting glances back at her paws and the toad, she feels like she is shrinking, minimized, soon to be even smaller than the bulbous, warty monster.

It is a toad says Vatta, but for all the comfort his voice should bring she is choking back some awful bile-ful feeling shriveling inside of her and rushing up her throat. Her chest is hot and knotted, her face flushes. Go then, child, Matta says, and the sound of it almost causes her to flinch. She resists, too small and compact already to yield to disappointment.

The steel ball in her chest rolls, rattles. Show me your skills, little bear, Vatta says, but his voice is too far away now, and so is his paw as it strikes through her peripheral. She is focused on her paws for too long, the swamp is a green blur, the toad is a welt of slime, the paw is naught but a grey bird soaring the horizon of her care.

The only constant is Matta's face, behind her now, but ever present in her mind. A scowl, disgust, and sore expectation.

It's a worthless feeling that creeps down her little spine, cold and tingling. And what comes back up bubbles hot, heavy, furious. The little thing snarls, and just before the toad's glazed eyes can roll and his legs propel him another hop away, that fury is tangled in her jaws like fire as she slaps her paw on his slimy back and tears away a back leg, cuts open his belly, steals an eye --

and it isn't until it's an unidentifiable mess of toad skin and guts that the taste in her mouth sours. She almost spits, but she lets her tongue go limp and her mouth go stagnant, unsure of whether it would be a sign of weakness, waits for approval, grasps wildly for anything, not daring to look back.

@Alaric @Erna