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Post by Cascade on Jun 7, 2014 20:20:44 GMT -5
@kaori @ninjaplushie
Vega took great care to set the newborn down gently in the soft grass that lined her den. She thanked her lucky stars that she was a big wolf and had made a big den to accommodate that, because otherwise she would have been woefully unequipped to handle two new surprise occupants. Her mind was already spinning as it was, all of this having happened so fast. She always knew she wanted to be a mother, she just always thought she'd have a bit more advance warning than this.
"Val, come on darling," she called sweetly, making sure the older pup had followed close behind. "There's food for you in here, come give your feet a rest." With one paw Vega uncovered the haunch of meat she had stashed in her den from a recent hunt. Thankfully recent enough that it was still fresh...Vega had actually been planning on finishing it herself when she returned from the lake, but Valravn was very badly malnourished and needed the meat much more than she did.
As for the little one...they had just returned from a visit to White Magic, who had given her a leather pouch full of milk. Or rather, a special formula that she said would ensure that Lucky—an apt name, she remarked—grew up good and strong. Shrugging the pouch from its shoulder strap, Vega laid it down in front of him in the hopes that instinct could take over enough for him to latch onto the little valve. She regretted that she couldn't feed him herself, but this would have to do.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 7, 2014 20:58:02 GMT -5
Valravn looked around the den in awe. It was so spacious....not that her place in the pack she escaped from had a small den. In fact, the den from that time was even bigger, as it was the pack leader's den, but to her it was nothing more than a cage. A tiny little prison. This...felt different. In fact, it felt a little...empty.
She quickly disregarded the thought and perked up to the sound of Vega's voice. "Ah...its a lovely den.Thank you for inviting me over." Valravn was tired, but upon smelling more food,she immediately launched herself in a feast. While eating, she felt a little bad about i. It wasn't like Vega had predicted her arrival and prepared for it. She then abruptly pushed the thought to the back of her mind. If she was going to feel bad and sorry for everything she did, she would only become a nuisance,right? Nonetheless, Valravn ate just enough for the night and tucked her legs under her, and watched the pup curiously.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 7, 2014 21:14:32 GMT -5
On the way up the mountain and now to here, Lucky had been asleep most of the time- I mean, what else are you going to do when you spend so much timing hanging around? He would admit, if he had any reason to, that the other being he had been introduced to had smelled interesting and sounded friendly enough, judging by tone of voice. But he was still hungry, and being carried, so he slept.
He woke up with a bit of a jolt as he was set down on something soft, and he gave a little yip and a big yawn. His little body wiggled around in the grass as he poked his snout into it to smell around. So far, it all smelled like his provider. This calmed him, for it was a good sign.
Soon though, something landed next to him, and he wiggled towards it, poking it with his snout out of curiosity too. It certainly smelled interesting. Newly interested in this thing, Lucky pushed himself closer and poked it a few more times. It might have looked to vega as if he wasn't going to take it- until he pressed against it enough for a little bit to leave itself on his nose.
Once that happened, it didn't matter if it wasn't all that warm or surrounded by fur- Lucky knew that this was food! He too that nozzle in is small mouth as best as he could and suckled for all that he was worth, some of it leaking out from the corners of his mouth.
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Post by Cascade on Jun 10, 2014 21:09:07 GMT -5
Vega sighed in relief when Lucky began drinking from the flask. That was one less thing she needed to worry about...it looked as though it could only hold maybe a half gallon of milk, but White Magic had told her that it wouldn't run out. Magic, no doubt, and Vega was glad for it, foreign though it may be to her. No one in the Eternal Snowfall had magic. Vega knew that Taboo gave powers to good-hearted wolves, but she had never seriously considered asking for one herself. As much as the evil packs made her nervous, there had been peace between them for as long as she could remember, and what could a power be used for if not a fight? She had no desire to fight, she just wanted her pups.
"You're more than invited, little one," Vega said, giving Valravn an affectionate lick on the cheek as she ate, "This is your home now. It is very safe here and all the wolves in the Eternal Snowfall are kind. When she returns from her hunt, I will introduce you to Piala, your new alphess. I'm sure she will like you very much."
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Post by Deleted on Jun 12, 2014 23:17:04 GMT -5
Valravn let the name settle into her memory. "Piala..." That would be the name of her new alphess. Vega had opened up her den to her, fed her, and promised a better life for her. This was all possible because Piala must have done something similar for Vega at one point. She would have to do her best to make both Vega and Piala proud of the choices they had made. For once in her life, it didn't seem so much of an obligation as it was a choice she had freely made. Her first taste of real freedom, actually. The thought and all the events so far was feeling her with warmness and content that she hadn't felt since she was sleeping as a tiny, blind bump in a pile of her equally blind siblings.
And there was that one too, Lucky. There was even hope for a pup who by the laws of nature was doomed...Valravn hadn't even noticed how she had been yawning most of the time. The thought trailed off for her to pick up at a later hour. For now, she was tired from her journey and her meal and found herself sleeping as soon as she closed her eyes.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 13, 2014 22:23:58 GMT -5
Lucky, too, soon fell asleep. His little paws almost seemed to hold onto the bag, and his mouth was still on the nozzle, though not enough to make it leak out it's contents. He stayed like this for a bit, his chest raising and lowering in the rhythmic cycle of sleep...or napping, as it was, because it wasn't too much longer before he woke up and yawned around the object in his mouth.
After a couple licks, a bit more suckling, and more licks...he finally let go of the food source and started making his quiet puppy noises, nuzzling around in the grass until he found one of Vega's feet. At that point, he decided that was good enough and attempted to snuggle with the appendage.
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Post by Cascade on Jun 19, 2014 12:27:22 GMT -5
Vega laid her head down next to Valravn and listened to her breathing as she slept. It was a little hoarse, which was to be expected considering how malnourished she still was. She would go out into the meadow later and catch a rabbit for her. Vega's own stomach growled, and she hoped it wasn't loud enough to hear. She was a big wolf and had plenty of fat stored up; feeding Val was much more important than feeding herself right now. She could handle a little hunger. It was a mother's job to make sacrifices for her children.
She still worried about calling herself a mother. She already loved Val and Lucky so much, but they were two pups whom she had basically stolen. She felt no qualms about calling Lucky hers. He would have surely died and he was far too young to remember any other mother. But Valravn was older, she'd had an entire life before meeting Vega. What if she didn't want Vega to be her mother? It hurt her heart to think of herself as just a caretaker when she finally seemed to have gotten pups of her own, but she didn't want to impose these labels on Valravn if she didn't want them. Despite all that, she couldn't stop herself from thinking it. 'I have a son,' she thought as she placed her paw over Lucky's tiny body, 'I have a daughter.'
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Post by Juice on Jun 19, 2014 17:23:51 GMT -5
It was somewhat of a journey to reach the Copse in the territory from the border but Piala had made it quickly with the small pup in her mouth. She was grateful he wasn't struggling and fighting her because she would have been forced to chomp on his little scruff tighter. Piala's stomach churned as she thought about the possibility of his parents returning to claim him but somewhere in her heart she knew they wouldn't. He was deaf after all and some wolves only saw that as weakness. It was probably a miracle they hadn't immediately killed him. Or maybe his parents had been good and left him at her borders for her to find...Piala wasn't sure about either prospect but she found comfort in the latter. Finally she found Vega's den just as the sun was setting.
Unable to bark a greeting, Piala tentatively stepped into Vega's den. As alpha, it was her right to be there but still Piala didn't enjoy intruding into her subordinate's dens unannounced. She set the wriggling pup down by her paws and licked some of his fur away from her mouth. "Vega." she said quietly, realizing there were two sleeping pups in the den. When had that happened? When had Vega birthed pups? Surely Piala hadn't been that inattentive of her subordinates. Piala's words caught in her mouth as she struggled to make sense of the prescense of the two slumbering puppies. They looked nothing like Vega so they surely weren't hers...but then what did that mean? Piala knew Vega well enough to know she wasn't a pup napper but she was also vaguely aware of Vega's desire for pups which is why she had brought the deaf youngster there. "Let me explain why I have brought this pup here but then you will have some explaining to do." Piala said before taking a deep breath.
"This pup has no home...he just showed up at the borders not too long ago...he can't hear." Piala's orange eyes were filled with pity but she shook her head and decided it would be inappropriate to treat the little tyke any differently. He needed to be raised just as the other pup's so he wouldn't grow up using his handicap as a crutch. "Vega I must ask that you take care of this wee one. I can't raise him properly on my own...I have many duties to attend to. But I trust you, Vega, more than any other wolf to raise him. Will you accept him?" Piala was not in the habit of forcing her subordinates to do things they didn't want to, but she hoped against hope Vega would accept the deaf pup. She waited silently for a response before asking Vega why there were two pups already in her den.
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Post by CursedErin on Jun 19, 2014 19:15:31 GMT -5
The young and deaf pup had originally squirmed in Piala's mouth as he had first been picked up, way back at the border. He was a bit disgusted at first when she had licked him all over, before he realized that he was getting her scent, so he wouldn't be killed or something when introduced to the pack, or at least that's what the over analyzing wolf thought. Sable sniffed around curiously as he was brought towards other wolves. He trembled a bit in Piala's jaws, afraid that something might happen to him.
Before he knew it he was brought into a den, with out wolves, and two other pups. He blinked curiously as he was sat down on the floor and licked. He looked up curiously at Piala, seeing her muzzle open and close as she spoke, but obviously he didn't know what she was saying. Looking around, his way out was blocked by Piala, but he could probably squeeze out if he really wanted to, but at the moment he found no reason to.
After awhile of looking around, the deaf little pup seemed to get bored. He yawned out a bit, making a bored-like noise before he looked towards the ground. Sable decided to write in the ground, making strange little pictures and a few words sort of as well. At one point he erased, swiping the dirt over something before drawing again. This time he drew what looked sort of like a wolf with one of his paws. Finishing his 'art' he stopped and looked back up to Piala, then at the wolves in front of him again.
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Post by Cascade on Jun 22, 2014 14:21:30 GMT -5
Vega's ears perked up when she heard another wolf approaching. She suspected it would be Piala, judging from the sound of the footsteps, and she wasn't surprised to see that she had guessed right when she peered out of the mouth of her den. What did surprise her was the pup dangling from Piala's jaws. All at once, she recognized what was going on and simultaneously failed to understand through the sheer force of disbelief. 'Was Piala pregnant without my noticing?' she wondered idly, knowing that it couldn't be true but unable to completely accept reality. All of this is one day...it was just too improbable.
Vega watched the pup speechlessly, Piala's words barely registering as he played in the dirt. Homeless. Deaf. Her responsibility. She got the gist of it, and her eyes welled with tears. "Oh, Piala," she whispered, "What have I done to deserve this?" She leaned over, picking Sable up by the scruff and placing him next to her heart, nuzzling him as her chest heaved with emotion. "When I was out at the lake today, I met Valravn. She was run out of her pack out in the Shades and on the verge of starvation. As we were turning to leave, I heard Lucky calling me from the bushes, the only survivor of his abandoned litter. Now, you are giving me another son. After all these years of waiting, I receive three children on the same day, each from a different place?" she struggled to regain her composure, but her voice was trembling, "It must be a gift from the Mountain."
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Post by Deleted on Jun 22, 2014 21:20:54 GMT -5
While the new pup, that Lucky was only vaguely aware of, had been moved to Vega's warm chest area, Lucky was again lost since the foot that had been there before to provide the presence he wanted disappeared and hadn't come back. He sniffed around him, smelled her all over even though he moved around.
He knew she was nearby somewhere, he though anyways, because there were the gentle thumps of movement around him. After a bit of wiggling though, he decided it was better to bark and howl for her. Come back and get me, he thoguht, I don't want to be alone...I want to be warm.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 23, 2014 8:59:30 GMT -5
Valravn's chest was rising and falling slowly in one of the most peaceful rests she had had in a long time. Still, her body was tuned to wake itself in the disturbance in the atmosphere. The first thing she picked up on was the sudden charge of emotion. A voice, quickly becoming familiar to her, was the first thing her senses alerted her to. When the unfamiliar scents followed, she quite literally shook herself awake with a slight jerk to move herself upward. "Vega?" The wolf was still dazed and her voice was shaky. She became a little more alert to the pups howl. It was rather reflexively that she looked and walked to Lucky mumbling a weary "oh" and "okay" in a confused attempt to calm the pup down. She scooped him up and bring him to Vega, confused once again to see another pup there. Now her head was clearing and she was noticing and understanding the pup and wolf in the den. She placed the pup to look at Vega nervously and lowered her head.
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Post by Juice on Jun 23, 2014 22:19:36 GMT -5
Piala's orange eyes widened and she blinked a few times at Vega's reaction. But Piala wasn't totally cold hearted and she was glad that Vega was now the mother of some orphaned pups, especially after wanting to be a mother so bad. The reddish female pup was old enough to speak and venture out on her own, but the green pup was still very young. "Shh don't cry Vega." Piala said soothingly, walking forward and bumping heads with her pack mate.
"I believe this little fellow here is called Sable. As you may have noticed, he cannot hear so he may need a little extra love and attention." Piala really didn't want to admit it, not to herself or to anyone else, but she had grown a bit attached to the little guy in the short time they'd known each other. She fought the urge to lick Sable as he was now Vega's responsibility. Piala glanced at the red she wolf and smiled to show she wasn't any angry alphess. "I am alphess Piala. You are now part of the Eternal Snowfall pack little one, which means, once you are grown, you will report to me." Piala would have asked the young one's name but right now there were more pressing matters.
"The Power of the mountain works mysteriously but I am sure it has given you this gift for good reason. These pups now have a home...if it weren't for you they'd surely perish. Vega, I entrust you to take care of these small ones but I need to speak to you outside a moment." Piala stepped just outside the den and just out of sight of the little pups within it. She waited for Vega to join her.
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Post by CursedErin on Jun 24, 2014 5:10:31 GMT -5
Sable squirmed about as he was picked up by Vega, he didn't expect another wolf to be picking him up besides Piala at the moment. Soon however he was placed back down at the ground, near to Vega's chest. The young pup blinked curiously and looked up at Piala, and then up at Vega. Slowly and cautiously, he laid himself down, as if understanding what was going on even though he couldn't catch a word of what they were saying.
Yawning a bit he outstretched his right paw and started to doodle in the dirt again. This time the drawings were less clear, before his paw finally collapsed onto one of his drawings. His paw twitched once or twice before it finally fell motionless. The midnight black pup's eyes were closed, and young Sable had found himself asleep soon enough.
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Post by Cascade on Jun 25, 2014 20:14:36 GMT -5
Vega sniffled, accepting Piala's comforting gesture. She didn't have the first clue how to take care of a pup who couldn't hear, but she knew she would think of something. She would raise him to have the same opportunities as any other wolf, and he would live a full and unburdened life.
Vega was hesitant to leave the pups, even just to step outside her den, but she didn't want to question Piala or keep her waiting. She had done Vega a kindness by accepting Valravn and Lucky and by giving her Sable, the least she could do in return was be a good subordinate. "I'll be back in a minute, my darlings," she said softly, "Keep an eye on your brothers, Valravn, you're the responsible big sister now."
She stood, giving her children one more nuzzle each before exiting her den and meeting Piala outside. Piala was not small, but Vega was massive and she dwarfed the alphess easily. Though, for her size Vega was not very physically strong. Piala would definitely beat her in a fight, not that such a situation would ever come to pass. Vega was grateful to have been born to an alliance that wasn't rife with violence. Plenty of wolves, by nature or nurture, couldn't say the same.
"What do you need, Piala?" she asked, bowing her head, "I will do anything in my power to help the pack."
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