The Vuesain Queen waited to see if her son would take the ball and run with it, and boy did he. Words tumbled from his mouth in rapid succession and her eyes widened slightly in surprise before lowering to allow her mouth to set into a grin. “What do they look like? Didja play with your brothers and your parents? What games did ya play? Where did you live? Were they nice to you?” he asked, and she chuckled. Namid settled herself in preparation to answer, nudging her child playfully.

“Both Ooljee and Veho are older than I am. Ooljee looks a bit like you, perhaps even a lot like you. Veho is somewhat been Ooljee and I, not quite as light as I am but not as dark as Ooljee either. He had grey eyes, while Ooljee had brown. We did play games, like tag and hide and go seek when we were younger but once we got a bit older we stopped playing as much.” she said. It was true, but the main reason they had stopped playing as much was because of Neha’s death. The whole family grew a bit awkward around each other, especially around Namid for she was the closest likeness to the girl. It was why she’d turned to her father, for even in the grief he’d felt for his youngest daughter he wouldn’t ignore her. Perhaps it was one of the reasons why she was closest to him. “I had a sister, too. Neha is named after her, actually. But, my sister passed away when we were young. She looked a lot like Neha, ironically.” she said, not beating around the bush with it. Death was something that they would learn about, even already had experience with when they would eat the prey that was brought to them. It was better that he learned it from her than from someone else.

“I grew up on something called a ‘reservation’. It was a special land made just for us, along with our humans. Humans are creatures that walk up on two legs and are hairless except for on their faces and the tops of their heads. Really, they behave a lot like us and most of them are very nice. We do not have any humans around here, though.” she explained. It wasn’t the first time she’d had to talk about the strange creatures that were humans, and she wasn’t afraid of doing so either. It was a part of her past and she was more than willing to share it with her son who deserved to know his heritage.

Whatever she had expected in a reaction from the youth about her younger sibling it hadn’t been there, and for some reason she felt a bit of a release in her chest. Perhaps a breath she didn’t think she’d been holding. It was a hefty thing to tell a young child, about death and the real workings of the world. But her children were meant to be worldly beings, there was no doubt of that in her mind. His little eyes lit up at her explanation of the humans, and she had to hold back a laugh. It wasn’t an unusual reaction from those she told, and his was perhaps the more tame of their reactions even. ”They sound weird,” was his simple reply, and at this she did allow a chuckle to escape her maw. “Indeed, very weird. But very kind,” she said, bemused.

“Okay, how about the story now?” he asked, cutting to the chase clearly having been drawn back to the original plot of their little time together. She nodded, “Of course, darling.” she said. A slight shift was given in her form as she got comfortable before she began. “There once lived two young pups named Apollo and Aspen. Apollo had a pelt the color of the day, with bright eyes as golden as the sun, while Aspen had a pelt as dark as night and eyes the color of silver. Both were very competitive with each other, always daring each other to race and taking the most difficult paths that the one did not think the other could take. One day, Apollo looked to Aspen and said ”I bet you cannot beat me to that rock,” and Aspen took the dare. They raced and Aspen won. “You got lucky, but I bet you cannot beat me to that river,” said Apollo, and yet again Aspen took that dare. Aspen won, and by this time Apollo had grown aggravated. He looked all around them, trying to find something that Aspen could not possibly win at. He looked to the sky, and he knew. “I bet you cannot beat me to the stars,” he exclaimed with a grin. Aspen did indeed look surprised, but took the bet anyways. They counted down, and then the race began. Apollo found the highest rock he could find, and running as fast as he could he leapt into the air and began to run. Up into the air he flew! Aspen, seeing this, grew frantic and raced to the highest hill he could find. He ran as fast as he could up the hill then leapt, as up he flew too! The two ran upwards, their paws treading the air and pushing them across the sky. Apollo had gotten a head start and remained ahead of Aspen, who raced to catch up to them. If you look into the sky, you can see Apollo burning bright as he races ahead of Aspen though Aspen is never too far behind. When day turns to night Aspen is growing close to Apollo, and how long this cycle will continue nobody knows,” she exclaimed. Her movements were animated as she spoke, a bright smile creasing her lips as she moved this way and that, the pitch of her voice rising a falling. Oh, how she loved to tell stories.