The last dump of snow had taken Viorel by surprise, it had been hot just days before and he was sure they were about to enter the dog days of summer. He had envisioned days of teaching the pups to swim when they got older, fish, and splash around in the parts of the backwater that had little to no current. Then he had woken up late this morning covered in a layer of snowflakes and could do nothing but snort in displeasure. He hoped this was just a one off and their new home was not some freak show that dumped snow on them all summer long.

The leader had been nearby getting a drink from the creek when the sound of squawking caused him to perk in alarm. The voice was unmistakably one of his sons and without hesitation he was off like a flash. Coming to a skidding stop across the slippery terrain, Viorel caught himself only half a second before he went haunches over snout and ended up face first in the snow.

Looking around frantically, searching for some kind of threat or danger, he came up empty. There was nothing visibly around that could have been causing Eros any harm, so why was he crying? Salt and pepper brow furrowed in confusion as he stepped forward to sniff his agouti son over. Again, he ended up baffled. Leaning down to look him in the eye, he questioned, ”Eros? Why are you crying like that?” Clearly Viorel was a first time father and had yet to learn how even the smallest things could cause large distress for cubs.

Pups cried a lot more than Viorel thought they did. Or, maybe he was doing a terrible job and was already screwing his kids up which was why they cried so much. Either way, there were a lot of tears these days in the Backwater, and thankfully most of them came from the children and not the adults. Much to his surprise though Eros did not answer his questions with any words or sounds and instead began to scramble up on top of snout.

Leaning down so the mousy boy would have any easier time, Viorel carefully lowered his own body slowly onto the snow topped ground. At least this way if his son slipped off, he would not tumble very far. Now that he was there, he was so close to his eyes that the father could barely see him clearly. Grinning at the silliness of it all, the salt and pepper wolf crossed his eyes and tried to stretch his tongue up far enough to lick at the child's toes.

He was not sure what had been wrong, and therefore did not know how to fix it, but Viorel did know how to be a silly dad.

The father had worried a lot before his children had arrived that he was going to screw them up, and it was still a concern. This time at least it seemed that his worries were for naught, a little bit of silliness was all it took to stop Eros’ cries. The squeals when Viorel’s salmon tongue reached his son's toes brought a bright smile onto the dark man’s face, and he increased the speed of his flicking until the child scrambled out of reach.

What happened next was certainly unexpected. He felt the tiny paws scrambling up over his skull, and closed his eyes patiently to avoid a toe in the eye or similar injury. Cracking them open once he was sure that Eros had made it safely past his ears and reached his scruff he could do nothing but laugh heartily at the sound of snores. At first he thought that his son was just playing and faking sleep, and strained to crane his neck around to get a good view of him.

It was the perfect stillness that finally alerted the father that this was no prank, and that Eros had truly fallen asleep while up on his scruff. Lowering his own head onto his paws, Viorel did his best to lay still, but it didn’t take long until the strange addition of weight caused an uncomfortable stiffness to take hold on his neck. Trying to roll his shoulders slowly to relieve some of this tension, the father practically held his breath hoping this wouldn’t wake Eros up.

Despite shifting as slowly as possible, imagining himself to be the steadiest of turtles and Eros as his shell, the child tumbled haphazardly to the ground. Ears flicked backwards at the sound of the yelp, followed by some of the saddest whimpers that Viorel had ever heard. It was in that moment he made a split second parenting decision, he had two choices, he could coddle and comfort his son, or, he could not.

He didn’t even think it through that much, just acted on instinct. He chose the latter. Smiling down at the child to show there was nothing to be scared of, he said in an excited voice, ”this is your first snow! Get to your paws and I’ll show you how to make a snowball you can shove at your brother.” Hoisting himself up and shaking off the few flakes that had accumulated on his own salt and pepper coat, he took a few steps away from the entrance to the den.

Leaning down, he snuffled his nose into the snow and then shoved forward, creating a tiny snowball that rolled a few inches away from him. Glancing up towards the agouti boy, Viorel wondered if this distraction would work

Viorel was pleased to see that his son’s cries began to quiet down after a period of louder wailing. Then, he approached cautiously, but he was approaching and the father counted that as a win in his books. Curiosity and learning was important, and crying was… well, Viorel didn’t really know how to handle it, and there was a lot more of it these days than he thought there would be. Smiling encouragingly at Eros, he rolled the snowball a little bit closer, allowing his son to investigate it, at his own slow pace of course.

Once the father was content that Eros had at least attempted to investigate the snow and give it a fair shot, he smiled. ”Okay, let’s go get dry and warm up in the den shall we? I’ll tell you a story about the ocean.” Letting his son go first, Viorel ducked in after him, ready to talk until Eros fell back to sleep.