Fool's Gold Chasm i quadruple dog dare you

He was a bit of a bumble. Big feet and ears, and a tail that could barely be called a tail at this moment. It was too pointed and seemed to always stand up. Not unlike his dark chocolate fur that felt downy but looked wirey. And a pair of light blue eyes, freshly opened, always wide until frequent puppy exhaustion kicked in. Except no time to be sleepy today because it was time to be free. He could see and oh boy, could he hear, and there was no containing him or his siblings any longer. There were so many smells that needed images put to them and noises that needed faces.

With a bit of effort, Aweho squeaked out to his siblings, a signal that he was on his way out, and started hoisting himself up the slope of the little fox den. It felt like quite a feat, more work than he'd ever done in his short little life. And by the time he breached into the cool comfort of the outside world, his little eyelids fluttered. But he squeaked again, once, twice, three times in excitement and began to snuffle around the dirt.

The porch lights on

Marrah would have been happy to spend all day in a puppy cuddle puddle, she really saw no reason to leave. Unless, of course, it was for an appointment at the milk bar. The big one who she loved the most, who she affectionately referred to as Mmm gave them the milk. As much as she wanted, almost all the time, she was already bigger than her siblings and that wasn’t going to change any time soon.

But, her brother Awayway had other ideas it seemed. When her brother kicked her swiftly in the head to get out, Marrah squeaked in protest, wanting to keep napping all together. But, she was curious just as to what he thought he was doing. Following behind him about halfway up the incline, then stopping when he disappeared into the bright lights.

The sudden disappearance into the light, followed by the squeaks stopped her in her tracks. No way she was going out there. It was interesting, but not that interesting.

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Everything was so much! All the smells he could smell that still didn't have a tag to them and it was a whole new world! Big, too big almost. The boy shuffled in one place, overwhelmed by the plethora of choices he had. His little eyes squinted at the dirt, which he then huffed up his nose from snorting too hard. The sneeze he unleashed was large and set him off balance. Aweho tipped over onto his side, stunned for a moment.

He couldn't even really hear his sister, Murr, climbing up to join him, but arching his neck from the spot on the ground, he could barely see the crest of her ears.

So he whined in her direction.

The porch lights on

She couldn’t quite see her brother from her spot on the incline, and as such, used her pudgy back legs to propel her a little farther. She still couldn’t see him, but could hear his sneeze and accompanying tiny thud as he hit the dirt clear as day. Chocolatey ears flipped backwards, and then forwards as she tried to make sense of it all without being able to see.

In the end, she could not sort it out based on sound alone. The sneezing, and the whining, and so many other things, rustling of something (leaves) being pushed around by something else (wind), weird barks that didn’t sound like her siblings (birds). Her curiosity got the better of her, and Marrah inched forward further. Now she squinted against the blinding light, whining towards Awayway. Why had he wanted her to go somewhere to hurt her eyes?

She moved no further, eyes squeezed shut in protest, but her head stuck out from the den now.

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He looked happily into the darkness, glad to give his eyes a bit of a rest. His little pointy tail swished as he spotted her whole head. What was she so hidey about? There was so much to see! Yeah, like a lot a lot and it was making him very sleepy, but still. Aweho rolled into his tummy and oonched towards the mouth of the den.

"Owwwww." He coaxed her with a word that sounded more like a howl. His neck stretched out in the dirt and he licked his nose of sneeze and dust. Which then made his tongue stick out. His nose did not taste very good and the thought made him kind of hungry for something that wasn't icky.

"Murrrrr," He continued. "Owwowwwwowwwww." His voice sounded so quiet out here.

(This post was last modified: May 30, 2021, 10:04 PM by Aweho.)

Ever since her first excursion from her den, Enera had been making daily trips to the Outside. She liked exploring, and her favorite game was hide-away, even though sometimes @Rhaegara didn't know they were playing.

Today she was sidling through the sort-of-familiar but mostly new landscape when she heard another tiny voice calling out. She perked up her ears and quickly started bumbling her way toward the sound, only half paying attention to where her paws landed.

She finally saw what she'd been looking for - another wolf, but he was her size! Not like the others like Mama that were big. He was looking down at the ground, where Enera could barely see another nose poking out of a den.

Yipping excitedly, Enera bounced forward a few steps. "Hi hi hi hi hi!" she happily repeated one of her favorite words.

The porch lights on

Marrah cracked one eye open at the sound of her brother slithering towards her. He was basically up in her face now, and her little tail beat behind her happily at his tiny howl. This immediately stopped the moment he sneezed, directly into her eyeballs. Huffing grumpily at the rudeness of it all, she struck out at Aweho with her paws in an attempt to push him away.

The whole ordeal made her a little bolder, if only because she wanted to get away from her gross, sneezy brother. Standing up, she toddled out of the den (although in her head she was walking proudly), and out into the sun. Where she promptly sneezed dramatically as the bright sun struck her directly.

This was already overwhelming, this whole situation of leaving the den and the big Mmm not being here to provide her the milkbar. Then, some other small thing came walking in! Taking a step back, unsure of what exactly was happening, she looked back to her brother for guidance and repeated the word of the other thing, ”hi?” It looked kind of like her brothers, at least in size, but it was much lighter, and certainly wasn’t any brother she had seen before.

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Aweho stuck to the ground as Mur wandered past him. His neck did twist around until the rest of his body followed as he tried to look far over his shoulder. He just kind of rolled over onto his back and then struggled onto his feet to bumble after her. The boy tripped over his own feet as his sister sneezed and bumped into her butt a little.

He grumbled happily and then copied her with the sneezey noise. Another source of amusement. Doing it for real wasn't very fun, but pretending was funny. He got quickly to his feet when the little stranger appeared and sidled up beside his sister, just in case. Ears folded back as he appraised them and gave a very obvious sniff. Smelled sorta the same but sorta different. Sweet and dusty.

"Hhhhhiiiii." He joined the chorus uncertainly.

As the second little body came out of the den and the first tumbled around, Enera's tail whipped even faster behind her. She loved Mama, and the other Big Ones weren't so bad, so other Little Ones like her would be fun, right? They could squeeze into all the same spaces she could, and Hide-away would be so much more fun with others to hide!

"Hi hi," she said, stopping just short of the pair and smiling widely. "Ner," she tried to introduce, then frowned because it didn't sound right. How did it sound when Mama said her name? "Nnnnnnera," she tried again. "Nera.

Close enough.

One more post each?

The porch lights on

Her brother let out a sneeze beside her, and Marrah looked at him in surprise. Why was he sneezing so much? Were they supposed to? She had no idea that he had been doing it for pretend and not for real, Marrah was naive and might always be, and didn’t really understand yet that people might be pretending for fun or for more sinister reasons.

The other brother seemed nice, and that was good enough for Marrah she supposed. Tail beat against the dirt, stirring up a tiny dust storm, she liked this other brother! Now instead of questioning she chirped out ”hi hi hi!” It was so nice to have another one around, even if she had just appeared from thin air.

Tilting her head she parroted, ”Nera.” She had never heard of a Nera before, is that what this other brother was called? What was she called then, what was it that the Mmm called her, ”Mare, mmm, Mare mmm, Mare uh!” It was pronounced correctly, but as if it was two different words, she would get better with practice.

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