Dead Empress Backwater Boys will be boys

For @Eros

Archer was bored. He found that he liked staying up late; he liked the soft quiet of night. No squalling birds, few screaming insects; just the occasional frog-song and the splash of fish in the backwater. He liked the darkness. He liked the stars. He didn't see them running anymore; not since that night that he and Eros had watched them from the shore of the water that gave the pack its name.
Another nice thing about the night is that he got to see weird things he wouldn't notice during the day.

Glowing bugs, for instance.

As soon as he saw them light up and begin to drift around, Archer spun around and went to find his brother, poking him awake. "Eros, Eros come quick!" he hissed, trying not to wake their mother as well. "Come see!" He already had all kinds of ideas, and he wanted Eros to test them.

Archer is very haggard and thin; it is obvious he is not doing well.

Eros really wasn't fond of being woken. It was only Archer and his parents that could rouse him without irritated growling and a snap of his jaws, and even then... Eros felt his brother's nose jab into him, and his own name being called invaded the perfectly lovely dream he'd been having. Grumbling sourly, he tried to bat away his litter mate, but to avail.

He pried open his eyes just a smidge and squinted back at his brother.

"What?"

See? Were the stars racing each other again? His ears tipped back with annoyance, but he pushed himself up onto his pudgy paws nonetheless and attempted to shake the sleep away before trotting forward.

"Better be good."

Archer grinned at his brother's grouchy response. Maybe some day he would get Eros to be a little more excited about nighttime adventures, but for right now he was content to be amused by his snark.

"Star bugs!" he said excitedly, tugging at Eros's ear with his teeth to try and get him to hurry. "Glowing, see? Like stars!" he jumped into the midst of a cluster of the yellow dots of light and watched gleefully as the lazily scattered, seemingly unconcerned with the excited puppy in among them. He looked at Eros, tail waving behind him and buffeting some of the bugs in the small wind it created.

"We can pretend we're stars too," he said seriously. "But we won't go poof like before."

Archer is very haggard and thin; it is obvious he is not doing well.

Star bugs? Eros' interest was piqued by the name, especially given what they'd found the last time stars were involved. He shook away Archer's nipping and followed him to the insects floating in the air. His bronzing eyes looked upward, to the ones hovering the highest, almost as if they really were a part of the night sky. Then he looked to his brother's face, and fought hard to keep back a devilish smile.

He knew something Archer didn't. For the first time in his young life, Eros knew something before his littermate. The tawny Valle had to beat the smugness back as he strode forward and approached one of the low-flying nightlights.

"This," he held a paw up, almost touching the glow, "is a light end bug."

Like 'baby water snake,' he had pieced together. His information was a hodgepodge of what had been told to him when he'd first seen the mystical insects, and not at all accurate, but of course it was the best he could do with only 11 weeks of life experience under his figurative belt.

"They 'light up'," it was a complicated phrase for his particularly young mind, and he was proud of both understanding and using it. Archer and the rest of their siblings were always so far ahead of him, or at the least it felt like they were. It felt good to get a first in over someone.

But vast zoology knowledge aside, his littermate had brought up an interesting proposal.

"... we can..." he tried to guess, changling eyes searching his brother's set of fading denim as if for clues, "light up?"

Or just pretend to light up, like full on just in their minds? Eros was really starting to learn that words meant a lot of different things.

Archer could almost taste Eros's pleasure, smug as he was. Archer glared half-heartedly at him. How could he have known what they were called? He'd never seen them before! He didn't think Eros ventured out after dark much, but apparently his older brother had been doing so without him noticing. He tried not to feel betrayed; he left Eros behind plenty, especially at night.

"Light end bugs, then," he said grudgingly. He could let Eros have this one, especially since he was going to use the lighter boy as a test subject. Assuming he's brave enough to actually do it this time, Archer thought sourly, thinking of their tussel with the star incident.

He brightened at Eros's interest. "Yeah, light up! Watch!"

It was only a working theory, but the bugs were bright and Archer was confident in his assumption. He sprang up and, by some miracle, managed to catch one of the lazy bugs in his mouth. He went cross-eyed and was pleased to see a faint glow coming from his lips. He swallowed the bug and grinned.

"How many d'ya think ya need to eat before you glow too?"

Archer is very haggard and thin; it is obvious he is not doing well.

His brother answered enthusiastically in the positive, and Eros was once again the follower, tail wagging as he watched intently for what Archer was about to do. He watched with rapt attention as his littermate captured a light end within his jaws. To Eros' astonishment, he could see the light beyond his brother's teeth, at least until the other boy swallowed.

How many until they glowed? A grin spread wide over the the muddy-eyed boy's face, and he stomped his little paws with excitement.

"Tenty!" he threw out the imaginary number swiftly, as if totally convinced, before lunging forward into a lazy gaggle of fireflies. His jaws snapped seemingly at random, but the pup was very pointedly trying to gather as many of the insects behind his teeth as he could. With about three or four on his tongue, he ceased and turned to face his brother with a big, toothy grin.

Swallowing wasn't as easy, though. They didn't go down nicely, instead scratching and skittering all the way through his throat. He shuddered and stuck out his tongue, peaking one eye open.

"... I light up?"

Could Archer see his belly glowing yet?

(This post was last modified: Aug 31, 2021, 06:37 AM by Eros.)

Archer watched gleefully as his brother shouted a number and leaped into action. The clicking of his teeth was a sharp sound in the buzzing night air, but at least he was having fun. His mouth was glowing almost immediately, but when he swallowed the light disappeared.

The younger boy shook his head. "Not yet. More?" he himself took a few swipes at nearby bugs, trying to look like the attempt was genuine while avoiding catching too many. He didn't want to eat bugs if he could avoid it; it was just funny to watch Eros struggle to swallow the wriggling creatures.

And he was curious to see if he did light up after all.

Archer is very haggard and thin; it is obvious he is not doing well.

Eros frowned. Darns. Not that easy, eh? His gaze left Archer after the other boy joined in swallowing the light ends. While eating more certainly wasn't appealing, he was far from ready to give up the challenge. He took a breath, and started again.

With leaps and bounds he dashed back and forth through the scattered night-air flotilla, trapping what he could betwixt his fangs and then forcing them down his throat each time he landed back onto the ground. It didn't take long for him to start feeling sick. Visibly phased, his tongue lolled as he asked Archer once more,

"Now... ?"

You can fade with your post if you'd like or we can do one more round?

Archer sat back and allowed the amusement to play across his face as he watched his older brother dance about, catching bugs. His lips would glow for a moment, and then the light would vanish as the unfortunate light end was gulped down.

And then Eros was starting to look funny, and Archer was quickly growing concerned. When the older Valle boy finally stopped and turned, his tongue lolled out and he just seemed... wrong.

Archer forced a smile. "Yeah," he said, "A bit. C'mon, let's show ma!" he stood up, fake joviality in his face and body language. It was time to be done.

Archer is very haggard and thin; it is obvious he is not doing well.

Yeah? Eros picked up from ear to tail, eyes shining once more at the possibility. He was really glowing? He turned his head and tried to look himself over, to see it with his own two eyes but he couldn't catch a glimpse of any kind of light. Was it... coming out his butt... ? Eros looked up at his brother once more, perplexed.

Let's show mom!

"Okay," he agreed nonetheless, trotting dutifully after his litter mate. Mom would tell him where exactly he was glowing, he thought it'd be his throat and chest where he anticipated that the swallowed bugs were, but maybe it worked a different way. Maybe he was lighting up the way they did, or a different way altogether. Or maybe this was one of Archer's tricks, as his brother was starting to catch on to the fact that wolves weren't always a hundred percent truthful.

But Mom? Mom would never lie.

/Fade