Say something nice

for @Marguerite <3 Dead Empress Backwater, crickets kept you up all night with their songs.
Takes place pre-dawn 9/2.
For personal reference Archer is now 4 months old and between 30-35 lbs, standing about 15-20 in tall

Archer was used to staying up. He liked the night, and he liked the games he and Eros would sometimes play after Ma had gone to sleep or sneaked off with Da. He liked the quiet, especially sitting next to the backwater and listening to the gentle trickle of distant water. He liked the frogs, and sometimes trying to catch them. He liked the chirping of crickets.

But tonight, the crickets were... grating.

There were so many of them, and even though Archer was used to staying up, he never stayed up all night. He knew the sun would be coming up soon, so he might as well get up for a bit and try to take a nap after Eros left on his adventures.

...Assuming the older boy didn't drag Archer off with him.

Archer yawned and stretched as he stumbled away from the cuddle bunch. Maybe he'd just go find a napping place hidden away from where Eros could find him. Get some peace and quiet once the crickets shut up.

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

Sorry, got home yesterday and completely slipped my mind D:

Margo loved night time, but only in small increments.  She loved the moon and stars, and often found herself admiring them just before bed each time the weather was clear enough for them to pay a visit.  But more than that the Valle girl loved to sleep, because after sleeping was when her favorite time of day rolled around.  Marguerite was a morning dove through and through, no matter how much the night sky left her in awe.  She took much pleasure in being up right before everyone else so that she could watch the world rise and shine.  She loved the silence followed by a couple of birds followed by the rest of everything else.  There was something beautiful about it all.  Especially when she was awake enough to really soak it all in.

This coming morning was not going to be one of her usual perfect mornings.  Marguerite was being set up to have a horrible day, and she knew this for certain.  The crickets had conspired against her because they had gotten jealous of how much she loved her precious sunrise.  They made sure that she couldn't get an ample amount of sleep and now she wasn't going to be able to keep her eyes open to watch the world burst to life.  They wouldn't shut up no matter how many times she protested their insistent night screaming, and as much as she didn't want to let the little devils win she just couldn't lay there for even another moment.  "Fine!" the fae snapped into the darkness as she found herself up on four paws. "But please, I sleep tomorrow."

She hadn't made it far wandering about the territory before seeing the shadow of another wolf in the distance.  Seems she wasn't the only one who couldn't sleep.  "Hello?"  She called quietly.  

(This post was last modified: Sep 02, 2021, 07:17 PM by Marguerite.)

The crickets hadn't ceased their yammering even with him up and wandering about, and Archer was beginning to fear that even when he found a hideaway he wouldn't be able to do any sleeping until well into the brightness of day. He kept searching though, ears pressed back against his head in a vain attempt to block the noise out.

A voice called out and Archer froze. The So- Margo.

Archer had been foolish enough to ask his closest brother to remind him what their sisters were named. He hadn't actually met Violet, since she hadn't showed up to the family gathering ages back, and Archer had spent so much time referring to Margo as the 'Sobber' he hadn't bothered to remember what her real name was.

@Eros had taunted him mercilessly, and Archer resolved to never ask him for help in these sorts of matters again.

Look, it wasn't his fault his sisters weren't interesting.

Still, his Da would want him to be nice and it would be good for him to at least have a working relationship with his sisters. They were family, after all.

He turned around and searched the darkness for her. The sky was slowly turning pink, but it was still dark enough to obscure things. "Hi," he said, then winced at how short his reply had come out. "Crickets buggin' - bugging - you, too?"

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

She was able to make out who the pup was as the distance between them grew shorter. Margo wasn't entirely sure why, but the revelation made her a little bit nervous. Margo did have a sneaking suspicion that this brother didn't like her as much as the other brother from that momma did, but he was still family, right? There was no need to be uneasy around him. And maybe this would be a good opportunity to show him that she was really cool!! Or could pretend to be at the very least.

"Uh-huh." Margo responded, standing awkwardly next to the boy. She hoped that her companionship wouldn't be an inconvenience, but if they were both having trouble sleeping then wouldn't it be better to experience that together? They could keep each other from noticing that uncomfortable exhausted feeling so much. "I tried yellin' at 'em but they don't wanna listen very well." she sighed. Despite her extreme love for nature, Marguerite sure had a horrible relationship with any of the creatures she's met thus far.

As the obscurity of the darkness faded with the space between them, Archer was able to see his sister better. She looked as tired as he felt, and no less irritated, although Archer wondered how much of that was resignation. He appraised her, increasingly-silver eyes flicking over her. She did look a bit like him, her fur the same dark complexion he himself had gotten from his father, though her eyes were different. It was hard to tell the color in the darkness.

He allowed himself a soft smirk at her professed attempt to silence the annoyance that was nighttime bugs. It was exactly the sort of thing Eros would try. "They don't listen to Eros, either," he said. He glanced to the side, where a cricket had been silly enough to jump into their view and rest, taking up its horrid singing again.

Appraising eyes returning to his sister once again, Archer considered his options. "Want to try catching them? Maybe they'll stop then, and we can find a place to take a nap."

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

I'm so sorry for the wait!! I never meant for it to take this long!

"Hmmm" Margo smiled softly at the thought of the creatures not listening to Eros.   At least she wasn't the only one then, and it helped that the one in the same boat as her was Eros.  He was kind of odd, but the Valle girl had grown quite attached to that specific sibling thus far.  He was just... Easy, she supposed.  But that smile quickly faded and the child found herself squinting in distaste as one of the havoc demons jumped before them playing his horrible, horrible taunting tune.  For some reason it was that exact moment that Margo realized the pun her brother had said about the bugs just a few moments ago.. Hah, bugging.   That was actually pretty funny.

"Yes!!"  Marguerite almost answered too quickly.  Archer had always seemed quite intelligent to Margo whenever they'd been in the same vicinity.  If he thought it was possible to catch all of the ugly noise bugs then she'd definitely lend a hand on that quest.  Anything to catch some sleep. "But what do we do with 'em once we got 'em?"  She couldn't imagine that they tasted too good.

(This post was last modified: Oct 30, 2021, 03:17 AM by Marguerite.)

The grasshoppers continued their incessant racket, and Archer's ears flattened as he glared at them even as Margo responded. She was quick to agree, much to Archer's amusement. He wondered if she'd be as easy as his brother. He sat and contemplated her question, eyeing her. "We could eat 'em - them," he said with a flash of irritation that he'd picked up her slurred word. "Or we could knock them around enough that they get the message."

Archer didn't think of himself as sadistic; he didn't enjoy the pain of creatures around him. But he did want to go to sleep, and these stupid little insects were causing him to suffer, so they could handle a little bit of rough housing. Especially if it gave him a sense of Margo's tendencies. Eros was easy to poke around because Archer knew which hairs to pull and when. Their half sister was a virtually unknown entity at this point.

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

I'm sorry for the wait :(

Well, maybe not anything. The child couldn't help but let her previous excitement visibly falter for just the briefest of moments. Eating the bugs would be one thing. You know, swift and painless if they did it right. Just probably pretty gross tasting. But knocking them around didn't really sound all too enjoyable to the emotional little pup. In fact, that sounded a lot like they might scare the little guys, and Margo hated feeling afraid so she could only assume that they would too. Not to mention the potential that their big paws could be a little too rough for their little frames and hurt the little things or something? But at the same time, they were just bugs. Wouldn't Archer roll his eyes if she expressed these kinds of feelings? But it wasn't like she had any better ideas, and she was extremely sleepy. Why couldn't they just be quiet? Didn't they know that making all of that noise this late at night could be considered rude to those around them?

"You think that would make 'em stop?" she responded, trying her best to maintain a positive, upbeat tone.

Something he'd said must have struck a chord, because Margo's excitement faltered. It lasted only the briefest of moments and Archer wondered if he'd imagined her reaction. What was it that had surprised her? Could it have been eating them? Eros would have agreed without hesitation - at least once upon a time, he would have, anyway - and it wasn't as though he'd proposed hurting them for fun.

When she asked her question he shrugged. "Could," he said. "You never know with bugs. They don't follow logic." Archer knew that he himself would have quieted down after getting shouted at. Well, it depended on who was doing the shouting and if he was trying to annoy them on purpose or not.

Were the bugs doing it on purpose? He didn't think so. He didn't think they were that smart. "We could always just carry them to the den and drop them in, see how many it takes to wake @Eros up too."

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

Bugs didn't follow logic?  Why did it seam like everyone else knew all of these things that Margo didn't?  Was there some sort of class that she had missed out on or something?  She'd watched bugs before and had never picked up on the fact that they don't follow logic, but Archer seemed really smart so she was definitely inclined to believe him on this.  Did other creatures have more intelligence?  Like for instance, did squirrels follow logic?  Did any of this even matter right now?  The Valle girl wasn't sure why such a small formation of words sent her thoughts whirling like this, perhaps it was the sleep deprivation.

What Archer said next shook Margo right out of whatever the heck that was.  A rather large grin formed on the child's maw.  It would be pretty silly to see how Eros reacted to something like that.  "Yes!!" She said almost a little too quickly.  "Oh, I mean... I think that would be really silly.  We should do that one." her grin turned small and shy.  "Wanna see who can catch the most the fastest?"

(This post was last modified: Jan 13, 2022, 11:45 PM by Marguerite.)