Lost Lake the jerry springer show

@Tauza, @Staleek, set the day after Bella joins SW so she's been gone about two days. Decided to bundle family-time with this thread - Bella will join later, to tell them what's happened & invite them to SW although I'm sure Tauzeek have other plans! Until then, some Tauzeekweed action?

As the sun set, and Duck peered at the warm colours falling in the west with bleary, tired eyes, a deadline was missed. She'd been gone more than a day now. She was just going to look for someone, she'd said, that man you met in the forest, you remember - and Duck had, but what could she need from that huge wolf? It had been clear they were close, but she hadn't explained herself. In fact, she'd seemed entirely distant and distracted, but she wouldn't explain why for that either. It was ever since that scary man had found them, which had heralded a faint panic in his mother but some kind of rebirth within Duck. He'd met @Gilligan because of that day, and he thought of the boy quite a lot, still amazed at how he had been treated... almost like an equal. For no reason other than Gil wasn't an asshole.

They'd been on the mountain long enough that Duck was getting fairly comfortable with it, and it was nice not to be at the behest of a pack, with all the social interactions and judgements that brought. He was able to come and go as he pleased, doing his best to avoid anyone else he came across, and for the most part was as content as he was ever likely to be.

There was only one problem - or two, rather. Tauza and Staleek were still with them, and they bed together some nights in the crude, temporary den the family had appropriated. It felt like home, the bad kind of home, where he expected to wake up and be a shadow amidst his own flesh and blood, a creature for his mother to pity, his father to ignore and his siblings to torment for their own amusement. The nights when his two siblings decided not to sleep at their den with their mother and Duck were peaceful and quiet. The other nights, Duck barely slept for anxiety, though they were rarely obvious with their cruelty in front of their mother.

But she hadn't come back. She'd been gone since the morning of the previous day, and could he really stomach the idea of a second night without her? They hadn't come back the night before, leaving the pale boy to sleep alone, which had been as relieving as it was terrifying, but what if they decided to bed here this time? Briefly he considered finding somewhere else to hide, but there was nowhere, nowhere which felt even nearly as safe as this dingy little hovel... so why did he feel so in danger?

Breath light, he watched the sun set, pleading with her to arrive before the darkness came, to be alive and safe but most of all, to be here.

She leaned forward to breath in his ear. "Do you think she's left us, Ducky" her simpering voice was like a croon as she followed his eyes out into the bleeding sky. The pale girl did not move forward to sit beside her brother as she would have with Staleek. Instead, she remained immediately behind him. Intimately close. Breathing down his neck.

Two days without mother was barely anything to Tauza and Staleek, but it was nearly the end of the world for the weed. She might not have even noticed the passing of time had he not remarked about it. The two real wolves were more than capable of cleaning themselves, drinking from the lake, and breaking the necks of whatever small creature happened to wander close enough. Was there anything else to life besides this? Certainly this had been how most of her life had gone. Training and sleeping and learning and fighting to survive. And as long as Staleek was somewhere nearby everything was perfectly fine. Just fine.

But she had watched the runty Duckweed scan the horizon endlessly. And she wondered if maybe there was more to life. Because it made no sense for him to burn a hole in the sky in this manner. Mom was coming back .... probably. And if she did not, well, then that was that. Duck would probably die. But everything else would be fine. Just fine.

"You worried we can't take care of you?" Her voice feigned injury.

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sry if they die it's my fault xC @Tauza

All the tension in his body unwound at the very instant he felt breath on his fur, and he recoiled from her presence almost violently - but not completely, for he knew better. The familiar tremble started at the base of his neck and ran like spiders down his spine, right down to his toes which shook, barely perceptibly. Tightly shut his eyes closed, his breathing moving swiftly from a panicked flutter to deep, slow, calculated breaths. He had no paper bags to help.

What do you want, he cried inside, why can't you leave me alone, I wasn't bothering you, I was avoiding you, leave me alone.

He hated her like this. She could play so sweet and coy but it was as transparent to Duck as could be; there was nothing Tauza could say or do which would hide the creature he saw, the creature she showed him on a regular basis. This meant that she was going to prolong it.

"You d-d-d-don't want to take ca-care of me," he said quietly, jaw clenched, eyes cracked open again but only to stare out at the horizon. He sat stiffly, hardly daring to move, her dragon breath burning a hole in the back of his neck. "I'm n-n-not in the m-mood to-to, today, Tauza. Pl-please." Why he did ever bother pleading to a demon? Sympathy wasn't a word in her universe. Like father like daughter.

There is a rabbit\'s nest nearby. +1 Health