Hearthwood River interchanging mind control

Is the first of a number of threads I shall be starting for dearest Bennet over the next few days. This one has tags for @Karina, @Atropos and @Kyrios because of where it's set, but can be considered AW depending on who might drop by~
Set sometime in the night in the den where the fam relocated to, with everyone present snoozin'.

Bennet was yet to say her first word.

That was not to say, however, that she was a quiet child. With every revelation of what sounds her face could make, the girl had reproduced them with endless enthusiasm, adding growls, yelps, barks, chirps, whines and high-pitched howls to her vocabulary. When her milk-mates chattered in their infantile manner, Bennet would gurgle along, making no attempt at forming sentences in the same way that they did. When names and words were cooed to her in an attempt to get her to repeat them, the child would rather hiss and bite and wriggle.

Her tiny black ears would perk at the sound of language, though, a small hint that she did understand, even if she resolutely refused to engage.


The den was dark and quiet. Pressed against the form of her mother and brother (who was always so much larger than herself, just like her other white sibling, but why?), Bennet laid silently in the dark, completely awake. It had been hunger which roused her in the dead of night, but after finding a teat to latch onto, had promptly decided no, she wasn't in the mood for that, and had shoved her mother's belly away from herself. With the rather significant size difference, all that had happened was she pushed herself away, her mother far too heavy to be moved by a wolf so tiny. And there she'd sat, arms still splayed forward from where she'd shoved her mother and been pushed backwards, her paws pressed against her mother's warm flesh.

And there she'd stayed, thinking.

It was completely, deadly silent. Too quiet. Bennet growled, one of her newer sounds, and felt contented by how the rough, rolling sensation filled her ears just as much as her throat. She liked the feel of sound, the vibrations in her neck, an experience she'd been unable to find in anything else. She liked how it filled her body, kinda like how her mother's milk did, a tingling which travelled from her throat and outwards. But feeding felt so different, and feeding too much made her feel bad in her belly. Making too much sound made her feel bad in her throat, her young vocal chords not ready for that kind of abuse.

She needed to find a way to fill herself that she could do endlessly, and it frustrated her immensely that she hadn't found it yet.

Somewhere in the dark, she felt something move, the whiskers on her face being tickled as one of the many nearby bodies adjusted themselves in their sleep. Her frustration mounted, and she growled a warning, but the movement didn't stop, so she decided to make it stop, and clamped her tiny, newly-formed teeth into her brother's overly-big white ankle.

It wasn't movement, nor sound that stirred the young boy in the night. Both of those were so common place that he hardly noticed anymore. No, what broke into his, otherwise pleasant, dreams, was a stab of pain shooting up through his back leg. Pale blue eyes flew open, and a yelp escaped the lad's mouth, quickly followed by a growl as he turned to face his attacker. Now, just like the noise-making and wiggling around, biting was a common practice of his dark sister's, usually he simply kicked back, still half asleep. But her teeth seemed to be getting sharper and snapping jaws stronger, this one hurt! The little wormling, as usual, showed no remorse for her actions, still happily clamped down o none delicious piece of leg. Kyrios rumbled a low warning deep in his throat, glaring at the offending, smaller pup. He had been having such a nice sleep! Leave it to his baby dragon of a sister to screw that up. "Nnnn…" He voiced, stretching to try and reach her nose with his own teeth. He didn't exactly wanna have to pry her off, but he felt a strong need to get his leg back. So he whined: "Beeeean!" Trying to keep his voice low so as to not wake the rest of the den; "Oow!" Word count: 220 ”Speech”

CaptDanger @DA & vw1956stock @DA

Something was astir, and Atropos was being unwillingly pulled from her slumber. She felt shifting beside her, a normal thing usually fixed with a kick of a leg or a refocused snuggling. Darkness was still her primary comfort, so she knew it wasn’t time to get up just yet. Sleep would have consumed her just as gently as it had been disturbed if there had been no further stimuli, but tonight it seemed that that would not be the case. A flurry of growls and yelps caused her ears to flick both annoyed and curiously in the direction of their origins. It was her brother’s voice that eventually convinced her that she would not get back to sleep without investigation.

Her brow furrowed sleepily as her eyes blinked away the blurry sleep. It was so dark, why were her siblings awake?? Her head lifted and saw the events that were unfolding. Black on black, Bennet had a hold of Kyrios’ leg. Why? She could not begin to comprehend; it happened so frequently between the three. Kyri was reaching his best for her nose with his maw open. Maybe this would end soon and sleep would return. She laid her head back down, rolling to her side, and using her limbs to stretch as strong as she could into Kyrios’ back, in an attempt to either push herself or him and his situation away from her. She groaned in protest at their late night play, unimpressed and decidedly uninterested. Sleep. Sleep would come soon.

I shall indulge Bennet and assume this means that @Karina hasn't been woken up yet ;)

The growl which rumbled out into the den in response to her attack was met with freshly invigorated waves of her own. She felt movement near her face, but it was too dark to see anything so she had to rely only on her ears and the tiny whiskers which decorated her face. They failed her; his teeth scraped against her dark nose and she squeaked in protest, releasing her grip on the white ankle and flinching back with a hiss. Her milk-mate's unmistakable voice cried out, and she recognised her name, but she was in no state of mind to properly process it. A single-minded and entirely stubborn puppy was most dangerous when she wasn't even entirely sure what she was trying to achieve.

Where @Kyrios tried to keep his voice down, Bennet had no such sensibilities, and sprang forward with renewed vigour with as loud a bark as her young lungs could manage. Sleep be damned! It was too quiet and she was too empty and her irrational vendetta against her milk-mate's leg would not be settled so easily. Smaller than her brother, Bennet tried to scramble up to snap at his ears but slipped and tumbled sideways into @Atropos' outstretched legs, the black girl wriggling and writhing with passionate and baseless but growing frustration.

Uninterrupted sleep was a concept from the distant past; a privilege Karina had once taken for granted. Even as she could feel the children stirring, she clung to sleep determinedly, hoping against hope that they would settle down on their own. She heard a few muffled squeaks and waited for the familiar feeling of a little nose searching through the fur of her underbelly. She was surprised after a moment when no child urged her to roll over.  Her curiosity tugged her reluctantly closer to consciousness, and she cracked one weary eye open. Her crystalline gaze tracked to a rustle of movement at the edge of the sleeping huddle. 

What she saw was a dark shadow-- one that could only be her own daughter—instigating a fight with her perturbed milk-siblings. A little dragon for certain, Karina thought to herself as she watched Bennet rear up and take a flying leap. She disguised her pride beneath a reproving growl, closing her jaws around Bennet’s ruff in a firm warning.  The smallest pup had just learned that she had the advantage if she attacked while her larger siblings were asleep, and Karina knew she would have many more wakeful nights if she didn’t stop this behavior right away.

   

    
 

Sorry for the hold up everyone <3 @Atropos is up

He managed to reach, giving his sister's nose a small but pointed squeeze, causing her to recoil. He was free! Quickly he pulled up his leg, bringing it safely away from the hungry mouth of the tiny dragon. Her teeth had left no lasting mark, and Ky would be more than happy to leave it at that, eyelids heavy with the sleep that he had been so unpleasantly drawn from. Atty was pushing against his back as well, indicating that she too would like peace to go back to sleep. But no dragon, however young, would take defeat easily, and despite her small size, the roar she emitted was rather booming this late at night in the tight space of the den. Kyrios groaned, flattening his ears back and reaching up to cover them with his paws, such managing to duck and avoid his smaller sister's second attack. Instead the dark form flew over him, landing in a heap on top of Atropos. Their brother cringed, a low whine of dismay escaping him, he always did his best to put himself between his two sisters, taking the blunt of Bennet's antics and shielding Atty. It pained him every time he failed. In the mean time, their antics had finally awoken their silver guardian and she was swift to strike down on the troublemaker. Kyrios watched with wide eyes as she took a hold of the dark pup, rumbling a sound of definite dismay. The buy tugged down further, ears sagging in defeat. "Sor-wyy!" He mumbled, truly destroyed that he hadn't been able to contain the girl on his own. He should have just let her chew on his leg in peace. Word count: 281 ”Speech”

CaptDanger @DA & vw1956stock @DA

A young deer has been separated from the rest of its herd. Hunt Opportunity

Unsurprisingly, the quarrel continued despite Atropos' disproval. It was not unheard of for Bennet to use any situation to her advantage, given her smaller size, but Atropos tended to be a fan of her sleep, and did her best to keep from being involved whenever possible. Darkness was sleep time, not play, something her younger sister had no understanding about, clearly. Fortunately, she was on the far end and only feeling the ripples of whatever was going on between her siblings. Perhaps if she just kept her eyes closed.. it would all end peacefully soon..

Atropos' eyes shot open at the tiny bark, all too late as the soot fur landed in a pile in her lap. That was the final straw! While no great pain came from the landing, the surprise and discomfort of being snapped from dreamland pulled a vicious yelp-bark from the Stark princess, clearly voicing her dismay at being included in the play. She sprung up at the same time, maw open and teeth grabbing for whatever she could. It turned out to be her sister's shoulder, but with her bodyweight on top of her legs, the Stark had difficulty reaching her. Her tiny growls would have to make up for her missed snaps until she could get to her.

She was continuously lunging and reaching for redemption when the greatest roar of disapproval came from the their mother overheard. Immediately Atropos ceased her rebuttals and her ears flattened to show her innocence, wagging her tail affectionately at @Karina. Bennet was swiftly stopped, and Atropos squirmed her legs out from underneath her unapologetically to further demonstrate that she had wished no part in these shenanigans. Justice! Sleep could finally return!

There was no longer any conscious decision-making behind her actions; Bennet had devolved into base instincts and pure irritation. Her sister protested at the interruption to her sleep but the sooty child cared not one jot, more than happy to include her milk-sibling into her circle of expressed frustration. She felt teeth in her shoulder and it only spurred her on, with growls and guttural sounds as her focus shifted to @Atropos, all wriggling and thwacking and biting anything she could reach - but then it was over.

Lost in her state, the sound of @Karina's great disapproval did not affect Bennet as it did the other two, cowing them into apologetic displays of professed innocence, but it did not matter; the girl felt a mouth much larger than her own on her scruff, and at once the nuisance was neutralised. Though rendered immediately and completely helpless by that one simple action, that tightness around her throat and head relaxing her limbs almost without her consent, it did not stop her from crying out in indignant protest, because all she had been trying to do was fill that void - and she still felt it as strong as ever! Why would they deny her these efforts to fill the hole? It was unjust!

But there was nothing she could do, and Bennet would settle down before too long, seething but quiet, compliant but utterly unhappy about it.

Possibly one more round? Or maybe just a @Kyrios post, since he seems to be the only pup still awake? I'd like to get one more Karina post in here, to make it to three before we archive.

Karina held onto her troublemaking daughter until the little ebony bundle fell quiet, her tiny muscles going limp. Bennet curled up into an indignant little ball once she was released, and Karina’s loving gaze lingered on the dark child for a long moment.  She was truly a gifted child—a quick learner— and already so different from her milk-siblings or any other pup Karina had ever known.  She turned back to alabaster twins to make sure they had resettled, and that no one would try to even the score once her back was turned.

Atropos was already falling asleep once more, enjoying the peaceful repose of a child who knew herself to be completely innocent.  Kyrios’s sweet little apology broke his foster mother’s heart, and she swept the boy in toward her chest with an outstretched paw.  He reminded her of the child-version of her brother Aleksei, who had taken it upon himself from a young age to protect Karina from their more boisterous brother, Orren.  Karina licked the boy rhythmically across his shoulders, hoping to sooth him back to sleep like his sisters.  She hoped for the sake of her own heart that the boy didn’t possess the same wanderlust as her older brother, because she wasn’t sure she could stand to lose Aleksei once again.  

(This post was last modified: Nov 07, 2016, 07:26 PM by Karina.)