Indra was growing well, for all intents and purposes.... but he was still small, unimpressive. Short, just like Tinesi, and where he had a pound or two on her, he was still... slimmer. Kailu was bigger, taller! Just a ratty little thing was the firstborn, but this suited him well enough - easier to hide away from prying eyes, he thought, to sneak around after the bugs he often liked to observe. His pale, mottled coat was growing long and soft, his eyes had ringed into new blues than his puppy one, and he was content with their quiet little life listening to Mum's stories and snuggling up in the den. Eating meat instead of drinking milk was fine and dandy, he thought, as long as Melanthe kept letting him sleep curled against her chest.

He had little interest in the pack around them. His family was all he needed.

His family and the bugs!

He didn't dare move far from the family den, knowing it was in sight behind him if only he cast those new blue eyes over a shoulder. But he was busy; slow, careful steps drew the lad forward in a clearly already practiced stalk, tail still behind him, head low, eyes honed on something in the cropped mountain grass as he inched forward. Something small, and dark, and with three sections of body and cute little legs poking out from like... everywhere! The ant was carrying a pine needle above it, which was still small, small, small to Indra but looked so much bigger than the little creature! Bugs were always doing all sorts of interesting things he could never dream of, but that was also just a part of nature.

The breeze ruffled his wispy fur gently, and Indra closed his eyes to relish in the caress of it. The ant vanished into the foliage. Indra cast his head in the direction the warm wind seemed to be pushing him and found himself stepping that way instead, and after only a few paces... he realized that there was something even stranger up ahead! A strange mound rising from the earth, little speckles of brown making up the hill.
And lots, LOTS of the little bugs were crawling in, crawling out, some carrying items and some not! Some carried other dead bugs -ewh- and some carried bits of twig, some carried leaves, some carried.... well, things he couldn't identify. But it didn't matter!

He could help.

Indra bounded away, went back into the den, and scooped the dead spider he had seen in the front corner of the den onto a leaf. It'd been sad, he thought, and he'd been looking for somewhere to bury it when the ant distracted him! But if there was anything Indra yet understood, it was the cycle of nature. Death was... an abstract concept; the prey Mum brought them to eat was dead, and one day, they would die too, like the spider on the leaf he carried now was.
But he'd never seen it. The child didn't understand that much, not really.
He only knew that in offering the old to the new, in putting to use that which was no longer, the ants could thrive! They would eat it, he thought - what else would they be taking dead things for? Did they eat the leaves, too? Were they building things? What were the sticks for?

Indra placed the leaf on the crest of the anthill, next to the big hole at the top every single one was coming in or out of. After a few moments, one came to check it out, and then another -- before the pale boy knew it, they were swarming over the leaf and inspecting the spider, some were even tearing chunks of the leaf off around the edges. Would they disassemble the spider, too?!

He watched, rapt, to see what the ants did next.