10/10/2025, 10:22 PM
cw: children in peril
that word was too hard to say. not-oba's eyes held a look that pup was unable to decipher. the ache in his stomach consumed even the tiniest thought, and he scratched at the ground a few more times. dimly he was aware of rain, falling hard around he and the other. rain was as the seawater to pup, and a new impression came to him, a colorful memory of waves not unlike the ones from which he had crawled.
hunger forced another sound of misery from his throat. sekka's nose came down, brushing the boy with the warmth of breath now familiar, made more sharply so by pup's desperation. jaws closed around his middle like
sister running running running squeezing too tight too tight in her fear
pup had squalled. the teeth had loosened apologetically. sister meant no harm.
sister had been scared for herself and for them. day was wet as this one. voices shouting behind. not a year separated she from brother's age. little brother. when her mother had cried out, the girl had not waited. pup in her mouth. running. running.
maybe she had been afraid of hurting brother again. pup remembered the uncomfortable pinch of fangs on his neck, paining him as sister hauled upward. but he had not squealed then. he had been too tired, too frozen by the currents of fear that ran from sister to brother and back again, an ouroboros of confused animal horror.
then nothing. then spinning darkness and nothing.
more tightly held, the rain came down upon him too. pup was losing his warmth, and whimpered. yet he had been here once before; he knew to hold still and silent, shivering a little with the deluge's breath and with the memories which were not words -- sight, pressure, color -- terror.
his blue eyes closed so he would not see the rock face lurching above, or the way his feet dangled too high off the ground. pup was learning to count his own breaths.
hunger forced another sound of misery from his throat. sekka's nose came down, brushing the boy with the warmth of breath now familiar, made more sharply so by pup's desperation. jaws closed around his middle like
sister running running running squeezing too tight too tight in her fear
pup had squalled. the teeth had loosened apologetically. sister meant no harm.
sister had been scared for herself and for them. day was wet as this one. voices shouting behind. not a year separated she from brother's age. little brother. when her mother had cried out, the girl had not waited. pup in her mouth. running. running.
maybe she had been afraid of hurting brother again. pup remembered the uncomfortable pinch of fangs on his neck, paining him as sister hauled upward. but he had not squealed then. he had been too tired, too frozen by the currents of fear that ran from sister to brother and back again, an ouroboros of confused animal horror.
then nothing. then spinning darkness and nothing.
more tightly held, the rain came down upon him too. pup was losing his warmth, and whimpered. yet he had been here once before; he knew to hold still and silent, shivering a little with the deluge's breath and with the memories which were not words -- sight, pressure, color -- terror.
his blue eyes closed so he would not see the rock face lurching above, or the way his feet dangled too high off the ground. pup was learning to count his own breaths.
