Worldpooling....

I'll post something eventually... my muse is being less than productive...

Awesome art!   

Serval, this is AWESOME!!       Wonderful job!!

Merci~!

Grumpysleepymuse is... a doorstop.

Altered Origin Story to explain my AU.

We leave the logic at the door.  This is bat country, thankee sai.




**We are all connected, all one. All beings that breathe and the worlds they walk upon are made of the cries of newborn stars. The universe is a living being, and everything within the molecules that form it.**

Someone had said that to her once. Or perhaps she had said it to another. Sent it. She couldn’t remember. It was so long ago. The memories were made fuzzy by her new form, tangled with that of her own, her true. The old times, traveling in the dark between the stars. Not these new times, with winds made sharp with shards of ice prickling her eyes, making them water, tears freezing on her lashes. The depths of space never seemed so cold as this, for there they were safe and sheltered within the shell of their egg, not bare exposed to the world.

She could not know that in a distant future there would be a myth of the universe being born of a great egg in the darkness. The stars hatched in a shower of light, the shell crumbling into the myriad worlds stretching into infinity.

All she knew was the now, the cold of the ground beneath her body, ice crunching in her fur as she stood on weakening legs. Wind howling through barebones trees like a starving wolf. She turned her head towards her people, huddled around a weak fire, the strongest adults sheltering the weakest and the children against the sharp winds with their bodies. The ragged skins and furs they hid beneath were as snow-crusted as her own shaggy pelt.

So many hard winters since they’d come to this world. Since the first of them, her own dear Adya, had spirit torn from flesh. The first of many deaths to follow at the hands of the grunting, savage five-fingered beasts they encountered. Ima. Tislin. Haken… Since they had been betrayed, stranded, frightened and scattered.

They had found each other again, somehow, bonded together desperately. And children had been born… and had died. Their numbers were larger than when they had come, but for how long? She was not sure how many seasons had passed since the growing cold pushed them further from their starhome. Forced them to become one with this world or die. That children had even been born after so much time was a wonder, but… what was the good of it all if they lived only to suffer and die?

And what of herself? What more could be done? She had done all she could think of. She had forced her body into the shape of the hunting beasts she had watched for seasons, trying to learn how they survived in this harsh place so her own might survive as well. She brought her people food as often as she could find it, despite their resistance at first.

From the circle of her people came the soft, mewling cry of a hungry elf-child, then the distressed coo of its mother trying to comfort it. There was no food to be had. Not unless she did something.

Shaking the ice from her coat, she slipped away from the starving camp, and set herself to hunt.


For every success it seemed the time between grew longer and the prey grew smaller. A single ravvit was simply not enough to feed her tribe. The entirety of her kill was doled out among the children while hunters braced themselves to go out as soon as the latest snows let up. She did not choose to wait, relying on her pelt to keep her warm against the white cold, even if the body beneath had grown thin and pinched with hunger herself. Better to die on the hunt, trying, then to wait and watch the others…

Silver-grey vanished into the whirl of winter’s breath.

The mind of the wolf tangled with the elf, subdued it, allowed her to walk through the pain, fierce with the need to survive. She knew not how long she walked, how long she wandered hunting. She heard the barking of other wolves nearby. Her feet burned, pads leaving bloody tracks in the ground. A step forward, and her front legs gave beneath her. She stumbled, then sank down into a snow drift, unable to rise again. Her thoughts were to her people, waiting for her to return. One of the other hunters, surely, would go out. Find something. If they would not be found first. If they---

The sound should have brought more fear, but she didn’t have the strength to be afraid. Boots in snow, crunching towards her. Heavy, human footfalls. She could see the owner through dimming vision, wrapped in bear fur, bearing a spear. So, this was to be how she would find home again, after so many eons? As her mate had died, so would she, at the hands of a human hunter…

Hands…

A hand, five-fingered, stroked her side, smoothing her coat, feeling over her protruding ribs. A second set of footfalls stopped beside her. Then they spoke to each other. She couldn’t understand the soft grumblings, but knew one was a female by the softer tone. The one touching her. The one with the spear.

/Not yet gone. Can still save./

/No. Wolf of the Others./

/No./

/She is Others./

/She is beautiful. But close to the Dark. Will save her. Keep her./

/He will not allow./

/Not let the Dark have her./

The spear did not descend. Her blood did not flow. Instead arms lifted her, held her close, and she did not die. Arms carried her, and the sound of barking wolves grew louder. Arms carried her, and the smell of human bodies and fire grew strong in her head, drawing a whine from her lips. And still she did not die. Arms carried her into shadow lit with firelight, and full of the smell of stone ancient and needles freshly crushed. Arms lay her by blazing warmth, while the owner, the human female, set to arguing in snapping tones with a larger male. And still she did not die. For the human male, the tribe’s chief, gave in to his daughter.


The humans had cared after their own small pack of wolves for generations now. Wolves that hunted with them, protected them, warned them against raids by the Outsider tribes, those savage creatures so similar to them that the males could plant the seed of children in the women they attacked, but yet were so alien and spoke only in broken grunts and gestures. And they feared the great wolves, wild and kept by the tribe.

This wolf, this silver-grey female. She was not of the wild packs. She was of the Others. Creatures they had no words for, and who they shied from even as the creatures shied from them. Creatures of smoke and shadow, though they knew the Dark came to settle upon them as they did all living beings in time.


The wolves ignored her, or sniffed and snorted, returning, tails wagging, to their humans. Strange, she thought, for the warmth returned some of her strength to her, these humans and their wolves and their ways. Not like those who had slaughtered her people on their arrival to this hostile little world. These were…. Different.

There was little to spare, but the chief’s daughter tended her diligently, determined to make this wild one her wolf. Her companion. There was magic in her if she came from the Others, she was sure. Her silver could not die.

Timmain’s mind went to her people as her strength regained. The wolves of the humans would not accept her as one of their own. They let her be, but she was driven back if she tried to join their hunts. They sensed something about her… The humans, too, were still wary, though the girl, her girl, whispered strange words meant to be comforting as she stroked her fur, rubbed her ears to keep the bite of the cold away, and massaged sore, healing paw pads.

Timmain watched them hunt, and thought of her own people. She fed on the scraps, felt them learn to trust her, show tolerance with a rough ruffle of her fur, or rub of her head. She would not steal, would not raid from them. Not break that trust. They had helped her. But she needed to--


The morning they awoke to find her gone brought a brief search, but nothing more. She had returned to the Others, they were sure. The chief’s daughter was inconsolable, but slowly accepted. Wolves were wolves, and sometimes they returned to being wolves. They went to the forest from whence they came.


Timmain found her people surviving, barely. It had been a short time, truly, and there had been hunts, but not enough. Lives had melted into shadow. Eyes turned on her, on her wrapped feet and the scent of smoke in her coat. She saw the hurt, the disappointment, the desperation. And she thought, deeper than a wolf could. She thought, and heard the whimpers and cries. And she decided.


The snowfall was light, enough to mask her approach. The wolves let her though, though it was not without a warning bark from the Alpha. Not at her, but at the fur-wrapped bundle on her back.

She had heard the word before, but only now understood it. Others. They said it over and over as they pointed to the starving child that clung to her shoulders, shivering with empty eyes. A child of the Others. She had brought a child to them. A risk, she knew, but… without…. If she did nothing, the boy was soon to die.

Others. Child of the Others. Other’s child.

A child.

Were they of the Outsiders, they would have slaughtered the boy. But they would have slaughtered her, too, on finding her in the snow. She had to risk that as they helped her, just a beast freezing and starved in the snow, that a child, helpless and dying…

An old woman, moved close, and she did not move, just sent to the frightened child to be calm. To not fear, not scream as the woman’s rough fingers stroked over his small cheek, traced under his huge grey eyes, then lifted the feather-light body from her back and carried it into the caves. Timmain followed silently, but was stopped by her girl, who shook her head slowly.

The chief glared, stared at the milk pale boy with pointed ears, four-fingered hand curled around the thumb of the elder. The rest of the tribe slunk out of the caves as the two stared at each other silently until they were alone.

The sound of grunting disagreement reached every ear, rising, falling… then silence. The child sent to her, then. Confusion and fear. Strong fingers sunk into her fur as she lunged forward, pulling out tufts that hung in the air. She entered the cave in time to see the chief raise a large stone above his head and bring it down.

The crack of bone being crushed echoed in the cave like shattering glass.

The rock discarded, the chief picked at the fragments of broken bone, holding up a shard still clinging with marrow. The old woman took it from his fingers, and held it to the lips of the elf-child who sucked at it reluctantly at first, then eagerly.
In the end, the chief could not surrender a child to the Dark, even one of the Others.

Timmain felt her heart warm with hope for the first time in an age.


Ice caves had long since been abandoned in favor of the copses of trees at the edge of the great plains. Timmain watched the grass wave in the wind, hearing the laughter of children, five fingered and four, as they played at tag with wolf pups. Elsewhere young hunters were crafting spears and chattering. It had been hard to overcome, the language barrier, but no more so than the fear of each other. But once that fear had melted to understanding... No longer the Others, but Children of the Fallen Star. Tolerance was born, then cooperation. In time the tribes became one, hunting together, growing strong as they moved south in search of lands away from the ice, the savage Outsiders, and the Dark. Children were born and they lived.


Old, stiff fingers stroked Timmain’s silver mane as they had once brushed through her rough fur in younger days long past.

“Our hair is of a color.”

The old chief was long gone into the Dark, and his daughter was old, her position given over to her son turns ago. She was now the wise-woman of the tribe, the wolf-woman who bonded with the woman-wolf who brought true magic to their lives. And yet life went on, though often extended by the mending touch of four-fingered healers who brought the inured back from the brink when they could, but could not still the slow march into shadow of their five-fingered tribesmen.

“The Dark comes for me soon, star sister.”

“Do not say that.”

“Why? Is not bad. Am not afraid. You are of this world, Dark will come. You are alive, Dark will come. Even if you come from the stars. You are of this world.”


This world. Children were born to replace those who died in the harsh surviving, the famines and the long winters and hard goings. Children human and elfin, who knew no time before the joining of the tribes as one. Children who lived and did not look to the stars, but to the land as their home. Children who would become parents. And in time, children would split off to find other hunting and other land as numbers grew. To explore the world together. In time, she wondered, would this world be filled with the children of her people just as surely as it would be with those of the humans as the shadows in the scroll had shown? In this world where the Dark was king?


Perhaps. Perhaps it would be. But for now, now was all that mattered. Four fingers curled around five, and together sisters of star and earth watched the children of the tribe, the future, stretch out ahead of them in the Light.

*escapes the padded cell*

Captain Grumpypants vs. The Breeter of Doom....




The band of silk that kept him in blissful darkness was of a slightly rough weave. Not enough to be uncomfortable, but enough to make him want to reach up and adjust it. Strong hands holing his wrists down with gentle firmness prevented that, however, and he focused his attention, instead, on what the second pair of hands were doing. These hands were delicate, each touch a butterfly kiss as they slid up his calves, trailing a musky oil over his flesh. Softer than the silk as they moved back down, one cradling his heel, the fingers of the other tracing the tendons across the top of his foot, to his toes, sliding under to stroke slowly, sensually, at the arch, setting off a spark of sensation, far beyond a mere tickle. He couldn’t remember the start of this game, but now every sense was in overdrive as he squirmed back against the wall of muscle holding him steady.
He startled when a tongue tickled his fingertips. Strange, he thought, rough. Up and down, suckling on them… He drew back, though, when sharp teeth began to nibble at them.
His reward was an eight of razor sharp claws sinking into his hand along with the teeth.

Pain raced from wounded hand to brain with the speed of skyfire, ripping him from the dream and slamming him face first into reality. His reaction was immediate and reflexive, ripping his hand away from the attack and swinging back down. Only his confusion and his assailant’ reflexed prevented the outcome from being anything more than a near miss as coherence gradually set in.
Now fully awake and upright, Wyl gingerly rubbed the punctures and scratches adorning his hand and glared with baleful eyes at the ball of cream and gray fur that sat by his knee, returning his gaze with eyes as hard and blue as glacial ice. He knew that look.
Feed the cat. Now.
Windchaser. His daughter’s precious and extremely evil cat. A cat capable of cowing his lupine companions into a corner. A cat who had destroyed three bowstrings, countless fletching, and the laces to every pair of boots and sneakers he owned. He didn’t hate the cat despite that. Not really. He just wasn’t too overly fond of her. Especially not at the moment.
“You’ll get your food... after I get dressed…” his voice was a low growl, brown eyes locked on blue, neither giving. Until he realized some of the wounds were deep enough to have begun to bead blood. Great. As if his day wasn’t already going to be painful enough.
Knocking the cat to the floor with a toss of his legs, he slowly ambled upright and dragged towards the bathroom. He needed a shower. His mind flickered back to the dream, pre-catbite, and he felt his cheeks color a bit. A cold shower.
It was going to be a long day.

He should never have gone down to the snake’s office, but he was feeling a mix of belligerent and over confident, thinking he could take her on with no problem that day. Thinking it would be something simple like demanding he extract some quick piece of schlock for the house’s splatterpunk rag, he braced for conflict he was sure would end in her getting a story out of him… but not without a fight. . He wasn’t going to just roll over and give her what she demanded. It was the demanding part that got to him. He actually enjoyed writing stories that got comments of “ew, gross!” from even his kids.
He was fairly sure he was the only writer of all of Blue Mountain’s catalog who wasn’t frightened of Winnowill, and was willing to go toe to toe with her over what he wanted.
She blind-sided him this time, though. He went in ready to throw a hundred bad ideas at her that she’d throw back into his face, and on they’d go.
Well, that’s what he got for thinking ahead.
No, she wanted him to do a signing. Small bookshop. One town over. He was getting tired of this. She was rather annoyed at his… failure to realize his potential. She tried constantly to convince him with backhanded comments. His skills were worthy of the big screen, but he was governed by his small-time mentality. Content with the success he had.
And he was.
He found no appeal in the flash and dazzle of popular visual media. The extent of visual he delved into was the occasional dabble into still photography. He’d gained an appreciation of the art from—

A quick send as he ruffled his hair dry with an oversized towel told him everyone was already out of the house. Not that he didn’t know this. Both of his children had school, and his lifemate had a… meeting… with some… client… two cities over… leaving him alone with…. The cat….
….and the pest now…. Buzzing… around his head…. And singing.
Yeah, this day was going to be a trial of his patience. Which was getting shorter and shorter with every breet-a-deet.

Picking through his closet, he tried to ignore the screeching of the bug buzzing around him as he dressed, chattering incessantly about nothing and everything and making his skull throb. The stupid thing had been gifted to his son by one of the boy’s friends, who he later found out was under order to get rid of it himself. So they ended up with it. Its actual name was Bumble, but Wyl was content to refer to it as the NeoPres Nightmare. He wasn’t totally sure what twisted lunatics figured out how to clone Preservers, nevermind larger, but he wanted to meet them. And beat them to death with a rusty nailbat. Preservers belonged in the medical industry, to military, and science. Being useful, lifesavers. They did not belong mass-generated as fashionable companions to the people who had the money to buy them. It was wrong.
Nevermind being extremely detrimental to the mental stability of people who hated the obnoxious insectoids. Like himself.
So now, to sum up his morning, his hand was throbbing from the cat attack, making doing up the laces of his doublet a painfully slow process, his head was hurting from the preserver’s singing, and he still had a day of dealing with questions about his writing process that he was positive would lead to a burning homicidal rage that he couldn’t unleash roiling in his chest ahead of him.
He could feel the burn starting the third time he had to redo his eyeliner because his hands were shaking from restraint. And that was with the bug locked outside the bathroom. It was the incessant chirping and chattering to be let in that was fueling it.
At least going to this stupid book… thing…. would get him away from it.

“Go away” was a phrase, he’d learned, that was not in the lexicon of most preservers. Especially where “High-things” were concerned. He thought they were conditioned from hatching to obey, but had been told that they were conditioned to be helpful, not just obey. So telling one to go away was not being helpful. And unfortunately this one had caught on to his asking to go wrapstuff small dogs in the neighborhood. It came back “much vexed” after getting hit with a power washer for wrapping up the yapper down the block and showed it in true preserver fashion. Wyl was an hour combing the sticky webbing out of his hair with Dia’s help.
No time to risk that level of mess now. Just ignore it…
He let the kitchen door swing back on it, hearing a leathery thump, and smiling to himself. It darted through on the next swing, flying into his face, chattering its annoyance at him.
His frustration meter went into the red.
He was DONE. Grabbing the little creature, fingers over its mouth, he slammed it into the blender, popping the lid on. It fluttered around wildly, pushing at the lid. Wyl’s lips curled into a deadly smile and he shook his head, letting his fingers run over the buttons.
“You. Will be. QUIET. I hear a squeak out of you, and I hit the smoothie button. Got it?”
Bumble nodded rapidly and went quiet.
Turning away from the blender, Wyl leaned back against the counter and sighed, enjoying the morning silence. His ears were ringing deep in his skull from the preserver’s voice, and he reveled as it slowly faded. Apparently deciding to threaten the little monstrosity with imminent death was the key to peace and sanity.
He was busy making a quick breakfast, two slices of dark brown bread dropped into the toaster while he hunted jam in the refrigerator. Just a quick breakfast. He didn’t have any time for much more considering how late he’d slept, and how long it took to get ready.
He didn’t hear the door whisper open a crack. He certainly never heard the soft footfalls on the kitchen tile. Or the soft thump of paws as they jumped up onto the counter. Soft paws that padded at the agitated bug in the blender, wings fluttering against the sides of the pitcher. That fluttering was all he heard.
But he turned just in time to realize that maybe his decision wasn’t so great after all... In that last moment right before everything went horribly wrong.
In retrospect he’d think maybe the microwave would have been a better idea.

“WINDCHAS—” was all he got out… before his morning went from bad to a nightmare out of one of his own short stories.

Less than two weeks ago, he’d walked into the kitchen to… there still weren’t words for the disaster. Dyrr and some of his friends were raiding the kitchen. Every cabinet was open. Every surface was covered in something either slimy, sticky or a mix of the two. When Wyl walked in, one of them was trying to jam an entire bowl of fruit into the blender, putting all his weight on the lid while holding down the button, causing belches of liquid to spew up over the sides onto the counter.
Taking a single step into the kitchen, Wyl put his bare foot down on a dropped raw egg, feeling the shell further crush under his pad, the slippery yolk squishing up between his toes.
“What. The. FUCK.”
Dyrr looked up from making a towering sandwich and caught his father’s gaze, the eyes darting from one boy to the next, down the line, and finally settling on him. There was a faint red glow at the center of his pupils that… well…. Yeah, this wasn’t good.
“Guys. I think we need to—” Geoki, his best friend since he could remember, elbowed him with a dopey grin on his face.
“Dude, your dad swore!”
“Geo—”
“That’s, like, the most I’ve EVER heard him say…!”
That’s when the kid making the fruit mes lost his grip. The blender tipped over and barfed lumpy orange froth all over the counter and onto the floor. Wyl’s vision went RED and his lips pulled back from his teeth.

Wyl really didn’t remember much after that save walking back in later and the boys had almost finished cleaning up the room. In perfect silence.

It all happened in a breath. A blink
He never noticed how far away from the refrigerator the kitchen counter seemed. Not when there was a cat on it. A cat who was standing on the blender buttons, pawing at the preserver inside the mixer.
His fingers wrapped around her chest just a second after her weight depressed one of the buttons.
There was one other thing he’d never noticed, not being a major kitchen denizen. He didn’t notice the blender pitcher had cracked from the force Dyrr’s friend had put on it while trying to blend. Not a huge crack, not enough to really be obvious… but enough to ensure the lid didn’t quite fit right anymore.
There was a hideous wet scream from the counter, and he dropped the cat, almost threw her across the room, turning back to the blender, staring at the swirling mass of color in frozen horror.
The seal between lid and pitcher chose that moment to fail.
He felt something warm splatter across his face and chest. Something dripped from his bangs, down the side of his face. What hadn’t hit him had made a mess of the walls in a swirling spray.
It was impressive how much... blood... was in such a tiny body.

There was no time to clean this up. At all. Wyl simply closed his eyes and reached out with numb fingers to press the off button on the blender, feeling the pressure increase behind his eyes.

He felt Windchaser winding around his legs.
Behind him, he heard the toast pop up as a car horn honked.

Winnowill had sent one of her peons, a junior editor by the name of Kureel, to drive him over. Really to babysit and ensure he actually showed up. He’d been at the curb no longer than a minute, honking only once before he saw the writer stride stiffly out of his house in a whirl of anachronistic velvet and suede and down the walk towards him. He could see the scowl from a mile away.
He was looking down at his phone, sending Winnowill a message to let her know they were underway as Wyl got into the car, slumping down. Kureel was no big fan of the writer. Their attitudes clashed impressively among OTHER issues they had with each other.
“They’re expecting us to be on time. Let’s g—” Kureel’s jaw fell. Patches of Wyl’s russet hair was stringy with something… sticky looking, darkening it. Similar was in long splatters across the sleeves of his loose jade green shirt, and hints of it gleamed still-wet on the dark velvet and brocade doublet. One cheek was smeared with the stuff, and across his nose bridge and other cheek, it was stippled like little freckles.
“What…”
**Drive.**
Kureel ignored the hard send. There was something in Wyl’s hair. Something crumpled. Before Wyl could pull away, Kureel reached up and plucked what he thought was a dead leaf from the other elf’s hair. Strange. It looked like—
“Is this… a butterfly wing?”
**DRIVE.**

The “splatter gore” look he’d donned had garnered mixed reactions from amused awe, to wrinkled noses. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew this day was going to end up in a story somehow. One way or another.

When he got home, he pointedly avoided the kitchen and headed straight upstairs to rest, unbuttoning his doublet and pulling it off, tossing it into the hamper in the bathroom as he stopped to wash his face The blood had dried into a strangely tacky substance, like half-dried glue, and he thought maybe the vest might be a total loss. It was just... unpleasant on his skin.

The house was almost painfully quiet as he entered the bedroom, and he felt the guilt setting in as he toed off his boots. He really hadn’t meant for this to happen. He wouldn’t really have blended the bug himself. Maybe boxed and posted it to another continent, but… He hadn’t anticipated Windchaser getting up there and—
Sighing, he lay back on his bed and looked at the ceiling. Trying to decide how he was going to explain to his family what happened. Best to be direct and honest, as usual. And try to keep it quiet. Despite his appearance of the day. Everyone thought it was makeup, anyway. So, that reduced his chance of ending up on cruelty charges and having to sit in jail for who knows how long over the whole incident. He sensed he wouldn’t survive long behind bars. A week at most.
Pushing himself upright, he ambled towards the bedroom door, resigning himself to going and cleaning the kitchen of the remaining blood before it set up totally and couldn’t be removed without a knife.
Sharp teeth suddenly sank into his ankles, claws digging into his foot. He didn’t even have the energy to yelp.
Oh. Yes.
That’s right.
In all the chaos, he’d forgotten.
He’d forgotten to feed the cat.
Sighing, he shook her loose and headed downstairs to open a can for her, and start the scrubbing before—
“Dad? Hey, you home? I—WOAH. What happened in HERE?”
He was sure one day he’d look back on all this and laugh, but for now… for now…
For now he had to find the words.

Before:


After:

First time I realized there was animation out there that wasn't for "kids" was this...  And oh how I rejoiced when I got to see the NON-edited for TV version....

         


LOVE them ALL!

I've never seen the Moonshade/Strongbow one before, and I am in      

Wyl: <Insert 20 minute rant that boils down to "People SUCK.">

Dia:  *has inherited her mother's sigh*

*squeals!*

Delightful!!!

*twirlyhugs Serval*

I love it! I love it!

....in the realms of "This can't end well..."  and "...brace yourself, the ugly's about to start..."

Oh High Ones save my precious ribs from breaking from laughing so hard!!

               

...ohai.

OK...this whole thread reeks of Awesomeness!!!

Just AWESOME!!!

Merci minna-san~! *legcircles and purrs*

The shriek was shrill and echoed through the house. Eyrn barely had time to blink and set her cup down before the small girl burst into the kitchen, tucking herself behind her mother’s legs.

“Terror bird! The terror bird is gonna get me! Is gonna EAT me!”

**WY—** She began, but didn’t finish as a towering mass of shaggy blue-black and grey feathers burst hissing into the kitchen, swooping low to grab at the little elf-girl, who shrieked again. Eyrn folded her arms across her chest and glared not into the empty sockets of the bleached skull, but into the copper eyes hidden beneath the beak.

“Wylhaen Amhanyil Yves, you stop scaring your daughter with that horrid costume!” She saw the expression on her lifemate’s face go from mischievous to the pout he only ever used with her, one that shaved off his years, made him seem a little boy for a moment.

**She’s not really scared of it, are you, Dia?** Both looked down to the little girl who was cowering behind her mother. In a blink she had darted out and was attached to his leg, giggling.

“Caught a bird! Got ya! Now you hafta fly me ALL over the world!”

**See?** Wyl looked at her with a wry little smile as he leaned down and scooped the girl into his arms, wrapping his wings around her. She clambered up and onto his shoulders, playing with the feathers, and fluttering her tiny fingers over the resin skull. **We’re just playing. Do you think I’d actually do anything to really scare her?**

“Of course not. Not deliberately. But if your game gives her nightmares—”

**—Then I’ll sit up with her. You know I don’t sleep the night anyway. But she wanted to see it. She’s not afraid of it.** As if to prove him right, the little girl began to tap out a tattoo on the skull. His smirk spread, then melted to a sweet smile that was all sugar and spice and innocent as the day was long. **You know I still need your help to finish it, though. Please?**

She melted every time he smiled like that.

“I know, beloved. And I will. I just don’t see why you—”

**Because I apparently HAVE to show up at her ridiculous party and the theme IS birds. Her and her birds. She’s as mad as them.**

“Birds, yes, but a carrion bird? And a dead one at that?”

**You expected me to want to go as a chattering cage-bird? **

“Hardly.” In fact, the thought made her chuckle. The very idea of her lifemate dressed in a cloak of rainbow feathers…! “Although you do have such a lovely singing voice, which you SHOULD use more often.”

The suggestion drew a snort out of Wyl, but she caught the slight blush that colored his cheeks. For someone who hated to talk and grumbled and growled when he did, he could sing down the stars… but refused to believe he sounded like anything more than an old crow. Now it was her turn to smile her most mischievous smile.

“I know. You can sing for me while I work on this.” His face fell and the flush deepened from faint pink to a warm red. She leaned in as he flustered in her trap, going up on her toes a little almost nose to nose with him under the skull. “Well?”

A cry from upstairs saved him having to respond to her idea. She saw him relax, blush draining his cheeks back to normal save a faint flush of relief that traveled up into his eyes to make them sparkle.

“Our son is awake.”

Little Dyrr was crying full throat. The child was all-or-nothing. Either silent or screaming his lungs out. The corner of Wyl’s mouth quirked upwards as he took one of Dia’s hands as she pulled too hard at the feathers of his headdress.

**Still in awe that Recognition struck twice so fast. Wonder how many we’ll have by the time it’s done with us?**

“Sssht. Don’t encourage it. I need a break from carrying babies for a while. I have human friends who had a hard enough time going nine moons. Twenty four—!” Wyl laughed at that. And earned himself a playful punch in the chest from Eyrn’s fist.

**I’ll go see what he—**

“Not like that you won’t!”

Wyl blinked rapidly at the stern look on Eyrn’s face, her fists resting petulantly on her hips. There was no true dominance, just an amused warning. Still unsure, he kept staring until she sighed, reaching up to tap the top of the bird’s bill with a fingertip, then his nose.

“Him you WILL scare with this thing. Take it off. I’ll take it to my studio and see what I can do to work what you want on it.

**Oh. Right.** This time his blush tinted his ear-tips as he slung Dia down off his shoulders and shrugged out of the cloak of feathers, disengaging the heavy skull carefully. His hair fell around his face in a tangled halo of black-streaked mahogany that she couldn’t resist reaching out to smooth. She let her fingers stray to behind his ears, and like clockwork, his eyes lidded slightly as she stroked over the skin from jeweled lobe to the curve of his jaw with her nails.

Such a cat, her dear Wyl.

She slipped her fingers around to stroke his cheek, thumb brushing across his nose bridge as she touched his mind with hers with the gentleness of a feather.

**Go see what our son wants.**

He nodded, looking cat-with-canary content. He swept Dia up onto his shoulders in a single motion, her shrieking laugh drowning out the toddler’s cry for a moment. She grabbed two handfuls of his hair as handles as he gripped her legs..

**Come on, moonflower, lets go see what your brother wants of us.**

In a second they had whirled out of the room and Eyrn listened to the sounds of family before moving back to gather up the bird-skull cloak Wyl had shed like some mythical beast. Her daughter’s shrill giggles, her young lifemate’s occasional bark of laughter, her little son’s wails as they raced to tend his needs. Sounds more precious to her than breath.

After a few minutes, the crying stopped and she received a tickling send that little Dyrr just needed a change and a cuddle and he’d be settled again, at least for a few hours until he got hungry or lonely again. Hugging the vulture costume to her chest, she sent placidly for him to join her in her studio when he was done, then quietly left the kitchen to begin her work.

Look, Kin-chan!  I finished the first panel!

*happy dance*

O.O


MOREMOREMOREMORE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


You need to slap me around in the chatbox! >< I totally missed the first panel!! OMG please tell me there's another one that is going to follow this! This is just too damn cute!!

      

Holy Laughing Stocks Batman...that Bearclaw / Strongbow job cartoon is a classic!!!

I can't stop laughing!!

Bawhahaha priceless!

SQUIRREL!

Decora/FRUiTs innocent with a dash of PLUR and flower child for good measure.

      

LOVE IT!!

  That skirt looks like it took forever to draw!