Flicker of New Life [Open]

[Twilight]

It was warm. It was safe. It was familiar.

The darkness was all this canine knew, it was all she had seen since she was aware of her own existence. Her paws, her legs, her tongue and her teeth. She could feel the warmth around her and occasionally she would feel the touch of something...soft? Squishy? She couldn't quite pinpoint a word to describe the inside of her cocoon. Suddenly there was a sickening sense of falling and a thump as she hit the ground, impact cushioned by the cocoon. There was a hunger and a need to move around. She pushed at the inside of her cocoon and eventually the claws on her paws poked through and tore an opening.

Blinded by the light that flooded in, the brown and white canine pulled herself up and took a step out of her cocoon, quickly falling down as she was not used to supporting her own weight on her paws. She carefully regained her footing and looked around, "Why is everything so... bright?" she asked, talking to no one in particular as her eyes attempted to adjust to the brightness of the world around her.

[Meesh]

Silva was sprawled in the orchard, paws waving idly in the air, belly up, and fast asleep. She had been wandering through the new hatching pods all day, happily meeting new canines and felines as they hatched, and she was exhausted. But there were still a lot of pods left in the clearing, and the canine was determined to stay until all of them had fallen before going home to pack territory. Sometimes, she felt like it was symbolic- for the oldest (that she new of) canine to go and meet the newest. Either way, it was fun.

A crack made her golden eyes open wipe. In a flash, she was on her feet. A large black canine, nearly a head taller than anyone but her best friend, Nerah, with midnight black fur going all over her thickly muscled body. She didn't know why she was so big, exactly, only on two separate occasions, she and her friend Nerah had suddenly grown in size and build, changing forms until they were this huge new wolflike species. She scented the air, ears twitching, before her paws lead her to the base of the tree where a pod quivered, about to drop.

She waited with excited eyes. Her patience was soon rewarded when the pod quivered and fell from the skies, landing with a thud on the ground. A crack appeared, and soon, a brown and white canine wriggled out. 'Why is everything so bright?' that question came from the newborn canine, pushing herself to her paws.

Silva dashed over, tail wagging happily. Despite her wagging tail, her voice was calm as she smiled down at the canine, lowering herself to the ground to be the newborn's height. "Hello there little one" she smiled happily, tail still wag gin. "Don't worry, your eyes will get used to the brightness soon"

[Twilight]

The canine blinked her eyes, looking at the other canine with confusion. When the canine greeted her, the pup felt compelled to respond, so she gave Silva a small lick on the nose! "Hello," she said, her tail wagging back and forth. She saw Silva's tail moving as well and, reacting on a pup impulse, ran to try and catch it under her paws. She laughed and then paused, wondering what that sound was, but she realized that she enjoyed it and she kept laughing.

She tried to catch the other canine's tail but while she was doing that, she asked, "So, who am I?" she looked at Silva, wondering who she was and wanting to know.

[Meesh]

Silva smiled at the lick, bending down to lick the pup between the ears. "Welcome to the World!" se began, giggling as the pup attempted to tackle her tail, wagging it even harder. Hey, this pup was fun! She was excited and ran around a lot. Silva fondly remembered her own pup hood, when she had ran around much the same way- of course, she was much too clumsy back then to do much more than totter around.

As the pup asked her question, Silva blinked, considering it. "I don't know who you are." she finally replied. "I know you're a canine like me and a female, but I don't know your name. Didn't your pod tell you that when you hatched? My name is Silva" she rolled over on her back, tail wagging faster as she grinned at the pup. "Try to remember." she urged. "It would have popped into your head right before you fell"

[Twilight]

The pup was having a great time trying to catch the other female's tail, but Silva apparently had different ideas and made the target move faster so the newly hatched pup would be looking back and forth, trying to catch it. Once she tried to trick the tail into moving the wrong way, but it ended with her accidentally crossing her forelegs and tipping over, unbalanced.

She looked at the bigger female as Silva tried to answer her question. It would have.. popped into her head? The pup tried to recall if anything like that had happened but at first all she could recall was thinking of how safe she felt in her cocoon. But now that she thought hard about it, there was a name that seemed so natural to her that she had apparently let it flow through her mind without really hearing it. Like, when someone calls for you and you don't hear a name you recognize but you know then mean to get your attention.

"I am Maro," she said, her furry chest puffing up with pride before she jumped onto Silva. "It is nice to meet you, Silva," she said happily before appearing to smile and started rubbing her forepaws over Silva's furry belly, as if looking to see if she was ticklish.

[Meesh]

Silva chuckled as the pup continued tackling her tail, turning her head over her shoulder so she could see better. "It works better if you use your hind legs to jump" she suggested with a grin, prepared to leap out of the way of the pup's forepaws. "Maro? That's a nice name. It's nice to meet you too-" Silva was still watching for signs of her tail being tackled. When she didn't expect was a pup to leap onto her kelly, tickling it with her forepaws. "Hey!" she giggled, squirming on the ground. "Stop that!" Rolling over onto her stomach, Silva nudged the younger pup with her nose, attempting to roll her over and tickle her back.

[Twilight]

"I think it's a nice name too," Maro said, smiling in pleasure as her own name was spoken. It sounded so lovely. She also loved that Silva was enjoying being tickled, even though the black canine was wriggling around so much. Maro tried to keep Silva from rolling back onto her stomach but the effort was more affective in dragging her along and putting her on the larger canine's back. She slid back off and looked at Silva in time to see her reach over with her nose to try and tip Maro over. The nudge somewhat unbalanced her but she quickly turned and ran away, not wanting to be tickled also.

"You'll never catch me!" Maro called back once she was sure she was a fair distance from Silva. Of course, being much younger, her legs were far shorter then the adult canine's, and to add to this, her laughing and talking meant she wasn't watching where she was placing her paws...

"Ah!" Maro yelped as her forepaw landed on a rodent hole, making her fall nose first into the dust. Her ears perked up after she regained a sense of where she was and the fact she likely had another canine chasing her. Getting up was odd with her leg in a hole, her hindquarters were sticking up in the air for a minute as she pulled her leg back out. "What is this?" she asked, sticking her nose in the hole and acting as if she could maybe stick her head inside too... though she ran into the problem of the hole being a bit to small for that.

[Meesh]

Silva giggled as she chased the younger canine around, making sure to keep her paces slow so she wouldn't take the newborn too quickly. "I'll never catch you? You can't be so sure about that!" she called, making her strides faster. As she saw the pup stumble, the jet black canine skid to a halt, nudging the canine with her nose in concern. "You alright?" she began, giggling at the pup's antics as she tried to stick her head into the hole.

Putting her own nose to the hole, Silva's plumed tail began to wag happily. "Hey, you found a rodent hole!" she yipped, digging at the hole with her paws. "This will be perfect~ You must be getting hungry- and rodents are prey, which means that you eat them. And eating is what you have to do when you're hungry, and hungry is when your middle hurts" Silva, still digging at the hole, wagged her tail in satisfaction, confidant that she had explained things fully for Maro. She remembered catching her own first meal herself, wagging her tail at the memory. It had been a tough battle to catch those birds when she and Nerah had been so small, but a few seconds (and scratches!) later, the two of them had managed to take down a sizable quail-bird.

"Here, why don't you help me dig at the hole? It's fun, and there might be some rodents inside! Jump back if you see them come out though, they might scratch or bite you if you're not careful"

[Twilight]

Maro pulled her nose out of the hole as Silva sniffed at it, still wondering what it was. Why had the ground stopped and cause her to trip? Silva seemed happy with find and she started using her paws to scoop up the dirt around it, making it bigger. "Eat them? Why would you eat them? Aren't they living too?" she asked, head cocked to one side in confusion.

When Silva described what hungry was, the ache in Maro's belly intensified now that she knew to be aware of it. The temptation of food was tantalizing as well. Since there wasn't anything else that could stop this hunger, Maro stepped closer and started digging with the black canine, her smaller paws and legs were not making to much progress and she started to feel uncomfortable with stones pressing against her thin pads.

There was movement in the dark hole and a black shape darted out of at the two canines.It looked like a ferret but when Maro tried to reach over and touch it, the creature snapped at her paw, narrowly missing. She jumped back and yapped loudly, "It nearly bit me!"

[/color][/blockquote]

[Meesh]

Silva blinked, trying to figure out how to answer this simple question. She paused a moment in her digging. When she had been a pup, hunger and instinct had overwhelmed her and Nerah before they had questioned something, now she found herself needing to explain it to a younger being. "We eat the prey so we live, and when we grow old and die, we become plants, which the prey then eats so they can live. It's the circle of life" she explained, drawing a simple circle in the dirt with her paw. "If we didn't eat them, then they would grow until there were too many, and then they would eat all the grass. But we wouldn't be around to become the grass, so they would be hungry too, and then everyone would be hungry" It was a bit morbid to discuss death with a newborn, but Silva thought it would be important for the little one to know the true.

As the ferret darted out of the hole, Silva darted forward with a growl neatly jumping over the pup and onto the ferret, and killing it with a quick bite to the neck. "There" she assured the younger pup. "Quick and painless. Try a bite. It will make you feel better- it didn't get your paw, did it?

[Twilight]

Maro stared at Silva as she killed the little creature. She stared at the rodent for a long moment before stepping up and sniffing it curiously. It had tried to bite her for touching it, Maro recalled, yet Silva was able to bite it without there being any sort of recoil. Was that really how powerful her bite was? Maro opened and closed her mouth fast, hearing her teeth click together easily. Maybe she could kill with one bite? That sounded so awesome!

"I'm not hurt," the young canine said happily, padding over to where the rodent lay still. There was still a curious streak in her, and she poked at the animal with her paw. It didn't try to bite her this time, that seemed like a good signs. But there was something red coming from the bite Silva had given it and Maro licked it. The fur was course and tasteless, while the blood tasted bittersweet. She gave it a little nibble before finally an instinct to feed kicked in and Maro started eating like a glutton.

Once there was little more then bones and scraps of flesh left, Maro rolled over onto her side with a sigh of content. "That was excellent Mommy,"

[/b] she said before she actually thought of it. Why had she called Silva mommy? It seemed natural enough, the black canine was being so nice and was teaching her things she otherwise would have had a hard time learning on her own. [/blockquote]

[Meesh]

Silva sat back on her haunches, tail wagging happily as she watched the younger canine dig it. "I'm glad you like it" she said happily, flicking an ear. "I hunted down my first creature when I was only a little older than you are, so I'll show you how to hunt once we leave the Orchard, if you want~"" She sniffed once at the hole, making sure there were no more rodents hiding in there waiting to come out and attack. Satisfied that there were no more rodents left, Silva padded back over to the pup, watching her eat. "Do you like it?"


When the pup called her Mommy, the black furred canine paused, opening her mouth to make the correction. After a moment, she paused and closed her mouth. There was no harm in the nickname, right? Besides, she kind of appreciated the gesture, even if it was done unknowingly. She settled, instead, for giving the pup a quick lick between the ears.


"Why don't you go explore outside of the Orchard for a bit?" Silva said finally. "It's a wonderful world out there, y'know~ Go outside and have some fun, an dI'll meet you there" With a final lick, the wolf disappeared


((Since we're already together in the other thread with antares ^^))