don't let it go to your head

@Olive @Tiberius - one or the other to post first, but aw otherwise!

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The child had fallen asleep in one place and woken up in another; not an uncommon thing at this age, and seeing as she hadn't had enough time to get acquainted with her first life, her transition to the second was hardly a disturbance. If not for the change in temperature, she might have continued her early evening slumber, blissfully unaware of the events having just transpired, but seldom are things so simple.

The reflective patches of snow clinging to the tips of towering evergreens made opening either eye a task. She blinked her right open first, then tried the left, though by then it had become crusted over with sleep. A clumsy paw reached toward her face as an attempt to clear the blockage, but it seemed a strenuous enough task to prompt the girl back into a doze.

Oh, well.
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The child had appeared in these lands much in the same way the Olive had: quietly, without much fuss, and without even realizing it. Perhaps they were the lucky ones, being sparred the innate difficulties of falling from the sky, or waking underwater — or perhaps they were unlucky, never to know the families and livlihoods of yesteryear. Either way, it meant no matter. In these lands, existed a chance for new beginnings, in ways a previous life might have not allowed. News stories could unfold, that oh-so-suddenly abided by new sets of rules. 

It was strange, how Olive was pondering these things when she came upon the lone pup.

From afar, the new mother could have easily mistook the greyscale bundle as one of her own brood, and indeed she did just that! Her heart thrummed, wondering why her dear cub was alone and so far from the density; immediately her mind jumped to quick accusations (who could have been so irresponsible?!), but when the Priestess rushed forward, driven by matresence, Olive realized by sight and scent that it was distinctly not hers. "Darling child,” she gasped in a light intonation, pressing her nose into its side rather abruptly, fearing that it might be dead. "How ever did you get here?”

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It seemed her hopes for more sleep were futile. An inaudible howl of protest sounded from her pudgy body as she tipped over onto her side, arms flailing as they sought ground to stabilize against. Finally, she managed to get both eyes open to survey her immediate surroundings, and especially the other wolf who she was confident hadn't been there before. 

The stranger's words were unfamiliar but could have so easily melted into the language the child had been used to hearing that they brought a sense of comfort. She looked longingly upward with inquisitive eyes and mewed quietly, wondering if that might convince the woman to share her milk.
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The poor thing looked up at her, with eyes wide and tiny mouth mewling, and Olive was suddenly struck by the simultaneous emotions of extreme worry, and extreme ardor. The young girl was such an infinitesimally small thing, but she was alive (as determined by her very indelicate rousing), and Olive was plagued by urgent questions. She lifted her head high, lifting up out of her crown and pressing against her backfeet as if she were a meerkat, on watch for potential danger; but the only danger she looked for was an angry parent who wanted their child back. Even worse, this angry parent was an apparent trespasser.

But there was no sign of any other claimant; at least, not yet.

She wanted to call for Tiberius, or maybe even Genghis, but she not dare raise the alarm and risk further disturbing the child. Whatever this sudden find meant for Duskguard, it carried the same significance (if not more) for the little pup itself. The pale spirit gaze down at the cub once more, placing all four paws back on the earth, and she easily allowed herself to be overtaken by the motherly instincts. Everything could be figured out eventually, but here was a child, who looked to be needing love, and a spot of food. Olive was eager to provide, where the other's parents could not. If someone had happened upon her own baby in a strange land, Olive would hope someone would do as much for them. 

"Hungry, are you?” she questioned rhetorically, guiding the pup to a teat with her snout. How truly fortunate it was, that she had milk to give.

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playing around with formatting, ignore!

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summoned to the breast, she happily obliged using needle-tipped paws to knead at the tender, swollen skin. Milk sweet like molasses coated the girl's throat as involuntary squeals of quiet contentment snuck out from white-stained lips. Satisfaction couldn't have been kinder in its introduction.

Still latched, her suckling slowed to a stop, performed more for solace by then than for gratification. It seemed sleep would not be so cruel as to leave her for long, and so it stole her away once more.

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The relief that the cub felt was directly reflected in Olive herself, who felt herself calm and soften as the youngling suckled. Biologically, she was flooded with endorphins, and the pressure in her breast was instantly relieved — but there was also the lovely act of nurturing another, and of being in the right place at the right time. Where she was sitting nearly straight-up before, the mother found herself slackening and reclining under the pup's kneading paws until she was entirely laying down, curled around the small, grey thing. 

She dared, for a moment, to get lost in it; and for that moment, it didn't matter who this pup was, where they came from, or who was looking for them. They were just in this great sense of presence and meditation, together.

— that was, until the lost child began to doze off (a natural reaction to a full belly and warm snuggles). It was then that all other superfluous thoughts rose to the front of her consciousness again. Thoughts like: Were her own babies hungry, and needing a meal? What would Tiberius make of the puppy, and would he be similarly worried that someone would be looking for it? Even worse yet, what if no one stepped forward to claim it. Were they simply, automatically, saddled with a fifth child? 

Taking a small breath, Olive knew this was a time for action, not inaction. "There is no time to sleep, sweet cherub,” she whispered as she pressed her nose into its warm, fuzzy forehead. The feeling of a young infant was simply intoxicating to her, these days. Still, Olive prepared herself to counter any protest from the puppy before she moved to stand.

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an unhappy growl became a distressed cry as the girl was pushed away from her comfortable resting place. Waking up in this strange place hadn't been a problem, but the constant rousing was quickly becoming one. She didn't understand why this woman wanted her awake when previously adults had let her sleep as much as she pleased! What was different?

Not that she would have been able to ask, but before the girl was even able to try, her savior was seemingly preparing to walk away. The girl shook away most of her lingering drowsiness and stamped an upset paw, her face shifting repeatedly between anger and pleading. If Olive had to walk away, then the least she could do would be to bring a lonely orphan with her.. right?

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Of course the puppy did squawk in protest, to which Olive felt an easy sense of understanding; she found it so easy to be lovely and overly sympathetic with children, it was supremely hard for her to lose her temper with them — if she did, at all. Olive liked to credit it to the time she spent pondering and studying the wolf psyche; mind and spirit. She understood a lot about one's inner child, and saw these lessons reflected back in the face of youths. Anger and displeasure in adults was usually an ugly affair. Anger and displeasure in babes was a joy to navigate in comparison, and at the end, children never held a grudge.

At times, Olive might dare to venture, she fare preferred pups to adults. 

The mother chuckled, tucking her chin into her chest, paddling her forelegs to rise up to stand. "Don't fret, I'm not going to leave you,” she affirmed, wondering briefly if the child spoke the common tongue, or had learned to speak at all. She was immensely curious about the pup's immediate history (not that there was much of it, seeing as it was about a month old), and was determined to assail its parents with a barrage of questions, should they come calling. "You might be the luckiest pup in the universe,” the pale sylph intoned, looking downward at the greyscale thing.

"...because you have four new friends to play with.” Olive didn't necessarily want to introduce a new playmate to her daughters only to wrench that relationship away, but she didn't see how she had a choice. First, however, was the matter of consulting with @Tiberius. Lifting her hips to stand, Olive grazed her lips over the back of the anonymous cub's neck, instinctively offering to carry her. Whether the pup wanted to be picked up on not, she would set off towards home, hoping to intercept her husband-to-be before she arrived.

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^^

It wasn't as if he wasn't allowed to change his direction once he caught the scent of Olive. She was his and he was hers and he was allowed to do as he wanted, thank you very much -- is what he told him as his strides were long, blood bubbling in his veins with the usual sense of excitement at seeing her face. Only... the High Priestess wasn't alone. As Tiberius approached he smelt her but then soon, saw her.

Clasped in Olive's mouth was a child and it wasn't one of their recent brood. Tiberius flicked his tail as he strode towards her, curiosity written on his mangled face, "yer stealin' babies now, Angel?" It was a joke, really, but it did beg the question as to where the child came from. The pup didn't seem -- from what he could see -- to be any older or much younger than their own four and he hadn't smelt anyone on the borders or anyone intruding in their Vale.

He would have noticed them. So where did this little one come from? ^^

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the child's pleading persisted until she was picked up and relaxed into the maternal hold of this kind stranger. her plump bottom rocked against plumes of white fur as they made there way somewhere, location yet undisclosed and irrelevant in her mind. 

any scent other than milk would have been ignored, so she didn't even realize someone else had joined them until he spoke. unable to move, the girl pushed her blue-banded eyes as far toward her left as they could go to get a peek at him. he was the opposite of her carrier, cloaked in dark colors clearly contrasted by the white snow.

he smelled more like blood than milk. pretty boring.

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Like a bumble bee actively seeking the flower upon which it feasted, Tiberius easily found her. He seemed curious and inquisitive, and not at all panicked, as she had been. Perhaps it was simply her motherly instinct that made her nervous, knowing how fierce she was in matters pertaining to her own pups, and because of that Olive could not shake the feeling that they were waiting for the other shoe to fall. 

When Aries had arrived, Olive had witness her simply fall from the sky; it was not unheard of for these things to happen. Tiberius was the resident specialist in Duskguard's own security, so she quickly rationalized that, if he felt he had nothing to worry about — then about maybe she didn't, either. Softly, Olive deposited the pup on the earth, betwixt her forelimbs. 

"I found her," the woman explained quickly, leaning her nose forward to brush his own, before pointing it straight down to the greyscale cherub. "I fed her, she doesn't seem hurt..." continued her summary, her assessment. Her thin brow furrowed in apparent consternation. "Goodness, Tiberius, what do we do with her?" There was even a small part of her that wondered if she had actually given birth to five pups, instead of four. That, somehow, almost made more sense.

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^^

Her eyes were blue. Tiberius thought of Dalmatia. A grayscale little girl with no ones scent on her but her own, soon to be coated in Olive's and the Vale's collective scent. Olive lowered the pup to her paws, releasing her from her hold so that she might speak. He leaned into her touch, nosing their noses together in greeting as he listened, a frown settling on his face. The titan looked down to the child in question, molten gaze contemplative.

There were no scents of anyone in the Vale that were not marked of Duskguard, Kuhn, Thrax or Hawking. He knew this, he and @Genghis ensured this fact. No one stepped paw, hoof or talon into the Vale without one or both of them knowing. That's how he knew there was no hiding mother or father in their midsts. Tiberius knew then that like himself and many others, the child had been torn from whatever life she had been born into prior and deposited here. It was the only explanation, wasn't it?

She was alone.

"No one is goin' ta come fer 'er," he rumbled for Olive's ears only though he suspected the girl wouldn't be paying attention to him anyway. "We keep 'er," the titan stated as he glanced to Olive before he leaned his head down to brush his nose against the girls head. "She's gitta be similar age ta tha girls, ain't she?" Not that he knew much about aging a child outside of measuring them against his daughters own bodies and growth. "Jus' a kid, ain't she. Tha girls are young enough tha' we could raise 'er as their sibling," he posed the idea to her as he lifted his head, watching her carefully. ^^

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her presence seemed inconsequential. she didn't have an opinion either way; while she strongly preferred to go wherever the milk led, the girl would have been fine left there alone to continue her rest. she didn't know her situation was dire, or that dangers lurked around every corner for someone so vulnerable. all she knew, and all she'd ever known, was security; her parents had done nothing but love her for the time she was theirs and they were hers. when that time ended, the girl was none the wiser. she'd slept through the ordeal and woke here — still safe, still cared for, and still cherished. 

the child babbled some nonsense. she poked her nose onto the ground, tracking the scent markers left by tiberius's paws while her tail spun in stammered circles behind her. whether her two new caregivers would immediately notice her wandering, well, it didn't matter much in her busy mind.

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He uttered the words she had apparently not wanted to hear, the way the heart responded by fluttering, and her heart skipped several beats, and the blood rushed in her ears. Have another baby; did they not already have their hands full with four? No, they must put out feelers, and see if the parens were out there. They had to be, puppies didn't just show up randomly in a place with no one who cared for them.

— although, Olive had to forcibly stop and remind herself that in this land, such things did happen. The teeny girl, all alone, did just happen to be the same age as her other children. She even looked similar, all greyscale, without a touch of warmth on her. Was there any part of Olive that could easily buy into the idea that this puppy had been sent to her, now that she was beginning to open towards the idea?

Yes, yes there was indeed.  

"Tiberius," she gasped, coming to this realization. "Do you think..." the girl was restless after being fed and endlessly cosseted; understandably she wandered. The mother looked down her maw at the meandering pup, ears swiveling wildly, signaling this change of heart. The way Tiberius said it, so matter-of-factly, it was almost as if it was already decided. The priestess had no more objections. 

"Do you they'll really accept her like a sister?"

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^^

The girl babbled and had Tiberius not already solidified his decision, he would have then. Olive's gasp of his name drew his molten gaze back to her and he smiled, it was small as it oft was but filled with affection as he nodded, "they're young enough tha' I reckon their memories will fade an' all they'll remember is 'er bein' there." Tiberius hummed, casting his gaze back to the girl to ensure she wasn't wandering too far.

"Ain't no one remembers their first few months of life, or well -- rarely, I guess. Bu' they young enough tha' I reckon it ain't gonna be no issue, luv," the titan reassured her, leaning over to nudge his nose into her cheek. "Tha only new scent 'round 'ere is 'ers, Olive. No dull or dullin' scent of wolves tha' ain't Duskguard. No one dropped 'er 'ere," he murmured quietly, "reckon she arrived 'ow I an' others did." Suddenly and without a choice, plucked from their reality and into this one.

So he would do as it made sense to and Olive, well, her worry was valid but Tiberius was there to comfort and reassure. He stepped to the girl to cast his paw before her and gently pull her towards his towering frame, leaning down to nose the space between her ears. "Yer gonn' 'ave an interestin' life, lil lady," Tiberius mused before he glanced back to Olive, "girls gonna need a name, Angel. If she's similar age ta our l'il beasties, ain't no way she gonn' remember 'er name if she git given one before."

^^

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The woman listened silently as Tiberius explained the situation, as concretely as he could make it. It almost made sense, given the strangeness of this world, but Olive always struggled with accepting this part of it. The only thing that ever made sense to her about the Gods was that her beliefs were a type that was grounded in science, and where they had died & were reborn or were simple teleported to a liminal realm, everything about this flew in its face.

Part of it was Olive's own willingness to not believe she that, herself, had died. That in the end, the vision she had in adolescence had come true. She still remembered her family, whereas, the memory of other lifetimes had been lost to the ether. Brothers, sisters, parents whom she had pined for, but believed she had left on their own accord. Now, understanding there was no way to ever return to them; she refused to think about it. Only Aries had ever roused the memory of @Serena. Olive never spoke about them, now.

Her verdant gaze followed her lover as he stalked over to the small thing as she bumbled about, entirely unawares. How nice that must be. "Oh, poor girl,” the mother cooed, following suit. "I wonder who is missing you.” Hearing Tiberius's comment about a moniker, Olive wanted to open the floor to the little cub — in case she was at all aware of what was happening, and wanted to make her opinion known.

"Do you have a name?” the pale mother cooed.

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