Ψ · We're bored, felt like a brick in the wall

 It was quiet, for the most part.

 Her offspring were here and they took the entirety of her attention, her focus fastened to their every need and desire. They were really quite demanding, weren't they? Two days old and already clingy as anything. They would wiggle and squeak and roll over each over nonstop. She could see aspects of herself and her husband in them all, from their physical features that often resembled herself to the curls that some had - from their father.

 She spent most of the day sleeping and nursing her pups, occasionally eating whenever Nimbus or the others brought her something to nibble on to fill her milk supplies and keep her from going catatonic. Meissa found that if she didn't quickly clean up any messes, they would inevitably pile up. So often, moments after waking from fitful naps, she would need to do some house cleaning.

 Finally clean for what felt like the first time all day, she laid her head upon her paws with a soft sigh.

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 "I 'ave come teeew the conclusion, after weeks of searching, that I will be yewr new husband." Nimbus appeared, fur covered in mud because she'd tried to give herself curls but it hadn't really worked but she was trying! She even used some of the mud to give herself a brown chin and ears! Was her accent okay? Was this even the time?

Puffing her chest out and walking like she was much taller than she was, she brought the Queen a uh... One of those birds Flynn normally got her. A quail? It had brown feathers, close enough. "I love yeww, me uh... me Card?" Yeah! She wagged her tail, this was gonna be easy!

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 A small voice met her ears, a bastardization of a voice she knew well.

 Meissa lifted her head, knowing the truth but unable to stop the slight glimmer of hope that bubbled in her chest. When her eyes rested on a hound, far shorter despite her promenading, the queen couldn't help but feel that same slice within her. She wasn't sure if it was dulling or sharpening as time went on. Had he gotten cold feet, realizing how her ugliness ran in the family? Had he run off with someone else - Tavra? The woman who had demanded high station, of duchess, and yet apparently their little home in the plains was not enough for her. Olive? No, Olive had left after his disappearance.

 She tried to push away those fears with a pained chuckle.

 Well, she supposed she could allow Nimbus's attempt at cheering her up. “Why,” She highly doubted this was a true confession of love, so she'd shift slightly to peer over at Nimbus with doe eyes. “You're the most feminine husband I've ever seen.” A slight tremor affixed itself to her voice halfway through and she shook it off with a cough. “How are you, Nimbus?”

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Random Puptato!

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Oh, the little grey puptato with the splashes of red here and there was awake. At first the blind child did not move, perfectly content being snuggled in a warm cocoon of her brother and sisters. That was at first, and this was now. A sharp squeak came from the little child's lips as she wiggled and flailed, she was stuck! Ahhhhhh! Why could she not wiggle free? Her tails wiggled as if they could help her situation but it seemed to be a lost cause until on tiny paw came in contact with her mother's belly and gave her the leverage she needed. Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle and she was free! Now she moved blindly away from the warmth of her siblings, not the smartest little girl was she, and wiggled closer to the one called Nimbus.

word count: 137

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Days had been hard, hadn't they? Well, truthfully, no. He'd come and gone, had his adventure, gotten a bit lost out in a realm he knew not by name but one that was lacking in love. It wasn't as if he'd meant to go and wander off, but life had a way of stirring those who were uncertain in the right direction. So, he'd taken the time he needed to figure out which way it pointed; gone down every path imaginable until the clock struck one too many painful hymns in his head. Its chime told him he'd been too slow, too inadequate. It also brought on thoughts he wasn't ready to comprehend...

He knew he was late, but not what for. What particular date had been missed? Who had been waiting? There came a notion that those doing so, while tired and few, were merely the glue that kept him rooted... yet it hadn't been strong enough to keep him pondering elsewhere.

He hadn't known what he was looking for until he found it. After seeing it. After breathing in its fresh, clean scent. Now came a decision.

Once supple legs ached for reassurance and company, where one hot summer again there used to be wanderlust. Perhaps awhile ago he would have decided things on his own, but now, as he sat facing the entrance of his home, the air was unusually stale. New scents he had not recognized entered his breath, but he didn't care enough to follow. He was poorly, eyes heavy and fur unkempt, but despite his delicate state, he knew in the back of his head that it wasn't over. He had a family here, one he didn't know how to approach with his proposition.

Oh... What a horrible time to have children... But it hadn't been their fault. Or her fault. Or anyone, really. He did have a solution though.

He stood there, looking at her, tail wagging weakly. “Et's m'cariad.”

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It was all swept away as she heard his voice.

Smelled him, though time had washed his scent from her. She struggled to her paws, mind focused on one thing and one thing alone: Flynn. The mewling of her pups caught her and she looked down at them, eyes wavering, then looked at Nimbus. She did not wait for a reply. The pups had nursed long enough to allow her this one walk, this step. “Warm them, please,” and then she was moving, leaving her whelping den and her pups with the small but sufficient fluffiness of the dog.

Saw him, in the shadows that had become her everything in the time he was gone.

She moved to him, heart roaring in her ears as unkempt claws brought her before him. She stood in front of him for what felt like hours but may have been microseconds, just staring, until she closed the gap and pressed herself to him. “Where have you been?” she gasped, voice choked with emotion. “I - I thought you were dead.”

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Words evaded his lips, ears clasped upon his skull as he soaked in what he'd been deprived of for a little over a month. She wanted to be answered; he wanted her. His satisfaction met, hers dwindling on a string he was surprised she hadn't cut in two. Though she had stayed, mayhaps against her will as tear-shut eyes blistered open to kiss the mewling of his children. He'd been terrible hadn't he? Unfit, inadequate. Maybe he should thank the children. For keeping her here. Waiting. He certainly hadn't.

“Aye... 'ad a fit, got lost... Broke me leg.” Storms came and went, sending his ill brain this way and that until this way looked like that which it was not. He'd wandered, gotten wounded, ended up too far north for any to find him before he, too, cried out like the pups he'd left here. “Shoulda died but, 'ere I am.” He hoped his response was sufficient enough because he no longer held the desire of speaking. He was broken, fur matted, eyes crusted with muck, but he was smiling.

Suddenly that tail of his rose. It wagged and wiggled, throwing his unsteady body with it as he whimpered forward. The comfort of her fur, the possessiveness he took with each breath. She hadn't been claimed or hurt or some other third ridiculous thing. She, too, smelled stale. As if she'd slept in their old sheets until she couldn't stand that thought anymore. It was a miracle he'd made it back home, an even larger one anyone was still left.

“I...I'm tired.” Crumbling, crumble, crumbled. Kneeling at her feet, head upon her paws.

Well. If he wanted to die now, at least he was comfortable.

—

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It was all swept away as she heard his voice.

Had a fit? Got lost? Broke his leg?

Instantly she was sniffing, trying to root out the injury which had healed enough to carry him home. Her nose sought, too, other scents. Ones that had grown stale and faded away here. It was with a sigh of relief that she realized that any hint of their scents upon him was long gone. He looked - god, he looked a mess. So, she believed him. Part of her wanted to cry, to whisper out she knew this would happen one day with all his wandering, but this was not the time nor the place for such utterances.

She was washing his face, clearing away the gunk that gathered around his eyes. Her own tails started wagging, beating back and forth in excitement and heart wrenching emotion. She breathed him in, every wash of dirt and sweat and grime, and under that his warm, familiar fragrances. The ones that were his and his alone, marking him as Flynnigan Sinclair, the love of her life.

He crumbled and she wrapped herself around him, panting and whining into his fur. He was finally home. Her eyes sought the blankets, ones he had prepared and had only been washed under threat of bites, under warning that the soiled wool would bring harm to her children.

Their children.

She pressed herself to him. “Then sleep, my love. You're home.” Finally, he had returned to her.

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