The litter had progressed to being allowed to play among the trees with supervision, and it was there that Aoife began to notice sounds more clearly. There were sounds in the den, of course, but they all kind of sounded the same. Den-like sounds. They all had the same sort of resonances there and she had never really noticed them. But sounds suddenly sounded... different now that she was outside the confines of the alcove she had been born and raised in. Even their voices had subtle differences out here without the walls to contain them.

So she had slowly begun to play around with sounds, seeing the different sounds things made in when struck together, or tapped with an extended claw. Here too she began to really realize the physical differences between her and most of her siblings. Her forepaws had always been different, sure, but there hadn't really been much to do in the den to male the dofferences really obvious. They'd only even had their eyes open for a couple of weeks, so there hadn't really been a whole lot of time to delve into the more subtle differences between them all, until they had ventured out to the woods and she had picked up a pretty rock to hand to her father and when he had taken it, she had finally really, really seen the differences for the first time out in the sunlight. After that she had started really watching her siblings and noticing the ways they did - and didn't - use their paws, and then began experimenting with ways that she could use her unusual paws that her other siblings couldn't. Except Ardyn, but he'd always been the most different of them all anyway.

That all explained why she was toddling through the trees with a stout stick clutched in her tiny paw, occasionally stopping to sit back on her haunches and hit something with it to see how it sounded. Different sized and shaped rocks made different sounds. Some trees made different sounds than others. The hollow trees made the most interesting sounds, so when she spotted the hollow log she moved towards it eagerly, reared up and struck it.

Thunk.

The muffled tone made her frown. That wasn't the sound hollow trees made. But it wasn't the sound normal trees made either. She tried again.

Thunk.

Now her sensitive ears detected a faint humming sound from the log. Sje pricked her ears towards it, and hummed back on the same pitch. Why was the log humming at her?

Curious, she stuck her head into the hollow, only to draw back with a startled yip when something flew out at her, but it was only a bug. She had seen bugs, of course, she was a whole month old now. But she had bever seen this kind of bug... and it seemed that the humming was emanating from it. Well, sort of. It was kind of a different pitch than the humming, which was still coming from the log. She hesitated, tirn between satisfying her curiosity with the log and investigating the humming bug.

The bug decided things for her, because it started zipping around her head, and the zippy movements kept changing the sounds it made. Intrigued, she began stalking it, only to realize that it was stalking her when it suddenly smacked into her nose. Her smokey eyes crossed as she stared at the yellow and black striped bug standing there.

And suddenly the worst pain she had ever felt in her life suddenly hit her right where the bug was, and she threw herself backwards with a yelp to slam into the hollow log, which gave an ominous lurch beneath her slight weight and an even more ominous increase in humming. But she was too busy scrubbing at her burning nose with her eyes watering to notice.

Groping blindly along the log, trying to not cry, her paw suddenly fell through into a weird gooey stickiness that coated her whole foreleg. Now in paim, blinded by tears, and covered with a sticky mess, Aoife had a moment to decide that this was the worst day ever in her short life, when it suddenly got worse.

The humming increased in volume and took on an angry, sharp-edged tone that put her quills on edge as Aoife frantically blinked the tears out of her eyes so she could see. What she saw was the rotten part of the log where she had fallen through, and a sticky golden colored substance coating her dark legs that smelled sweet. She also saw whst she was sure were billions of angry yellow-and-black bugs crawling over the wrecked cream colored stuff that oozed the golden stickiness, and boiled over the edges of the broken wood in an angry swarm. As she watched some took off - heading straight towards her!

She backed away swiftly but tripped and went down backwards as the swarm surrounded her. Claws out and teeth bared fiercely she swatted instimctively at them, knocking some out of the air before they could get near her. But there were too many for her to swat fast enough and her quills provided her no protection from something as small as a bug, and burning spots of pain began to blossom all over. Aoife desperately rolled over and over, swatting all around her with all four clawed feet but the swarm seemed to just get bigger.

Finally - sticky, hurting all over, and thoroughly defeated - the girl turned tail and fled blindly away - away from the safety of the rest of her family, unfortunately, and into the brush. She blundered and tripped and rolled but kept going, silent except for the crashing of brush and the panting whines. Her eyes were swollen nearly shut from the stings, her muzzle was swollen, her paws were swollen where she had been stung as she swstted bugs away, and she hurt everywhere. She wasn't sure when the bugs stopped following her, but as she tripped yet again and was tottering back up to her paws, she realized that she didn't hear the humming anymore. Warily she glamced around, but there were no striped bugs anywhere in her blurry vision.

Safe at last, she plopped her butt down and wailed out her distress to all and sundry.

Word Count: 1044

Cai was berating himself for letting Aoife out of his sight while the litter was out playing in the wooded hillock. Even now he followed her scent like a bloodhound, mentally thumping his head against a proverbial tree. Stupid, stupid, stupid. He nearly stumbled right into the carnage that was a bee hive. Aoife’s scent went straight to it, but he was just a few minutes behind the commotion. The bees were still audibly furious and agitated, and he was forced to circle well around them and pick up the tiny child’s scent once more on the other side. There were plenty of dead bees in her wake, so she’d put up a fight, but he ultimately found her when a wailing started up a few hundred feet ahead. He picked up his pace to a lope, heart thumping in his ears until he found her finally. Ouch. The girl’s face was swelling visibly, and knowing that she often would swat like a cat in her play fights, he didn’t have to look to know her paws were probably no better. He dove in, huddling and curling his body around the tiny pup, crooning low and gently as he gave her a thorough checking over. “Hey, hey, hey, it’s okay now, they’re gone. Let’s get you to Paladin, okay love?” The Ancoran healer would know precisely what to do and what salves to put on the stings to bring the swelling and pain down. Walk ---- "Speak" ---- "Hear" ---- Think

Aoife tried to stifle her wails, managing to cut to hiccuping whimpers as Cairo appeared to wrap around her. "Caaaairoooo," she whined, pushing at him with paws that were swollen and painful to the touch. She sniffled. "Leggo you're hurting me." Her eyes were too swollen now to see out of, tears barely squeezing out to run salty lines for her muzzle. Her lower lip quivered alarmingly. "I weren't trying to hurt the bugs I promise. They sung to me so I sung back and then it bit my nose." Her voice rose again in another wail on the last. "An... an... an then I fell inna log and alla other bugs chased m-m-me and it hurts."