Cleaning! But where was the fun in that? Kea huffed as he lugged the bucket up to the room, and waited for Dusk to arrive with the shovels. He stared at the sooty fireplace as he heard his sister padding down the hallway. He started to poke his head inside, breathing in the funny smell of coal, until it tickled his nostrils.

He felt the sneeze coming and tried to stop it, squeezing his eyes shut as it shot out of his body. The coal stirred violently around him, and he just knew he was already covered. He cracked open one eye cautiously, and found his eyes weren’t blurred. That was something at least.


"Ciaran Carpathius"

The sulking obsidian girl entered the room just as her brother sneezed, sending up a shower of sooty dust into the air. Dusk dropped the short shovel as her mouth dropped open, sending it clattering to the ground loudly. "You're making a bigger mess!" She didn't want to clean in the first place, and now there was even more to clean!

Grumpily, Dusk grabbed the shovel and moved forward towards the fireplace. Whose idea was it to clean out a fireplace? How did you even clean out a fireplace? The girl plunked the shovel down into the bucket that Kea had brought, her brows drawn together. That was, until she looked up at his face. Fire opal eyes blinked in surprise, then Dusk dropped to the floor and laughed heartily, kicking her hind paws and wrapping her forelegs around her middle. "Kea," she squeaked through her laughter, "Your whole face is black!"

"Dusk Carpathius"

He stuck out his tongue at his sister's cry of outrage, only for a bitter taste to touch his sensors. He grimaced, only for it to turn into a grin as Dusk looked at him and fell to the floor laughing. Scooping up a pile of coal, he flung it at his sister, and then climbed directly into the fireplace, and began to scoop coal out as fast as he could and fling it at the other wolf. She was already black, but maybe he could make her even sootier than he was!

The task of cleaning was already forgotten as Kea found himself laughing madly, his entire body coated in soot, and making attempts to send his sister in the same direction


"Ciaran Carpathius"

As the first pawful of soot hit her, Dusk screeched in indignation. Oh... it was on! Kea jumped into the fireplace, digging out the old soot and his sister hopped in right after him. She grabbed as much soot as she could manage and mashed it into his coat before deciding that this just wasn't enough. Since the grate had already been removed, Dusk tackled her brother, mashing him into the soot before rolling around in it with him.

Sneeze after sneeze erupted from the girl, but she wasn't prepared to stop until Kea was just as black as she was! While they were tussling in the fireplace, their movements made a big, black cloud puff up in the middle of the room. Everything was going to be a complete mess...

"Dusk Carpathius"

Kea’s grin only grew at his sister's screech, and then she was there alongside him. Digging in the fireplace. Not to clean it, but to kick up as much of it as the pair could. Dusk’s pawful went straight into his coat, and then to his surprise the sudden weight of her body was pushing him down. He landed in the fireplace with an ‘oof’ and found himself coughing at the disturbed soot, even heavier down there.

Despite his coughing he wrapped a paw around his sister and attempted to bring her down to the ground beside him, but his coughing got worse and he was forced to stagger out of the fireplace, half retching black soot at the edge of their impromptu play pen. When he caught his breath, he looked about them in growing horror and delight. “Do you think theres any corners it didn’t reach….?”


"Ciaran Carpathius"

After Kea pulled her down and the two rolled about in the soot, they both kind of realized that it had been a bad idea. She was sneezing, he was coughing. Out of the fireplace they both went and only then did they realize just how much they'd screwed up. The air was thick with soot and so were they.

Kea questioned her and Dusk shrugged almost lifting a paw to rub at her face, but she realized something wayyyy more interesting than the soot in her eye. "Kea, look!" Perfect pawprints from both of them were scattered across the stone floor where they had walked. Experimentally, Dusk took a few more steps and the prints continued. "We could make a whole trail of these if we fill the bucket with soot! Maybe we could play a joke on the rest." The rest being their brother and sisters.

"Dusk Carpathius"

Kea grinned and looked at his own paw prints. He pressed his paw down, and lifted it, looking at the perfect print left on the stone. “What kind of joke?” He asked, immediately eager to join in, but didn’t have the clever mind of his sister. He stopped moving in case too many prints ruined her idea.

“I’ll start filling the bucket, and you can full me in?” he suggested, grabbing the bucket and moving back into the fireplace to get to work. At least he didn’t have to worry about getting any soot on him. That ship had long sailed.


"Ciaran Carpathius"

Dusk grinned as Kea eagerly agreed to her idea of playing a joke on their siblings. He began scooping ashes into the bucket and she explained her idea. "Your paws are bigger, so if you go first, I can walk in your paw prints. Then I can split off so it looks like one wolf turned into two! Might scare our sisters!" She looked to her brother to see if he liked her plan.

Picking up the shovel in her mouth, Dusk assumed she'd use the soot on it when they split up. She would go down one hall and Kea would go down another. She could keep wiping her paw pads on the shovel, which was thoroughly coated in soot. They would have more than enough to carry out their plan.

"Dusk Carpathius"

Kea giggled softly, scooping some of the soot faster. The good news is, there was less soot in the fireplace. That was kind of the point, right? They were supposed to move the soot from one place to another. He just had a feeling their parents hadn’t had the bedroom in mind for the ‘other’ place. He swallowed, and ignored the bedroom for the moment. That was a problem for future him. Right now, he wanted to play with his sister.

As per her instructions, he started to walk. Occasionally recoating his paws with the soot bucket he carried in his maw. When they reached an injunction, Dusk split up from him, heading down another path. “How long do I keep going for?” he whispered before his sister could go too far.


"Ciaran Carpathius"