Changes

The long journey had been rough for the smallest of the siblings. He had the shortest legs, and was small even for the size he would eventually grow to, so it seemed sometimes he took two steps to every one that Mama and Ares and Lyra took. Every night when they'd stopped he'd fallen immediately into an exhausted sleep, and when they'd made it to this cave he'd fallen asleep without even being able to eat a bite of the pika Mama had caught. After his long nap though, he was beginning to recover with the resiliency typical of all children. A rattle of gravel being kicked at the front of the unfamiliar den woke the smallest of the siblings. He squirmed out from under one of his siblings, and his soft lavender eyes opened to blink sweetly up at his mother and the very-tall stranger who was walking in behind her. "Morning, Mama," he yawned, tongue curling pinkly through the drawn out words.