Past, Present, Future [Puppy History Lessons]

Aoife was clumsily braiding grass together, her tongue stuck out between her too-large fangs in concentration as she messily plaited the stems into a loose semblance of a braid. She had seen one of the primates braiding rope and had wanted to try for herself, since her paws were more more nimble than usual and she could think of a lot of ways that a rope would be handy if she could figure it out on her own. It was hard though, partly because she was still so young and clumsy but also partly because unlike the primates, her paws were not really hands. The soft pawpads on the bottom of each toe, and the retracted claws, and the fact that her "thumb" was mutated from a dewclaw meant that her paws would never be quite on par with true hands. She persevered though, and she thought she'd be good enough to tie knots and lace things together like the primates did, once she grew up a little.

When her mother called out she dropped the grass immediately, but Ardyn still managed to beat her to the punch. The tiny girl didn't bother slowing down at the stairs, instead bouncing down them recklessly, throwing herself from one to the next like they were stepping stones in a river and hitting the ground level in a deliberate somersault and continued to push herself into more somersaults - flop, flop, flop - until she somersaulted one last time and her heels drummed down into the sand by her brother and she tucked her forepaws innocently over her belly as she peered up at her mother and grandfather. "I'm here!" she announced unnecessarily and in a sing-song tone, then reached up to bat at her brother's fur to make it shimmer.