If I could just reach a little further...

Just as she was struggling to reach across the last inch or two that prevented her from getting to the elusive bucket, her ears perked as she heard her daughter's voice behind her, asking if she could help. Briar glanced back over her shoulder at Talyssa with a slightly embarrassed grin, her ears flicking bashfully. Asking for help had never her strong suit, even now when she had every right and reason to do so. But, since her kind daughter had offered, she'd be even more silly to refuse. "Yes, actually, if you don't mind, my darling." She got down from the counter with a little sigh, sitting back on her haunches for a moment to let her over strained hind legs have a moment of rest. "I just need that bucket from the shelf. Thank you, sweetheart." It was so baffling to her that her little girl was already nearly the same height as herself and able to reach these high shelves like this. She could have sworn that just yesterday she was carrying Tally around and teaching her about clouds.

With the bucket retrieved, she leaned in to give her daughter a kiss on the cheek. As she got back to her paws to turn and begin filling up the bucket with water, it dawned on her that this was the first she had seen of her white and tan girl this morning. Briar was, of course, prone to sleeping in herself so she never faulted any of her children when they wanted to get some extra rest, but she had been in the kitchens most of the morning so the fact that she hadn't seen Talyssa until now told her that her daughter had missed her breakfast entirely. "Tally, have you eaten yet? Here, let me make you something!" With her bucket and cleaning at least momentarily forgotten, she turned and started adding wood to the cooking fire to breathe some life back into it and began to move around the space, gathering up some ingredients and tools to do so.

"Briar Carpathius"