Stories to Sleep to

It was hard to say what might have awoken him in the dark, drawn him from the tender embrace of slumber amidst the soft heap of bodies within the den. Nonetheless, the raven furred boy found his eyes fluttering open, pupils wide to drink in the meagre light of the midnight hours, to seek out the source of his wakefulness. And there, a looming figure. Titanic in proportion, towering over he and his siblings in dead silence and eerie stillness. He stared for a moment, his little heart racing in his chest with a sharp staccato rhythm. Then the breeze from the mouth of the den shifted, brought a familiar musk to his young nares. "Da.." he grumbled sleepily, extricating himself from the pile of youthful bodies so that he could plod over to his father. To lean his meagre bulk against the sturdy pillar of a warm foreleg, rest his cheek against the familiar, safe bulwark of his father's form.

"Why.. you not sleeping?" words were a tricky thing, with a mind still fuzzy from sleep, addled by dreams. He sighed softly, rubbing his eye with one slender wrist before he could crane his neck to gaze up at his sire. For a few moments, he was quiet, staring up at the man with big baleful eyes that seemed a bit too old for his pudgy, youthful features. Then, that ever-present infantile greed struck. He wanted his father's time, his attention. He wanted it now. "Can you tell me a story? About before I was born?" curiosity bade him ask the question, and youth absolved him of shame that might arise from his desire to know all there was to know.