it cannot be said what made him different from his siblings, not, at least, if you did not include the strange dark cerulean blue that existed in neither of his parents eyes and yet ringed his own prominently. something always had made him stare at his father, looking for those flecks that came so close and yet did not match up. not, at least, by what he could tell in the reflections puddles left by “rain” or “snow” melting into the mouth of the den.

but being different was entirely by his make, model, and coloring. there was nothing to tell the boy that ragnarok was not his father in his upbringing - indeed, it was almost as though his father and mother did not know at all that a cuckoo fledgling in their nest.

today, as his brother and sisters rolled about and napped, he was up, peeking out after his mother and father as they retreated through the mouth of the world and out into the “everything” that had “mountains” and “pines” and where bedding walked around on feet like they did.

a hungry child, the vacations his mother took to the “everything” were not times of much comfort, his brother jax always rather miraculously finding ways to jab and step and smack with varying limbs and appendages when he was bored. like just then, as a heavy body landed atop his and rolled onto one of his sisters. “Get up, get up! Mama and papa have gone to the light, they won’t stop us from following!” says the fumble of paws and fur, his yawning sister as disturbed in peace as himself.

he groans, “jax, you will be batted again… do you like getting batted?” to which thought he yipped a laugh and turned to his other sister embla and grinned, “maybe m’ma will carry him back by his head again.”

but alas, as he turned to embla, jax took his chance and bounded up towards the mouth of “everything” and away from the “thing that walks like them in the everything, but is also bed” where the other three----- okay, two lay. just as con was certain mother was going to catch him by his head again, well, of course tilly wasn’t about to be second best to her youngest brother. into jax she barrels, into “everything” she races -- and it is a miracle, to him, that either of his siblings survived so many eons without becoming another bed on their floor.

it is when con realized that his parents legs were the giant shadows outside the den like two pillars that he too rose to his feet with a small, inquisitive yip and toddled towards the mouth of “everything” as well.

wow. “everything” was……. EVERYWHERE.

his blue eyes widened so wide that it was a surprise they remained still tucked into his head and not rolling down the mountainside of spirane. he is amid an epiphany that perhaps the mouth of “everything” was more the mouth of “itty bitty place to sleep” when a flash of gold and gray skittered to a stop in front of him and he was immediately distracted. play.

he tossed his head to both sides, interchanging lifted paws in some strange beat with his yips, before he too dropped his breast to the earth and yapped with a roll of his head and a bounce of his rear in the air.

and suddenly the vast “everything” was as good as nothing and all that mattered was that jax would not get his white tail tip in his teeth again. not the tail tip. not this day. he launches himself with forepaws extended to bat at his brother, his sisters out of sight and mind as he honed in on the nose of his brother.