Foundations of Family

"Mmyip!"
Nova pricked their ears. The sound was small and muffled, but definitely coming from some sort of small animal. She dropped into a crouch and stalked throught the forest, keeping her ears attentive to any sound, but they mostly heard creaking from the bare branches above and the sort of whispering sound that always threaded through these woods. The whispering wasn't wind, the wind always got lost in these woods, no, the whispering was spirits. Nova knew that if there was ever something that couldn't be explained down here, the spirits were the ones doing it. They had never paid attention long enough to hear what the voices were whispering, you could never pay attention to something specific long in these woods, but they had heard stories of voices carrying other hounds deeper into the woods, deeper then they could ever find their way out of. 

"YIYIP" 

The sound was louder this time, jerking Nova out of their thoughts and back into the hunt. She swished her tails and dipped their head to sniff the ground. 

"YAPP" 

This sound was a lot closer and definitely confirmed the theory that had popped up in the back of their head and they flattened their ears in alarm, this was a hellhound pup. She had heard lots of those yaps from her own siblings, and knew this one went the pup wanted attention. That thought alarmed them even more then the first. No hound in their right mind would leave their pups long enought that they would demand attention, especially not in these woods. They searched hurriedly through the blood-red bushes, growing more panicked with every empty bush. "Those poor puppies," they thought, loudly, "at any moment they could be taken by some predator more silent and deadly then me. What if they were old enough to hear the whispers and now they'll be gone forever! Great hound's whiskers! What if thats what happened to their-"

"YAP-YIP" 

She poked her head into a bush at the very moment the loudest bark they'd ever heard exploded from a tiny blue and orange puppy now inches from their nose.

They were so startled they could only manage a small "Oh, hi."