Bronze Nurturer - Sprout Nursery

Crunch loved hanging out with the younger generations. Typically, this meant volunteering at the Ebony Altar to help the newly hatched vespire geodes. Due to Crunch’s marriage to Trout as well as raising their son Charmie, Crunch was also often called to help take care of newly born sprouts. Currently he was in a large, low-ceilinged den full of sprouts, all chirping and falling over each other. Even as Crunch was keeping an eye on all the various ursuki, there were sprouts crawling on his fur, digging into his mane, chewing on his tail, and even climbing onto his head. Every once in awhile Crunch had to keep some of the more curious paws from taking his glasses. Suddenly something was wrong. Nothing major, but in between the shrieks and burbles of happy babies there was another noise that clashed with the rest of the cacophony. Crunch looked around until he caught sight of his husband, recently returned and slowly wading through the mini forest of sprouts. “Hi babe,” Crunch gave a little nuzzle to Trout’s cheek “Could you take these kiddos? I need to check on something.” “Of course!” Trout gave Crunch a little nuzzle back before laying down on the floor himself, turning over onto his back, exposing a giant, fluffy tummy, and sure enough, like dramoths to a flame, nothing got sprout attention like a fat ursuki offering both comfort and a jungle gym all at once. Crunch had to still dig a few kids that had fallen asleep out of his mane. He placed the snoring babies onto the thick moss beds placed liberally around the room. Then he got up, perking his ears trying to pinpoint what had concerned him. It was a small, low noise, but Crunch had big ears for a reason and could just barely tell that the sound was coming from a nook in a quieter part of the room. He crouched down to make himself smaller and friendlier as he was able to identify the sound as a crying sprout. Slowly he peered around a corner to see a tiny ursuki sobbing and crying in a corner, it’s paws over its mouth to muffle the noise. Crunch let out a low whine, placing his head down on his forepaws, the sprout was young enough that he wasn’t sure that it could understand speech, which left nonverbal cues. The sprout looked up wildly, using the left side of their head more than their right. Ah. They might be half blind. Crunch puffed out his mane and loosed his wings so that he can make himself more obvious, but still stayed in his position, leaving plenty of room that the sprout could run if it needed to. The sprout stilled, clearly catching sight of Crunch, the poor thing was heaving, and its eyes were red from crying. Its cheek spots were soddened from tears and there was snot running from its nose. Crunch chirped at it kindly. The sprout paused and really looked at Crunch. Slowly, Crunch tilted his head, in curiosity, paying special attention to let the tufts of fur on his ears flop around, tufted ears is rarer for ursuki and Charmie especially enjoyed playing with them when he was about this age. Sure enough, the little sprout’s eye was drawn to the thick fur moving. Slowly, oh so slowly, the sprout came over to Crunch, pausing a few feet away, Crunch slowly, starting with the parts of his body on their seeing side and eventually moving to his head, turned on his side, showing his tummy and thick mane, offering comfort to the sprout. The baby approached again, then suddenly ran into Crunch’s chest, punching the air out of him. The baby snuggled into Crunch’s mane its breathing slowing down as they relaxed. Crunch gently placed their arms around the sprout. After a few minutes, and after the kid had gotten the hiccups from crying so hard, Crunch looked down to see that the sprout was nearly asleep. Crunch smiled, glad that he was able to help the little sprout.