Motherhood In The Beast World

Lucy's Story

"Mama, mama, look what I made!" burst a female cub toward the females lazily receiving the warmth of the sun's rays this cold morning.

As she runs, she playfully jumps over one of the female's silky tail, skiddles around another's body, and finally arrives at her mother's side who had turned her equally dark blue eyes towards her in what appears like remote interest.

Greeting the cub in a calm tone, Lucy's small ears pick up at noticing mother's good mood.

With sudden timidness, Lucy slowly brings to her mother a crown of flowers.

Unaware of the foretell signs of disgust on her mother's scrunched nose, Lucy quietly mentions while looking down, "I made this with papa, it's decorated with blue flowers like our eyes and purple ones like papa's. Do you like it?"

Afterwards her ears and tail immediately flopped when the surrounding females giggled at her gift.

"Looks like your cub hasn't learned how to preserve the beauty of the flowers," mentions one.

Another snickers, "well, what do you expect of a cub who rather spends her time playing than learning with the other female cubs."

Sucking on her lower lip, she quickly tries to hide the crown in her small arms. A second later mother can be heard sighing exasperatedly while pointedly looking at her second female cub's dirty fingers and knees,  "take a bath." Then adds in complaint to the female surrounding her, "honestly, I don't remember my first female cub being so muddle-headed."

While the females giggled at the statement, Lucy quickly ran away while quietly wiping her tears away. Not so long ago her mother gave her warmth but as she grew, her mother seemed to have lost interest in her. Worst, for some reason whenever she tried to create something beautiful or do something spectacular, the results were always compared to her older sister. A red-haired sister who always ignores her. Why?

Glancing down at herself, Lucy immediately regrets not bothering with making sure that she was presentable in front of her mother. Now, she has embarrassed her in front of the other females. Shuddering, Lucy immediately bounds to the nearest lake to take a quick bathe and to get rid of the thoughts of what her mother would do in the privacy of their den.

Hopping into the lake and scrubbing furiously at her face, hands, and legs, the small female cub didn't notice the stare of another till her ears moved to the sound of something hitting the lake surface three times.

Immediately knowing who was there, Lucy yelled, "I think that was your worst Jack!"

Another cub but taller jumps down from one of the nearby trees, "well it's kind of hard to make a pebble skip when throwing it from up there." As he tries to excuse himself, he gently picks up the folded crown the fox kit left on the ground before splashing another pebble into the lake.

Lucy's smile slightly falls as she whispers, "mama didn't like it."

Frowning, the young cub firmly places the crown on his own head, "well, I like it, and you know we crow beasts love beautiful things."

Swimming out of the lake, the female cub immediately laughs at the other cub, "but you're a male, only females wear crowns silly."

Going a bit red in his cheeks, the young male pouts and shyly admits, "well you made it Lucy and since you don't want it, then I want it."

As the cubs giggle and argue, on a tree stands a fully grown fox beastman with sad purple eyes. This beastman looks at his beautiful innocent cub and smiles at seeing her laugh freely with others. However, his small smile slips when he thinks that though she's a blessing to him, she herself has become a nuisance to his female. During the worst days of being scorned by his female and watching their cub become sad, he would sometimes wish that Lucy was born a male, for if she were then maybe his female wouldn't make fun of their cub so much.