Just another day
07-19-2018, 06:23 AM
Gwen had been having off-and-on contractions for a week now, nothing steady or sharp, simply uncomfortable and always at inconvenient times. They were, she knew, not real contractions but simply her body's way of preparing itself for birth. Still, it was annoying.
She had still stubbornly continued to patrol even now. Undoubtedly she couldn't fight in this condition, if it came to it, but there was nothing wrong with her voice and she could call for the pack's other warriors if she needed to. Celestial was small these days and they needed every set of watchful eyes to protect them that they could summon.
At least it was spring now, winter passing away into warmer weather. Mucky weather, to be sure, but even early in spring only the nights still retained their chill. It had made her work to excavate a den system a bit more difficult, but in the end she'd crafted herself a pleasant little place in the moor. Her previous den in the plains hadn't been adequate for more than one, and the soil had just not been conducive to expansion. Anyway, someone should be on hand at all times to keep their eye on the lesser-used of the two Celestial lands, and it seemed that most of the pack made their dens more or less nearby Regulus' family seat. That had its merits too, in keeping most of the pack near each other to keep track of each other and to give them more contact socially, and had been in fact exactly what she'd been doing up until that point.
But the knowledge that she would be beginning her own family, bloodline descendants of Cairo, the scions of a proud family tradition that she could not help but miss, had caused her to withdraw a little from her adopted cousin's family. Not because she thought there was any threat in them, or found them offensive to be around, simply that... she had not since joining considered the possibility of having her own family around her, with her mother passed away and her siblings scattered who-knew-where with their own families, and she wanted to selfishly hoard that feeling to herself, to occasionally take it out and examine it like a piece of treasure without feeling guilty that she didn't feel quite the same about her adopted cousins from Erani's line.
So she'd found a good site in the moor, where old sturdy roots could form a sturdy roof, carefully shored up with thick cedar logs she'd snapped through to the right size so she could slowly expand the den to in many ways resemble a miniature, rambling version of Regulus' cave system. It was a whimsical decision, perhaps, amusing in a lot of ways to make a family seat of her own, but it wasn't all in jest. Part of her, the lonely part that had missed her mother and siblings for so long, missed her aunt Chrysanthe and even her uncle Syrinx and Aunt Eos, the part that still missed the Adravendi bloodline being a powerful force in the lands, that insidious part of her couldn't help but to try to exert itself in setting this up as a rival to Regulus' caves. It was a troubling, petty little thing, one that Gwen kept buried down where she could pretend it wasn't a factor, but it was. After all, she was just having the one litter, and in the manner of all children they would eventually grow up to want to leave her anyway, so what use could she possibly have for a den system with five or six separate alcoves and designed to expand?
She was probably just nesting, as they called it.
Either way no matter what her reasons were, the den system was certainly far more completed than it needed to be for a single litter and their mother, so she was out on patrol on the moor's border. Staying close enough to make it back to the den in good time, but still making better use of her time and energy than simply sitting around waiting to give birth.
It was about halfway through the day that she realized that the nature of her contractions had changed. They weren't the irregular, startling, but harmless contractions of before. Now she could predict fairly well when the next one was going to occur, and she was definitely feeling them hard. Not painful, not yet, and not terribly close together, so she finished her patrol before turning back to the den.
Once there she had a few moments to consider whether or not to call for a healer. She didn't particularly want anyone there, nor did she feel she needed one, but she was a practical sort and was aware that if she did develop a problem she might already be too far into labor to be able to call for anyone, or to be heard. So between one contraction and the next, she called out for a healer. A firm call, but casual, clearly not an emergency. If there was a healer in pack lands today, they'd hear and come at their own pace. She herself settled down to the business of whelping.
She had still stubbornly continued to patrol even now. Undoubtedly she couldn't fight in this condition, if it came to it, but there was nothing wrong with her voice and she could call for the pack's other warriors if she needed to. Celestial was small these days and they needed every set of watchful eyes to protect them that they could summon.
At least it was spring now, winter passing away into warmer weather. Mucky weather, to be sure, but even early in spring only the nights still retained their chill. It had made her work to excavate a den system a bit more difficult, but in the end she'd crafted herself a pleasant little place in the moor. Her previous den in the plains hadn't been adequate for more than one, and the soil had just not been conducive to expansion. Anyway, someone should be on hand at all times to keep their eye on the lesser-used of the two Celestial lands, and it seemed that most of the pack made their dens more or less nearby Regulus' family seat. That had its merits too, in keeping most of the pack near each other to keep track of each other and to give them more contact socially, and had been in fact exactly what she'd been doing up until that point.
But the knowledge that she would be beginning her own family, bloodline descendants of Cairo, the scions of a proud family tradition that she could not help but miss, had caused her to withdraw a little from her adopted cousin's family. Not because she thought there was any threat in them, or found them offensive to be around, simply that... she had not since joining considered the possibility of having her own family around her, with her mother passed away and her siblings scattered who-knew-where with their own families, and she wanted to selfishly hoard that feeling to herself, to occasionally take it out and examine it like a piece of treasure without feeling guilty that she didn't feel quite the same about her adopted cousins from Erani's line.
So she'd found a good site in the moor, where old sturdy roots could form a sturdy roof, carefully shored up with thick cedar logs she'd snapped through to the right size so she could slowly expand the den to in many ways resemble a miniature, rambling version of Regulus' cave system. It was a whimsical decision, perhaps, amusing in a lot of ways to make a family seat of her own, but it wasn't all in jest. Part of her, the lonely part that had missed her mother and siblings for so long, missed her aunt Chrysanthe and even her uncle Syrinx and Aunt Eos, the part that still missed the Adravendi bloodline being a powerful force in the lands, that insidious part of her couldn't help but to try to exert itself in setting this up as a rival to Regulus' caves. It was a troubling, petty little thing, one that Gwen kept buried down where she could pretend it wasn't a factor, but it was. After all, she was just having the one litter, and in the manner of all children they would eventually grow up to want to leave her anyway, so what use could she possibly have for a den system with five or six separate alcoves and designed to expand?
She was probably just nesting, as they called it.
Either way no matter what her reasons were, the den system was certainly far more completed than it needed to be for a single litter and their mother, so she was out on patrol on the moor's border. Staying close enough to make it back to the den in good time, but still making better use of her time and energy than simply sitting around waiting to give birth.
It was about halfway through the day that she realized that the nature of her contractions had changed. They weren't the irregular, startling, but harmless contractions of before. Now she could predict fairly well when the next one was going to occur, and she was definitely feeling them hard. Not painful, not yet, and not terribly close together, so she finished her patrol before turning back to the den.
Once there she had a few moments to consider whether or not to call for a healer. She didn't particularly want anyone there, nor did she feel she needed one, but she was a practical sort and was aware that if she did develop a problem she might already be too far into labor to be able to call for anyone, or to be heard. So between one contraction and the next, she called out for a healer. A firm call, but casual, clearly not an emergency. If there was a healer in pack lands today, they'd hear and come at their own pace. She herself settled down to the business of whelping.
