Into the Ether

Cas rolled uncomfortably outside of her den, then sat up to stare accusingly at the remains of the porcupine she'd managed to procure earlier that day. Porcupines were a hard catch, so she'd been quite proud of the meal, but the manky little bastard was getting his revenge after all. Her stomach felt uncomfortably tight, she was queasy, and worse, she was cramping up painfully. With a growl she rose to pace the area before her den, but her steps slowed as she had a sudden thought. The weirdly rhythmic nature of the cramps was like a sense of deja vu, and it had just clicked. Oh no. Really?

She'd been getting sick quite a lot in the last couple weeks, come to think of it. Those stomach pains, the little flutters that she'd blamed on illness... that wasn't illness at all was it?

The timing was about right from when she and Valen had fooled around on Sonticus' territory.

Oh geez.

She'd been pregnant this whole time?

Her glare at the porcupine had turned to chagrin. How could she have been pregnant? She hadn't been showing at all really, and she knew what being pregnant felt like, and she hadn't felt anything like that... up until now.

Well, this changed things.

She resumed her pacing as the contractions - which were most definitely contractions at this point - intensified. She considered calling for Valen... but no, Rhythm had very recently had pups. Though she was largely indifferent to Rhythm herself, she didn't want to pull Valen away from his new children. She knew he doted on them, and didn't want to interrupt what time he could get with them between his duties as alpha. It wasn't like she needed his help in this anyway - she had managed last time just fine, and he had been distinctly squeamish about it if she remembered correctly, so she'd save him the distress and let him cuddle his pups.

Her pacing continued for some time - it felt like and might actually have been hours - before instinct told her it was time. Like generations of bitches before her, Cascade retired to her den to let nature take its course. Despite her abdomen being considerably smaller than the year before, it seemed like this birth was somehow so much more difficult. Maybe it was because she'd had no time to prepare herself mentally, and she found her body fighting it rather than accepting it as she had before.

Muttering grumpily at her own stupid body, she crawled her way over to her very basic herb stash and stared at them. She didn't have shit here for giving birth; she wasn't a healer, all she ever treated was battle wounds. Finally in lieu of anything more healer-y she pulled out the cannabis she'd once shared with Valen - having finally learned the word for the drug that had led to so much fun for them. Careful to eat much less than she had that time, she chewed and swallowed the dried plant matter and sat back to wait for it to take effect - just enough to relax her and ease the pain of her contractions.

With her eyes closed, she endured the long, long moments before she could finally feel the pain begin to fade away, for her body to relax. Finally, finally, she could feel the little body of a single pup slip free. Little was relative - this pup was no smaller than her other three had been, but she'd grown so used to their greater size now that they were grown that this boy seemed so terribly tiny and fragile. Just one pup, no more. She carefully cleaned the limp infant - unmoving other than the rise and fall of his chest that told her he was alive - nudging him around with her nose and licking him roughly to induce him to move. Finally, after a long moment of panic that pumped fear through her to overwhelm even the forced calm of the drugs, he stirred and flailed, his mouth opening in tiny mewling squeaks of protest. Cascade relaxed, then tilted her head to the side. Hello... what was this? Had she taken more of the drug than she'd meant to? She was sure that it couldn't cause actual hallucinations, but... The wet little bundle of grayish fur didn't look quite right. While other puppies... or at least, her older three, the only three newborns she had experience with... didn't grow their milk teeth in until just before they started solid food, this pup had two little fangs, weirdly flattened, that poked out just beneath the bottom of his upper lip even when his mouth was closed.

She studied him closely and came to the realization that it wasn't the drugs at all - his entire mouth structure was... deformed. It was a realization that sobered her very, very quickly and made her pulse race. Was this the sort of deformity that was a death sentence for a pup? She wasn't a healer; she didn't know. She'd fumbled her way through raising her first three and had been lucky that they'd all been so healthy. She didn't know what to do. For someone who only one year ago had been extremely casual about the idea of parenting she had come a long, long way to be so very heartbroken over the idea of losing a pup she'd only just birthed, but there it was. She didn't know if this pup would live even a day, an hour, let alone grow to a year old, and as she stared down at him it broke her heart.

But she couldn't just not try at all. Setting her chin in determination she set the strange little boy at her belly. The little pup rooted around a moment before finally finding what he was looking for and seeking to latch on. Her heart sank - that wasn't right. Most of what he was sucking was air - the odd formation of his mouth and the weird little fangs were keeping him from latching on properly. He wasn't going to be able to get enough milk to survive, was he?

"Chaos Saxe you will not go down without a fight," she murmured with an odd mix of gentleness and ferocity. She wasn't sure where she'd plucked the name from for a moment before she realized. Her father - Kaios. Her mind drifted back to her conversation with Valen... her desire to make something more of her name. To be more than the last Saxe. Well, why not? Why not reclaim her family name? Why not give this boy every opportunity he could have to become something great? To erase the stigma that tarnished the name of Saxe, to make Chaos Saxe mean something more than insanity. Her smile faded as she glanced down at the struggling babe. That is... if he survived that long. Sighing, she cuddled around him, constantly nuzzling and touching him. Reassuring him - and herself - that she was there.



OOC: Anyone in the pack is welcome at this point if they want to show up.