to find your worth

Though the pups were fathered by Odin himself, Katja was quite ready for the ordeal to be finished. Pregnancy was a trial, slowing her body and dulling her reflexes, and had confined her more or less to the pack lands for the latter part of the winter. She had no intention of coddling the lives within her, but neither could she justify the risk of birthing them far from her pack. But when she awoke in the middle of that early spring night, she knew the interminable wait was over.

She was in labor.

She opened her eyes into a night filled with color, ribbons of green fire weaving through the stars in long rippling rivers, and at first she thought it was what awoke her, and she lay for a long moment upon the ledge of her cave-den observing the splendorous sight before the strange clenching in her abdomen told her that she had not been awakened by the lights.

Grimly she rode out the contraction, then nodded sharply once to herself. Very well. It was time. It would, perhaps, have been better if Warja had not already left and if Kassander had returned... but no matter. As she had once tartly informed the so-called healers of Ebony, she-wolves had been giving birth unaided for thousands of years. She would not require the services of a healer, and if by chance she did, she was certain her nephew would do just fine. After a moment's thought - and enduring another contraction - she lifted her head and called out a low, soft note into the gorge. She may not need a healer, but she did not know how many or how fast the pups would come, and it could be that she might require assistance with cleaning and warming them.

With as much cold determination as going into battle, she settled herself back into her den to ready herself to give birth, eyes fixing on the northern lights dancing outside the cave as she focused on breathing through the pressure. Since she'd slept through the start of her labor, it did not take long for a massive effort to result in her firstborn joining her in the chilly spring night. She picked him up, bringing him between her paws to roughly clean and dry him before setting him to nurse, carefully shrouded in the gray fur of her belly. A pale, charcoal-dipped butterball, the boy clearly shared genes with Laufey from his coloring to his very size, and the faint striping barely visible in the wet slick fur of his chubby little legs was certainly reminiscent of Laufey's daughter.

Already she could feel that the reprieve granted by the birth of her son was passing, the painful clenching returning to herald the impending birth of a second child. She was more prepared, after the ordeal of the large male pup, for the pain, and accepted it and rode it until the girl-child slipped into the cold air to join her brother. Another pale, charcoal-marked pup, she was slimmer but every inch as large as her brother, but Katja stared quizzically at the auburn markings that seemed to smolder like coals in snow - like a paler Raisa, and a stab of regret and... emotion filled her at the thought.

If only Raisa could have been here, as she had been at Raisa's birthing. If only Auora could be here. The only two wolves in her life she had ever truly called... friend. Both gone from her, at least one passed from this world to the next. She cleaned the girl-child with an unusual tenderness before tucking her next to her brother, and steeling herself for the inevitability of another contraction. She may be alone now, but she was strong. She would not dishonor the memories she held of the two loves in her life, would not betray them with weakness. Still, she touched her nose to each pup gently, a silent promise made to them and to their coming siblings in the silence while she was still alone in the den, that she would teach them the strength that Raisa and Auora had possessed.