The Art of New Life [Birthing Lesson!]

With Sterling on the mend, Paladin decided it was time to hold the birthing lesson he’d notified Solveiga of his plan to hold. Granted, it was a little later in Spring than he’d intended to hold it, but he had a large supply of herbs for this very purpose stocked up.

He bustled around the cave system, sliding the birthing supplies from their spots in his carefully organized stocks in the walls and neatly stacking them on a larger hide to carry them all in. When he had all the herbs he needed, and picked up the sides of the hide, transporting the whole thing down the corridor to the open topped cave to the left.

This cave was full of thriving herbs and greenery, and where plants didn’t grow, soft soil pressed beneath his paws before he leapt to the massive, flat topped rock that sat in the center of the cave, lit like a spotlight from above by the natural hole in the ceiling of the cave.

He spent a full hour setting everything up, herbs lined neatly in a row for viewing and sniffing, then surveyed his work with a nod of satisfaction before he trotted back out into the main chamber with a glance in at Sterling, offering a smile if she happened to be awake before making his way out and down the ravine to the end, throwing his head back and howled long and loud for the healers of the pack. Two he didn’t expect to come—he hadn’t seen Kalliope or Etain in several weeks.

It did give him a pang of regret that his cousin would have had to declare them missing, or removed from the pack due to lack of visible activity. It wasn’t an easy decision in the slightest, but the pack needed active members. Not idle mouths to feed. Kalliope and Etain hadn’t even shown up to the healing lesson Solveiga had held.

He shook his head with a soft hiss of frustration as he lowered his haunches to the ground, waiting for the healers that remained to arrive.