The Art of New Life [Birthing Lesson!]

Justice shrugged entirely unrepentantly. "Pups are pups no matter who gave birth to them. Being an alpha's kids doesn't change anything. They're still wormy little jellybeans when they're born and squeaky little rugrats when they're running around later. Besides, at what point is a blood relation so far away that it doesn't count as "cousin" anymore? Are we still related to Domari here then? Hi there, Cousin Domari," she added with sarcastic humor as the older male approached with his own greeting. She grinned back at the other paladin, drawing him in to the conversation.

Paladin's answer to Domari's question caused her to wrinkle her muzzle in disgust, though, faintly shocked. Birthing? They were going to learn about... birthing? Females pushing gross little packets of baby out of themselves? THAT was what they were going to learn about? The thought set off a faint queasiness in her stomach, and Justice shuddered. Of course they couldn't have had a lesson about something more immediately useful to her and Domari's rank, like injuries or sickness. No, it's was... babies. And birthing. Pregnancy. She wanted to learn everything about healing eventually, she really did, but... birthing. Ew.

One of the aforementioned rugrats came pelting up to the group, and sharing her expression only with Domari she rolled her eyes expressively towards the child's use of cousin and attempt at adult bearing. Her first time having seen the kid, she couldn't help but squint suspiciously at the wavy profusion of iridescent hair the pup sported and the sharp little canines poking out from beneath her lips. Granted Regulus was bright red, but this was a little much. Still, she kept her unflatteringly sarcastic commentary to herself, knowing that her stubbornly virtuous sibling would probably be offended by an unkind comment about a kid. For some reason he seemed to actually like them, though as far as Justice was concerned they were just one of those things you had to put up with.

Only one more wolf showed up, one of Regulus' actual first-cousins who'd been born crippled. Justice knew of her, but frankly didn't really know her despite having been in the same pack at birth. That family seemed to keep to themselves and outside of meetings she'd never really seen them around. The mom was supposed to be another one of the pack's adult healers, but didn't appear, nor did Solveiga. Paladin's earlier explanation of Solveiga having her other pup out on a private lesson didn't sit well with Justice, nor the flippant brushing off of whether or not she would already know all the information since she'd given birth herself. Justice had been injured before, but that didn't mean she automatically knew how to treat infected wounds. Solveiga should be held to the same standards as the rest of the healers regardless of who's mate she was, and if the one pup was old enough to be allowed to sit in on a healing lesson they were both old enough that they should be training with someone other than their mom anyway. But she couldn't blame Paladin, who wasn't any higher of a rank than Domari and Justice were and didn't have any more of a say in who'd have to show up, so it wasn't any use complaining to him about it. So she shut her jaws on the snarky 'but we aren't all gathered' that she REALLY wanted to say, and made a note to herself to track down the alpha and say something to him about it if no one else did. If they weren't going to call him on his mate getting more leniency than anyone else in the pack despite her higher rank, she was.

She followed Paladin into the caverns, trying to ignore the uneasy feeling she knew perfectly well just came from bad memories that she associated with these caves rather than anything actually being wrong. He led the way into a cave and hopped up on a boulder, while Justice eyed the herbs and other implements. He started in on his lesson, and posed a question to them all. She glanced up from the herbs to her brother with a sardonic expression. "When she says 'oh no, I think I'm in labor'?"