We are Made of Star-stuff (birthing)

As the season had progressed one very uncomfortable, extremely infuriating fact had become increasingly clear to Leto.

That bastard Chaos had gotten her pregnant.

She had been so far from her heat cycle that the possibility had never even been on her radar, let alone enough of a thought that she would have taken precautions. Well, she was reaping the consequences of that by the bushel now, wasn't she? With her sides rounded and her emotions constantly jumping anywhere along the spectrum (though usually it was her temper that was quickest to ignite) without warning, with the discomfort and the ache in her joints as ligaments softened in preparation for the big event, it was hardly any surprise that she would be so thoroughly pissed at the conveniently absent father of the litter.

Denied the possibility of metaphorically skinning Chaos Saxe alive and tanning his handsome pelt for a blanket, Leto did the next best thing she could. She set out to find her family, because family was the only thing you could trust when push came to shove and you found yourself in need of help, and fuck knows she needed help. Leto Aeris was not mother material. She hated kids - hated the way they moved, and smelled, and talked, just everything about them. But the lives she felt squirming inside her like little alien parasites were Aeris lives, and that made them worth caring for. She just knew she wasn't going to be any good at it, and would probably ruin them for life. Somehow. Arry, though, Arry would know what to do. Leto might have been the eldest but Artemis had almost always been... relatively speaking... the more responsible and thoughtful of the siblings. Surely if any of the three of them could handle kids, it would be Arry.

So it was that Leto had continued her interrupted journey north despite her increasingly gravid state. But when she had finally come to where she had thought Artemis' pack was... it wasn't there. Enough time had passed that not even a trace of scent markers remained, and Leto had been left stymied. Where would Artemis go when the brat king's pack fell? Back south? Had she and Leto passed each other by miles as they travelled in opposite directions? Or maybe she had stayed up here anyway?

Before she could begin sorting through scents to investigate that possibility, her abdomen squeezed painfully, a sharp ripple of muscle that seemed to wash down around her sides and clamp down like a vise, leaving her with all four legs locked and unable to move or catch her breath until it passed.

Leto began to curse, loudly and creatively. Why NOW? She hadn't found Arry yet, hadn't even found a DEN anywhere near here she could hole up in. Well, there was no time to find her sister now. Instead she grimly searched among the rocks until she found a cubby between several outcroppings that would be big enough for her to stretch out in. Shoving a deer hide that she hadn't torn up into snare lengths yet into the crevice, she made it as... semi-comfortable as she could before, equally grimly, settling into the job of pushing those alien parasites out into the world.

SOME TIME LATER

Leto glared down at the three squirming bodies nursing at her belly with a jumbled mix of pride, irritation, and exhaustion. Three?! She didn't even want ONE, how would she manage THREE of the little beasts? Particularly if they were anything like she and her sisters had been. She growled and grumped out loud, wondering how she.was ever going to find Artemis now that she was locked to this shitty little den, or, she realized with some alarm, how she was even going to hunt. Well, it wouldn't take long to set up her snares nearby, she supposed. But not now. Now she just needed...

A grumbling sigh issued from her muzzle as she dropped her muzzle to rest on her forepaws. So damn tired...