and the reason is you

Ballad wasn’t completely alone in the birth, though she had sent her fox companion out to hunt before she’d truly started laboring. The cross fox was returning to the falls just as the dark woman was struggling internally with herself. Ballad wouldn’t have chosen such an open place to give birth if she hadn't felt perfectly safe here. There wasn’t much in the way of wolf scent, and thus far no one had clambered by.

The little she fox, pheasant still in her mouth, placed herself between her mistress and the large black she wolf as she sobbed lightly and brought Ballad to consciousness. Exhaustion held her tight, but immediately she was at the ready, however loathe she was to move her nursing pups. She blinked back her sleep, but her features were completely unreadable otherwise. Her paws however, danced lightly more from habit than hope that the woman would understand the sign language.

”Are you alright?” She answered cautiously, not allowing the dark woman a hint of her emotions beyond her moving paw.