In The Darkness, I Found The Light

She was glad when Siren arrived just a few moments later. It was difficult to fight off the rising worry and panic of what might come to be, but it was slightly easier with Siren's sweet face and demeanor with her. She was panting lightly as the contractions continued to roll through her quickly, but she did manage to return Siren's gentle kiss, giving her a small, grateful smile. Even if only Siren came she could be content in that and know she was in good paws. To her surprise though, Aliana walked through the door next, bringing with her a candle that gave off a faint glow. It was just enough light to chase away a good amount of the darkness around them, though it did make the corners and edges of the room look like they were in deeper, darker shadows. She looked up at Ali as she came to hand off a vial of something to her, instructing her to drink it. "Ali..." she said softly between her panting, but she didn't manage to get the rest of her words out before another contraction gripped her and made her grimace and by the time it passed Aliana had already moved away, clearly only letting herself think about her work.

Dalila's ears flicked as she watched the gray, clouded healer, but she did as she was told and drank the contents of the vial, the herbal taste of it filling her mouth. Luckily Chimera came in shortly afterward and was able to say the words to Aliana that she hadn't been able to and she was able to relax back into the bedding once more. Her body was now in a constant state of either gripping and contracting as it worked to get her children into position to be born or in recovery from it. Just as another contraction passed she glanced up to see Chimera as he nodded to her before coming to lay around behind her where she could lean back into him. She could see the exhaustion on his face, the same wear and tiredness they were all feeling as the world crumbled around them. She wasn't sure why she was so surprised when Chimera left Aliana's side to come be by her, laying in a way that she could lean back into him the same way he had for Siren and Aliana, but she was. Their relationship had improved by leaps and bounds from where they had started and perhaps this was all only because it was his children she was giving birth to, but it still caught her off guard to have him treat her even similarly to Siren and Ali.

She settled against him all the same, breathing through the contractions as they came. She knew it wasn't her fault with what happened with Aliana and she knew she couldn't control the state of the world, but she still couldn't help but feel a strange guilt for making Aliana feel like she had to be here and for feeling like she was forcing Chimera to be this way with her. There was feeling of anxiety and dread in the room that was suffocating. She was already afraid of what could happen after seeing a range of terrible, painful births between the two other women in the room so it was increasingly difficult to stay calm in this moment. At a loss, she curled a pale paw around one of Chimera's forelegs, clinging to him for some desperate sense of security as the birth rolled on whether she wanted it to or not.

The extracts that Ali gave her worked quickly and effectively and did manage to take the edge off of the pain of her contractions that were moving more strongly and quickly than she had anticipated. She did her best to follow Siren's instructions to breathe as she began to feel the first pup starting to get to a place where she could push, gritting her teeth and squeezing her eyes shut, giving muffled, pained groans as she followed her instincts and started to push. It was when the noticeably large pup started making progress out into the world that the pain really started to overwhelm her. The medicines she was given surely helped, but it was still a deep, blinding pain and a deep pressure she had never experienced that forced her to scream as much as she was trying not to. She was larger than Siren and didn't truly have a reason to think that her children might go the way of Aliana's so that same guilt and feeling as if she had no reason to react in such away made her try to hold herself back, but in the end she couldn't help it and cried out through the final hard push to free the pup, one paw gripping at the fur she was laying on and the other gripping hard to Chimera's leg.

She collapsed back into Chimera again as the large pup finally slipped free after a good deal of effort, panting hard and struggling to sit up enough to see the pup in the dim lighting of the room. It was hard to make out much more than the general shape of the puppy as Aliana and Siren received the little boy, slightly making out the patchwork coat of gray and black from where she was laying. She held her breath as she waited for the cries and sounds of a healthy pup, panic and dread welling up in her chest as she tried to make out what was going on. "S-Siren...? Ali...?" she breathed, holding Chimera's leg tighter again. The pup wiggled and flailed weakly, pulling in little struggling breaths. There was a few tense minutes before some unnamed, unseen deformity finally took the pup, the boy slipping away and falling still as it succumbed to the outside world that he clearly wasn't meant to survive. Dalila's ears fell back against her head as she watched the silhouette of the pup's limbs grow still, breathing in a shuttering breath as she fought off the tears and panic that threatened to over take her as more contractions took over, her body unwilling to give her a moment to grieve.

"Dalila Vista Rocha"