a few more than expected (BIRTH)

Alfrun had just about finished puttering around when Jupiter appeared, looking a bit green around the gills. Just in time, too, because the contractions were getting rather intense and close together. She smiled at Jupiter as she settled herself on her newly-remade nest. "Yes, it is time to welcome your sons and daughters into the world. The return of the sun is a good omen for their birth, do you agree?" Alarr's arrival followed on the heels of her words, and so did another contraction. She endured it breathlessly until she could speak again, and called out to him. "Of course, Alarr, come in. I'm as well as can be expected. I am old for this, however," she acknowledged, "And I am glad for you to be here, just in case something goes wrong and you should have to cut the pups from me." She said it casually in her distracted, dreamy voice, as though cutting someone open to remove puppies was totally a normal and every day thing for a healer. But as far as she was concerned it was, since obviously her pups' lives were worth more than an already-spent life of her own.

And then she settled down into the real business of giving birth. You know, the messy, difficult business of giving birth to several gigantic children in a row when you're a tiny, emaciated old woman. It wasn't pretty, and a few times it got a little dicey when it seemed like one of those oversized pups might not make it out, and it took wayyyyy longer than she expected it to. And finally finished and resting, dizzy and sick from effort, to survey the little lives she and Jupiter had created, she could see why it had taken so long. Eight. There were eight little bodies squirming at her belly, when normally there would be four or five at most.

"Hm," she said out loud, weakly, "The magic was stronger than I expected." And she, deservedly, passed out.