Little Fiery One

She knew she was inching closer and closer to finally being able to give birth to these pups that had made her stomach grow and swell tremendously, but over the last couple of days she started to feel that restlessness that she remembered feeling from their first litter. It felt like a waiting game and any minute her labor could start so she stuck close to their den, keeping Irilyth and Alastor close while she waited. Their pups were energetic and active, seemingly just as eager to be free as she was to free them. They were large enough now that their wiggling and kicking against her ribs was more impactful and painful than it had been when they first began to move around like this and she was thankful that they were very nearly at the end.

It was the very wee hours of the morning as she drifted in and out of uneasy sleep, getting up and down again and again throughout the night. She did her best not to wake Alastor as she moved around the den, but she knew she wasn't going to be entirely successful. It was just impossible for her to get comfortable or relax while her body prepared itself for what was to come. Finally, just as the sun was beginning to lighten the sky, she was pulled out of shallow sleep by that easily recognizable pull, tightness, and pain of her first contractions, her water breaking and dampening her thighs and the bedding under her. She was relieved that it had finally begun, but an odd nervousness came with it too. Going into her first birth she hadn't felt the concern she felt now over what would come once it was all said and done. She remembered the way she had felt when she saw her pups for the first time after Avacyn and Saracyn were born and having to face that again with the inevitable truth of what would have to be done made an unexpected pit in her stomach.

She shoved the thoughts out of her mind as she leaned over to nudge Alastor awake with her nose gently pressing to his cheek, giving him a little smile as she panted lightly through the beginning of her next wave of contractions. "It's time," she told him softly before she shifted a bit and settled more comfortably on her side. Looking back out toward the rest of the cave that laid outside of their personal chamber, she called, "Irilyth! It's time!" to summon her handmaiden to her side. It was hard to believe that it had already been a year since they had done this song and dance in that first temporary home they had out on the prairie and now here they were in the pack they created, their first litter now yearlings, and a second litter only moments away from being born.

"Manea Mendacium"