Only half way up

Now the chill had left the air, she didn't feel so averse to leaving her room. This litter had taken it out of her, between almost drowning in labor and soaking out on the beach in the wind, she had come down with a nasty case of pneumonia. She did well to hide it from Gil, and Sakana had been her almost constant companion during the time, keeping her strength up and wrangling the children when she ran out of energy, forcing all sorts of foul concoctions down her throat to keep her alive, and goodness, there had been haggard days when all she had wanted was to be allowed to die.

Before she could dare to face the rest of the pack, the young healer had even lent her his monkey to groom her fur properly, somehow getting some of the familiar scented oils from her childhood to give her coat a bit of shine so anyone that saw her wouldn't be able to tell just how unwell she had been. She had always been slim, and the boy had been bold enough to accuse her of being dangerously so at the moment, but she doubted anyone would question her. It wasn't any of their business anyway.

She made her way downstairs and already dreaded the climb back up, but that was a problem for future Modesty. If she didn't get some fresh air, she really would wither up and die. The sun warmed her coat quickly and she steadily made her way down to the shore. She pulled a face at the peacefully lapping waves. Fucking island. What a disaster that had almost been. As she flopped under the palm, it dawned on her that this was probably the tree under which her latest litter had been born. How unfortunate that she couldn't rustle up the energy to move.

“Speech.”