Elastic Hearts

It was only once Claire gave them the okay for Solaire to be in the room that she motioned for him to come through the door and had him close the door behind him. She set to work, bringing over her supplies and pulling them out so they would be at the ready while also putting together a dose of the medicines she had pre-prepared. She glanced up as she worked to Claire as she shared the closeness of the contractions and the time since the contractions started. "Won't be too long now then," she said with a reassuring smile. She scooped out a dose of the medicine she had created–the appearance of it looking more like a scoop of honey with a greenish hue and a few specks of leaves suspended in the mixture. "This has the Motherwort and Trillium extracts we were working on the other day in it," she shared with Solaire, showing him the mixture before holding the small wooden spoon up to Claire. After giving the laboring mother two doses of the honeyed mixture, she put the lid back on the jar and moving to Claire's side.

"Whenever you start to feel like you have to push let me know," she added as she placed her forepaws gently on Claire's rounded belly, feeling lightly for the pups and for the feeling of her muscles rippling with her contractions. Luckily for everyone involved it seemed like this was a far smaller litter than she was used to delivering with Briar and Artorias' litter. She was glad that this would be Solaire's first experience since it had all the makings of an easier birth than he would have seen from a larger litter. She gestured for Solaire to come closer and took one of his paws, placing it where hers had just been. "Feel that? That's the pup moving into place to be born," she explained and waited for another contraction to come to add, "And that's how the muscles flex during a contraction. The closer together those contractions are the closer we are to welcome a pup. Stay here and help me count how long it is between contractions, okay?" After giving Solaire a task she went to start preparing some towels and getting into position to clean up the pups as they came.

"Gwynevere Carpathius"