Hail the Stork

*Crusade* · 03-25-2013, 04:18 PM

[Image: one_eyed_crusade_by_kidrylm_writer-d5yxnla.png]

~*~

Crusade lay lounging at the cave-mouth. The grand rocky arch was the entrance into the Glaciem pack densite. Within was the heart of the northern pack - the place where every night, over a dozen wolves curled up to sleep - some grouped together in warm clumps, some choosing to be off on their own, some padded down with pine broughs. During the day, however, most everyone was off and away. The healers would be gathering herbs now that the air was hinting of the summer thraw. The hunters would be tracking the incoming caribou herds. The warriors would be patroling and training and supplementing the hunters as needed.

There were no other elders, no prisoners, no wounded, no pups - it was an empty cave today, except for the one old Timber wolf laying in the band of sunlight that made a wide golden doormat at the entrance.

For the most part Crusade still made herself useful around the terra. She'd patrol a here and there, and she could still bring in plenty of small game, and of course she still had great value as a foreign dignitary... and yet she was retired. She had plenty of long sunlit mornings just like this one - where the cave was slowly deserted and after the goodbyes and nods were given, she was left to dream.

Such she had done this morning - diving off into a delicious swirl of warm fuzzy memories: the adoption of Keki and Maka.... the coming to this new Glaciem... reconnecting with Cifer ... their first night as mates... Crusade hmmmed happily herself and stretched out luxuriously. She hadn't really told anyone yet, not out of any sort of worry - but just waiting for the right time. The basic signs were there for anyone to see anyway. Crusade and Cifer were just both were deep, personal sorts of wolves. Still waters and all that. Quite a few times now, they'd mated, but unfortunately, Crusade didn't believe anything would come of it. She was still able to keep up with hunts and what not, but she was nine - past the fertile age.

And yet...

Perhaps it was only her mind playing tricks on her, or the hormones of old age toying with her... but she was acting like an expecting she-wolf. For one thing, she was enjoying sleeping in - something that, as a morning bird - she rarely ever indulged in. She was craving fish more too - which was odd for her. Yet she'd kept warning herself not to get excited - not to get her hopes up. She had to know for certain.

Back she went into the sunny realm of dreams.... until something starting -something twitched - something moved inside her.

Crusade came awake with a jolt. "Could it be...?" Her eye stretched wide and she rolled over slightly to stare at her cream colored belly. "Is it possible?" She'd felt this sort of feeling before... when she'd been expecting to Mouse back in the Far North...

The she-wolf remained as she was for a long tense minute. Had she imagined it? Had it been a part of her dream?

But then it happened again.

And Crusade knew.

"CIFER!" she screeched out, and then, recovering some shred of mind, she snapped to her paws and let out a howl. A long, high shout of escatasy meant to summon any of her family that were around. She-she had to tell them! -to let them all know! She was being given another chance to bring life into the world! She was going to be a mother! Oh to heck with going to be! She was already! There was someone, a a few someones living within her, probably already with little wolfish heartbeats of their own! "Gargie!" Crusade shouted as she took off from the den. She started down the roots of the mountain - heading into the woods and towards Glaciem's great Lake. She wanted to get out in the open where her calls would be better heard. "Cifer! Asheni!" she howled. She'd meant to call for her adopted daughters too, but the words now stuck in her throat. Instead, of words out of her maw, a perfect little opal of a tear brimmed out of her left eye.

~*~

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