The Dead Switch Graves

!M! for some gore

The adjustment out of Kuroki's pack was... relieving. The change for him she could wonder. The fate of his kids, well, she wasn't heartless. Though she wasn't sure what she could do with the fate of theirs. She was probably an overthinker. Oki could probably care less about what the kids would be like when they were a year or two. Perhaps Onyx was just too harsh on herself. She certainly never saw herself as a mother.

She couldn't go home to the pines anymore, and since the dissolve it wouldn't really seem like they had a plan to stay anywhere. Kuroki wouldn't oppose to where but she couldn't say it felt like home. Maybe that was more issue crafted within herself. How much doubt could Oki even see in her?

She was on her way back to their den with some fresh deer meat, of course not giving herself a break. This was when she started feeling a ripple of some kind that felt like it rushed over her entire body. She paused for a moment, but nothing else seemed amiss so she kept moving on. When it happened again it was a little more obvious what was going on. The thing was, she expected it to be a lot more painful than it was so she was a little confused. Dropping the meal she was bringing home, she started to let out a call for Kuroki, only the howl was abruptly cut off as she was tackled from behind. The largely pregnant woman was tangled up with a mountain lion, rolling and tumbling along the ground for what felt like ages. The mountain lion snarled, Onyx throwing back similar noises back at it, and soon it would get the upper hand pinning the blue wolf under it's paws, chest to stomach. How she could be so careless not to notice a stalker behind her, perhaps after the meal she was bringing home. It saw it's opportunity and here they were.

Onyx struggled under the grasp of the mountain lion, but she wasn't as nimble as she was a few months ago. Claws dug into her making her growl and snarl, she certainly still was the strong warrior woman at heart. The lion lunged down at her throat, jaws surrounding her windpipe as she struggled to breathe. With a thick crunch at her throat it would feel like it would be all over but no, she would not die today. Not Onyx.

Maybe the surge of adrenaline knowing that Kuroki's kids were on their way, her kids she supposed, gave her the strength to push the lion back with all four of her paws, tumbling yet again with one more flip to give her the advantage now. She panted heavily over the beast, vaguely seeing blood pouring off of her over the lion's face an neck. She wouldn't waste any time though. Slamming her antlers into the predator's chest more than once before lunging to rip across it's throat herself, maybe in some sort of iconic way. She mostly let it bleed out as she backed away. Wincing as much more pain ran through her stomach now that she recognized as contractions. She made it a few steps away before collapsing, the lion still alive behind her twitching. It all dawned on her at once. No, she would not die today. She couldn't. She still struggled to catch her breath for a few seconds before weakly reaching around her to start pushing dirt into her neck wounds. How fitting it would be to birth her children outside in the elements... after a battle that still threatened to take her life.

"Onyx"