Blackfeather Woods We have waited long for the [M]aster's song and it's time to join in the chorus...

Potemababies! @Koume @Kotake @Vaati @Ganondorf @Kove (and Xan?) @Nemesis @Atshen @Abraxas (Maybe Seff?!?!) @Astrid @Keelut @Cicero (If you guys want cameos)

Mature Content Warning

This thread has been marked as mature. By reading and/or participating in this thread, you acknowledge that you are of age or have permission from your parents to do so.

The participants have indicated the following reason(s) for this warning: Babies being born. Language.

She knew, long before the contractions started, that today would be the day they were born. It was the Winter Solstice, the longest night of the year. Night was the domain of the Dark Brotherhood, where they could safely hide under the veil of night. She could not rest through the shortened day, praying ferverently at the Temple, hoping that they would survive, that she would survive. As the day fell, she felt a twinge in her side, unlike that she had felt before. She rose. It was time.

Before she returned to the Glen, she stopped by her Mother's Skull. The Redgrove was desolate now, the flowers that so beautifully adorned her bones withered away, but there it was, shining bright. She bent to it, pressing her nose against the ivory vessel, murmuring to it gently before another spasm drove her away, quick as she could, to the Glen.

She barely made it there before she collapsed, the pain too great, the pressure at her entrance mounting. Dusk had arrived now, turning the sky above a dusky pink red. When half her body was inside the den, she felt it, half in her, half out. Her firstborn, rushing to the finish line. Potema gasped, then shrieked. The sac spilled out, her pup trapped inside, the dying sun's rays still lingering on it. She turned to it — her, she realized as she lapped the sac from her body, revealing a nearly black coat, speckled with streaks of silver and gray. Hearing her first child's cry, she nearly wept at the sound, gently picking her up and carrying the child inside for her to nurse. As the child laid beside her to nurse, she knew that whatever her first name would be, her second would be: Azura, after the Daedric Goddess of Dusk and Dawn. 

Night had finally fallen when the second arrived. There had been twinges, ripples, of pain, but no great contractions. Potema whimpered, pushing, trying to get the pups out of her and quickly, but there was no rushing them. Not this one. She came slowly, at her own pace. Inch by inch her second daughter arrived — luckily head first. She wailed as her head broke through, Potema licking her all the while until she finally plopped onto the ground. She moved swiftly to place her next to her sister — to whom she was indistinguishable. Potema's ears flattened against her head, unsure of how to distinguish them now that they were merely wiggling things. She thought of which Daedric Prince to name her after, and then it hit her: Nocturnal, Prince of Shadows and Nighttime, sister to Azura. 

Potema scarcely had a moment to breath before another contraction hit her. She gritted her teeth, her body lifting up, throwing off her two daughters as the pain ripples through her. She whined, panting, curses in both the common and the Daedric slipping through her teeth. Blood preceded him, her first son. When his head broke through and he tumbled out into the world, she punctuated it with a final Fuck! before regaining her composure, cleaning him to reveal platinum fur with sandy legs. Potema knew the father immediately, recalling their coupling, her fur heating up at the thought. Clavicus, was his Daedric God. No gift came without its price.

She rested, still feeling the presence of pups inside her womb, knowing now that it was best to let her body decide when to push them out. Her head poked out the den occasionally, watching the Moon, judging how far it was in the sky. It was already a long night, made longer by her birthing. As the Moon climbed into the sky, her body gave the telltale sign that another pup arrived. It came swiftly, with little effort from Potema, sliding out, and as it lay there in its sac, she could see why. Potema nosed it, noting the cord wrapped around its neck, it's body small and frail. Dead. She had no name for it, nor the stomach to eat it as her mother did her dead siblings. She put it to the side, her attention shifting back to the last remaining presence in her womb.

When her last child, her second son, arrived, she was frightened that he  would be dead like his sibling before him. Despite the impressive red stripe that marked his back, he was clearly the smallest, even smaller than the one before him. She fervently licked him, some flicker hoping that he had lived... His cry, loud despite his size, brought her to tears once more. Molag, He deserved a strong name, for despite his size, he was. She brought him to her side by his brother and sisters, lavishing all four of them with kisses and soft, half coherent murmurs. They were, she was, alive.

Life came to Vaati in a rush.

It wasn't as though he hadn't been alive in the womb. He had been - it had just been a different sort of life. It had been a quiet, comfortable life. A worry-less life. But this one...

In the first instant he had bene pushed towards this life, he had known that it was a far more difficult one than the one he was leaving. This one was harsh, demanding, cold. This one did not just let him be, floating comfortably suspended in time and space and womb fluids. This one made him move. This one made him exit. This one made him fall onto hard earth and cry out in misery and lamentation of what he once had.

Clavicus, as he was so shortly dubbed upon entering this new world, yowled unhappily the moment he plopped onto the ground. He had done his best to fight his exit, but in the end, his mother had won. She didn't want him inside of her anymore, and so he wasn't. He was cast out in the cold, and none too pleased with it either.

The platinum-furred pup cried as loud as his teensy lungs would permit until at long last, he was pulled close. All of his complaints seemed to vanish in that moment where he snuggled against pale fur and other little bodies that were warm in spite of their obnoxious squirming. He found a teet and began to suckle with a greed he'd never before known, but forgot his awareness of almost instantly. In fact, he forgot everything - his happy world in the womb, his uncomfortable first introduction with the den floor, and everything in between. All he knew was this moment, snuggled against his siblings and his mother, suckling happily at warm milk while Potema's tongue slid soothingly across his spine.

He could work with this.

Darkness was the only world he knew. It shrouded him from pain and nurtured him as he grew. From the beginning he could sense them, four beings there floating with him in bliss. And as he grew so did they and life became rather crowded inside his mother's womb. He would kick when a surge of energy shot threw him or lie still as if he was dead. Even at this young age in life, Ganondorf was already proving to be a complex little pup.

He did not mind as his siblings went, one by one being forced into the world of life. As his time came to leave the womb, Ganon too fought against his mother's wishes but was eventually plunged into the light. His body was not meant for such a rough entrance into the world, and upon connecting with the earth he showed no signs of life. But as his mother desperately licked him, he let out a roaring cry. 

He could not hear his name, but the hot breath of his mother running down his spine was enough to soothe him back to silence. As he was gently pushed aside his larger siblings, Ganon began to feast as if had been starving all this time. Milk lazily spilled out the corners of his lips, and as he gradually became full he began to doze off into the comforting darkness of his world. A world where he was king.

acknowledge or ignore

Nemesis would not have given Potema permission to breed, had she been the Dark Master at the time. The timing of their birth could not be more inconvenient; the winter was harsh and their numbers did not support the many mouths that needed to be fed. The more that died at birth would give life to the ones that pulled through, or else the woman had every inclination to end them herself. The sight of the four put a bitter taste in her mouth, but one that she suppressed for never could she ever act upon the ideas that circled within her head; unless tyranny was apart of her plan at the moment. Her presence outside the den put a damper on the mood, a silent shadow seething at the unfortunate predicament of birth. Gazing into the depths of a den she could no longer call her down, the Dark Master felt no love for the new Spiderlings. They would never surpass her children; Atshen, Keelut, and Abraxas would be the heirs to the dark forest with Astrid as its queen. It was their purpose, one that would not be stolen by a litter of bastard children with nothing but their less than achieving mother to their name. The four threatened everything from birth, and they did not even know it. Silently, dark woman lay outside, guarding, but uncaring. 

Sheogorath was not sure how he felt about the arrival of Potema's children. He cared little for more mouths to feed and felt little emotional attachment to the children, but he was interested in recreating a strong bond between himself and Potema; and one that he did not intend Cicero to hold any stake in. He arrived at the birthing when he picked up the scent of Nemesis. He approached her, soon finding himself nearby the entrance, too. Sheogorath shared a grin that was uncharacteristic to Cicero with her, his face much livelier than that of Cicero. There he stayed in silence, leaving it in the middle what his precise purpose there was.

At first, the eldest sister was calm. Floating in a sack that was settled somewhere in a moving, breathing something with no thoughts of getting out. It was warm here - pleasant with her siblings near enough to touch if she so wanted to. But life, though it gave her much, took away this safety net as the world she knew started crumbling down. Sliding ever so gently (even if that could not be felt) out of her mother, she was confused to say the least. Something big was missing - someone she needed, though Koume did not know who. When the sack that prevented her from breathing disappeared, she gasped for air with some yips and yups and general cute puppy noises.

It was cold out here, but mother was sure to bring her inside before she got sick or anything. At least, Koume thought this was inside. She nestled herself against her mother lovingly, sucking softly on a teat she had found to fill her belly. Long would she stay awake - the thought of having lost someone important vaguely present within her small mind. 

Kotake came into the world heedless of memories and all that she once had known. She would come to know it all again in this life, though experience it differently. The world was as dark as her namesake, and the only thing Kotake knew that she cared for was sustenance. There was an inane comfort in the presences surrounding her but it was not cognitively put aside for remembering. Like the others born to Potema, Kotake sought food, and then rest.

There was a crowd outside as the tension ebbed away. She was not greeted warmly by the two who came first, but Potema paid it no mind. Her mind sung with joy, a cheer and pride she had not felt before. She did her best to just leave her pups alone to nurse, but how could she? They depended solely on her, for food, for warmth, for protection. She would do that and more to them; teach them, guide them, until they could carry the Melonii name on their own. She saw her brother outside and smiled, inviting. Brother, there are four, She chirruped proudly, amazed that her body could produce so many despite her age. Four to match the four Nemesis birthed. She saw the Dark Master outside the den, noting her silence and lack of, well, anything. 

There was the trouble of her still pup, the dead one. She had given no name to it, paid it no mind as Molag had wriggled out of her with a faint flame of life, but now that things were still she locked onto it. Mother had eaten their three dead siblings, born in winter like her own had. She had no urge to consume her own, dead as it was. 

@Abraxas for the pup eating (he can barge right in lol)

nem is out for now

 

The cries of four small children sent chills down her spine. Nothing good had come of their birth, in the dead of winter and she was sure that more than one would not survive. Cicero was ignorant of the fact they did not have the numbers to support so many children, and Potema was just as foolish. Did they not understand that it would now be by the sweat of her brow would the number of prey she needed to catch in order to support the pack now increased? Both Melonii's had been lacking any support that their leadership ranks required. Neither had done much at all to prove they deserved to be in such a position, she seethed quite sourly. Adding a full new brood to the list of burdens the Melonii family brought did not help their credibility, in Nemesis's eyes. Her patience was running thin, and as the Dark Master, she knew very well that it was by her discretion that the children lived. It was a fact she toyed with multiple times a day. The dark woman sunk further into the shadows.

When Potema came from the den and addressed only him, it did not take long for their Dark Master to slither back to from where she had come. Sheogorath smirked at that, and then he turned towards his sister. "Congratulations, sister," he said, almost warmly so, and he turned to look inside, though made no move to actually go in — this was her domain for the coming weeks, and only when they were a bit less squishy would they become the pack's business, too.

"They look strong and healthy," he commented after casting a glance at them. After offering his sister a nuzzle, he then suggested: "I will go and fetch you something to eat." It was imperial that she had others to feed her. Damien was gone, and so it was down to Sheogorath to look after Potema. He did not mind. It was the perfect foundation for repairing what damage Cicero had done to their relationship — she was dependant on him now, and he would make sure that she would appreciate him for pulling her and her pups through these times.

With those words he turned around to go and catch her something fresh so that she could tend to her pups again.