The Sunspire hooked on a feelin'

Weather: 55°F, clear.

 
"@Liffey," Rannoch summoned with a whuff once he stopped in front of their shared den, "You awake?" He stooped down and peered into their living space; it had been some time since he had left their den that morning. 

Presents laid in front of his paws— a day-old hare from the cache and a branch from their willow tree— and he was eager to gift them to Liffey. "I have something for you," he affixed kindly with a grin.

Liffey was exhausted. As restless as this heat thing made her feel, she was praying that it would soon be over and she could get some much needed rest. Even as she dozed during the time her mate had left her, it was not an easy sleep. It was tormented with anxiety and eagerness. For all the kerflompling (TM Finley Blackthorn) they had done, she didn't know if she was pregnant and feared that she wasn't. She did not want to let her mate down in this, and on some instinctive level, she felt anxious for the stability of her rank if she didn't conceive while Seabreeze (and to a lesser extent, Olive) both had.

The alpha rolled onto her stomach and stretched at her mate's call, her ears twitching and eyes fluttering open. She blinked with bleery eyes up at him as he crouched to peek at her. The tantalizing scent of food was thick on the air, but so too was Rannoch and the scent he seemed to carry constantly since her heat had come upon her. "Guhhh Rannoch, I don't think I can again, not yet," she moaned as she tucked her muzzle down between her forepaws in an attempt to hide her face, "Just... like.. five minutes, I beg of you."

Rannoch frowned. His troubled expression was not out of disappointment of Liffey's refusal in the meal; it was out of concern for her wellbeing. 

"Can I help in any way?" Rannoch asked, his voice soft as he moved to take a step closer to the den's entrance. Her discomfort was evident from his vantage point, and he only wanted to remedy whatever was plaguing her.

Liffey's eyes fluttered back open as Rannoch responded to her moaning. She blinked up at him and immediately saw the expression of concern upon his face, at which she frowned. Was it really that surprising that she wasn't ready to bone again yet? She supposed that it really didn't much matter. She was willing to do anything to make him happy, and he was rather handsome. So, with a groan, Liffey dragged herself back onto all fours.

"Alright, alright, we can go again," she said as she spun to face away from him and flung her tail up over her back, "Just go easy on me, alright tiger?" She peered expectantly back over her shoulder at him, offering him a tired, though encouraging smile.

Liffey's sudden change of heart took Rannoch by surprise, and as she turned away from him, heat began to radiate from his groin. "Liffey, I-I," he sputtered and met her gaze helplessly; there was no denying that she had aroused him.

"I-I brought you breakfast and flowers!" Rannoch forced out ungracefully as he motioned towards the objects on the ground. "We can eat?" he suggested and stole a glance towards the splendor that was presented in front of him. It took the effort of every fiber of his being not to mount her— she was just so. damn. sexy. 

Hm?

Liffey blinked at him in confusion. What was going on here? She was so tired... She peered down at the gifts he had brought her, only now realizing that he was just giving them to her, not using them as a seduction tactic that had actually already begun to work. A smile broke across her face as she dropped down onto her haunches without bothering to actually turn around first. Her eyes shifted to his appreciatively.

"Well aren't you sweet!" she cooed, her tail wagging. She turned then and trotted up to give him a kiss on his dumbstruck face, then went right towards the food. Day after day of getting railed sure gave a girl an appetite. She flopped unceremoniously down on the ground, pulled the hare to her and dug right on in eagerly.

Rannoch shuffled his feet uncomfortably as Liffey took her time to comprehend the situation, and it was only when her coo reached his ears when Rannoch felt his sexually-charged discomfiture subside. He let out a sigh, and his shoulder drooped in tandem with the exhalation. 

"Of course," he breathed in reply, "I thought you might be hungry after all that work yesterday." Rannoch chuckled; he suspected that his wife would appreciate the quip. 

"How are you, by the way?" Rannoch asked after a beat, his voice softer as he observed her. "Feeling okay?" 

Liffey gave her mate a wry grin at his comment, but said nothing. They had been working up quite the appetite for days now, and she was very hopeful that at this point, she was eating for at least six. She wanted to give Rannoch as many babies as possible and she naively didn't know yet just how much work just one of them could be. She hadn't paid enough attention when her mother had been raising the firebirds, and she'd been gone long before the wildlings. Otherwise she would definitely have been wishing right then for negative thirty kids... But live and learn!

"I'm alright," Liffey answered between swallows, "Just tired. I feel like we've been running laps around the entire mountain range nonstop for a month."

"Yeah," Rannoch agreed, and allowed for some of his fatigue to manifest in his voice, "It does feel like that." He wasn't complaining, though. He loved plowing her. 

With a yawn, Rannoch dropped his chest to the ground, and stretched; he was sure that she would appreciate a moment to eat without interference. Rannoch then crept his arms forward and lowered his hips so that he could lay. Once settled, Rannoch offered Liffey a soft smile. 

"How many do you think we'll have?" he asked, and his gaze wandered towards her abdomen. He was confident that they had already conceived, and nothing would diminish his conviction on the matter.

Liffey licked her lips as she swallowed another mouthful of meat. It was a strange thought, thinking she may very well now be eating for more than just herself. She often felt a little greedy when Rannoch brought her dinner and she kept it all for herself, but not this time. She was able to actually share the meal now, though not with her mate. Strange.

She considered his question with a thoughtful frown. "I have no idea, really," she responded, "I wonder if there's ever a point where you know prior to them coming. Like, if I'll be able to feel each individual, or if it'll just be a surprise." Liffey knew nothing of this kind of stuff. The time she'd spent in her natal pack with her mother seemed like perhaps a missed opportunity now, though she was in no position anymore to take a trip to go back and take advantage of her mother's knowledge. That was another strange thought.

"You know, I have no idea," Rannoch replied after a prolonged moment of consideration, "We could ask Olive, though, since she's had puppies before." She'd know, right? Right. "Maybe she'd even be able to tell us how many were having." 

"I think we're having twenty," Rannoch then guestimated abruptly; he was uncharacteristically confident about his decision. After all, they both had good genes, and they were both Alphas— that had something to do with it, right? "Thirty, maybe." He refined, just for good measure.

Rannoch didn't have much to offer on the subject either. He suggested they speak to Olive, which Liffey not at all interested in doing. She still held it against the woman for not telling them she had been pregnant when they'd taken her in. She also still held it against the woman that she had children already and Liffey had only just now gone into heat at all. She kept that to herself though, and simply gave her mate a noncommital shrug and a smile.

Her eyes widened at Rannoch's guesses. "Twenty?" she repeated, glancing down at her stomach again, "I don't... Do I have room enough in there for twenty? The largest litter I've ever seen was my Aunt's and she had six." Unless Olive had more than that... Though I honestly have no idea how many puppies Olive had even to this day. Which is why Fox was who Liffey thought of, and Fox had looked pretty huge at the end of her pregnancy too. She didn't really know how large the firebirds had been at the time of their birth. Maybe they came out super tiny, so twenty really wasn't that much of a stretch... Thirty though. She was just going to pretend he hadn't said thirty. "How would we even feed that many?" she tacked on after a beat, thoughtfully.

As Liffey's expression changed, Rannoch began to rethink what he had said; he hadn't meant to worry her. "Maybe... that was a bit ambitious," Rannoch agreed. "What I meant is that I want a big family with you, and I all want us to live a happy life together." He walked the distance that separated them and gently kissed her cheek once he was situated in front of her.

Liffey grinned as he amended his statement, her tail wagging gently. "Maybe we aim to have thirty by the time I'm too much of a dried up old prune to reproduce?" she suggested, thinking it a fair compromise. She didn't really know when her womb would give out on her, but she knew the reality of her own life expectancy. If she could just give him five pups a year for the next six years, they could reach their goal. Not knowing what the guidebook said about limits on litter sizes, this seemed reasonable enough.

Liffey's suggestion was received well by Rannoch. "That sounds perfect to me," he couldn't perceive a more ideal future, "As long as we're together, we're happy, and our family is happy, then I'll be the happiest I can be." When Rannoch spoke of family, he also spoke of their extended family— the residents of Sunspire.  Rannoch would not let them down like he had the Vale. 

"Feeling a little better after having some food?" he asked then with an inkling of concern. Even though Liffey had spoken recently of her fatigue, Rannoch couldn't help but wonder if the meal had done anything for her.

Liffey giggled at her mate's response. He dismissed the idea of her being a dried up old prune in a way that allowed her room to pretend to be angry that he would ever think of her as such in that he hadn't rejected the notion, but also in that he didn't mind the idea at all. She decided not to tease him about it, knowing how he could be sensitive. And besides, the meal had given her some strength back, and soon enough, he was posing a completely innocuous question that her hormones were twisting into something far more risque.

"Better, yeah," she quipped, giving him a wry, suggestive grin, "Why? Did you have... something in mind that you'd like to do with me, my alpha?" Her voice was a purr as she stretched out languidly before him, her tail arcing high as it waed through the air.

Rannoch hadn't anticipated Liffey's response; a coy smile touched his lips, and he took a step toward her. "Well, now that you mention it, I do," his eyes hungrily traced the curve of her spine until he found her eyes. They made eye contact, and it was apparent what was about to transpire. 

Rannoch then herded his wife into their den, and the two ended their day with a bang.