Whatever the outcome of her talk with Kisu the previous day, Pied did not spare it a single thought as she wandered around the edge of the plateau, the cloudless blue sky sprawling above her. A flirty breeze whistled in her gray ears and wound its fingers into the long, mottled fur at her nape as she picked her way toward a ledge occupied by a lumbering tree. It faced east over the flat lands, offering a good view of the winding Whitefish River.
When she sat down beneath the crooked oak, she felt something strange and looked down between her forelegs. Her belly protruded, pushing against her hind legs and forcing them to spread a little wider than usual. Pied stared at this anomaly for several long moments and when she finally lifted her eyes again, the brightest smile shone upon her face. My baby bump, she thought blissfully, leaning backward slightly and lifting her right forepaw to crook gently over the small swell of her middle.
During a rather routine patrol, Peregrine came across Pied sitting beneath one of the trees he considered a landmark on his route. "Pied," Peregrine said in way of greeting as he approached, his tail lifting above his hips and his ears pricking. The wind tickled them, causing them to splay sideways as he stopped beside the twisted oak.
"How's things? How are you settling in?" the Alpha inquired as he took a seat near his niece. "Why so serious?" he teased when he noticed the broad, beaming smile on her patchy face.
What started as a black dot soon grew larger and took on details, materializing into the familiar figure of her Uncle Peregrine. Soon enough, he joined her beneath the misshapen oak. Pied bowed her head as the Alpha situation himself alongside her, unable to tone down her smile. Unbelievably, it grew a little when he commented on it.
"I have a baby bump," she said simply, her paw still resting on her belly. "It just makes it all seem more—" Pied began to say when she saw something on the ground just beyond Peregrine. Her voice died in her throat.
Five little bodies lay sprawled just beyond his haunch. They appeared to be asleep but Pied knew, with certainty and dread, that they were dead. Several of them didn't look quite right. A thin cry began to crawl up her throat as her eyes fastened upon the dead puppies, wondering at the purpose of this vision. Her paw clenched over her bump. Were these her unborn children? Were her pups dead?
"No..." The word rasped out between dry, pinched lips. She'd forgotten all about Peregrine's presence right beside her, her eyes still fixed on the tiny, innocent corpses.
When she mentioned it, Peregrine's dusky eyes fell as if to take a look for himself, yet her leg blocked his view. "Lemme see," he said even as she began to speak, only for her voice to cut off. Assuming she'd wanted to let him speak, he repeated, "Lemme see. Your leg's in the way," in a good-natured voice.
Then he noticed the stricken look on Pied's face. The brilliant smile was very much gone. The Alpha's brow furrowed and he slowly turned to follow her line of vision, which was fixed on the ground on his other side. There was nothing there. He slowly turned back to face her, even as she whispered, "No..." A peculiar sensation washed over him and the black fur along his spine lifted.
"Pied? Hey, Pied, what is it?" he asked, confused but sensing something amiss. Pied looked incredibly distressed and he wondered if she was having a neurological issue, like a hallucination or seizure.
She began to shake her head, slowly, repeating, "No, no..." in a quiet, breathy hiss. "They can't be dead. They're growing," she mewled plaintively. Her paw slipped from her belly, planting on the shale, and she slumped forward slightly. Tears already began to drip down her muzzle, pooling just below her.
Only dimly did she register Peregrine's question. She turned her head upward, her eyes shimmering, and moaned quietly, "I think my puppies might be dead." Suddenly, Pied remembered herself and added, "I just had a premonition, a kind of vision..." It wasn't that far from the truth, though perhaps more digestible for her pragmatic relative.
When she pitched forward, Peregrine said her name again, sounding alarmed. "Pied." He prepared to move forward to support her should she fully swoon, yet Pied thankfully didn't fall over. Instead, she hunched down and began to cry. He could see the tears dripping like clear blood on the stony ground.
"What is it?" he repeated worriedly when she finally looked up at him and explained she'd had a vision. Peregrine's face froze at the mention of dead puppies. Brain lesions or something, maybe? he thought crazily.
"Vision?" he finally repeated. "What do you mean? What was it of? Pied, your puppies are fine." Since he didn't know what else to say or do, he added, "Listen, I would know. I talk to my puppies all the time. I can hear yours too. They say, We're just fine, mom! Truly."
She laughed, once, through her sobs. If anyone believed Peregrine actually possessed such a talent, it would be Pied. But she knew he was just saying this to make her feel better. There was no consoling her, though. Her eyes, blurred with tears, had fallen. But they lifted now and the little bodies, all five of them, were still sitting there. She gasped and began to cry harder.
"I see ghosts, Perry," she blurted. If it was anyone else, she probably would've tried to keep her ability secret. But he was her uncle and her leader now, so she began unload on him, babbling. "I've always seen them. That's how I knew when Mo died. I told Crete a messenger from the falcons told me. That messenger was Mo herself. And Tyrannus. Their ghosts." As she confessed, she felt a queer knot in her throat and suddenly she felt like something had knocked the wind out of her.
Her admission made him blink. Of course, his first impulse was not to believe her. Judging by her reaction alone, he definitely believed she saw something. Peregrine thought she must have hallucinations. Perhaps she was mentally unwell. His brow furrowed as he regarded his teary niece.
He'd been so preoccupied in his own skepticism that he hadn't initially registered her mention of his mother and brother. When he mentally backpedaled, his lips parted. His hackles prickled at the mention of Tyrannus. This was taking schizophrenia—or whatever afflicted Pied—to a different level. Peregrine could not bring himself to just accept Pied's claims.
He didn't want to refute her in such a distressed state. Instead, Peregrine asked, "What do you see, right now?" and looked at her downturned, tear-streaked face with burning curiosity and concern.
For a moment, Pied couldn't catch her breath; she felt as if someone had kicked her in the stomach. She sipped in little breaths of air, trying to focus on Peregrine's voice so she wouldn't lose her wits. He asked her what she saw and her eyes instinctively flicked upward, to the pile of dead puppies. They then dropped and she squeezed her eyes closed, fat tears still leaking out between her damp lashes.
"I... I see fi—five dead pups," the Tau replied. "Four are... are white and... underdeveloped. The fifth is black. Some ghosts move and speak. They—aren't," she explained in a dead tone, eyes still pressed closed. Quietly and without looking up or moving otherwise, she asked, "Do you believe me, Perry?"
When Pied described what she saw, Peregrine experienced another strange sensation. This time, it felt like someone's cold nose pressed against the nape of his neck, which sent a shiver down his whole spine. Despite himself, he looked again and saw nothing. Certainly, there were no dead puppies. He frowned, the thought still distressing him. He dismissed the queer feeling as a byproduct of Pied's macabre description.
She asked if he believed her. Peregrine paused, then said, "I believe you're seeing something, Pied, but I'm not sure I believe in ghosts..." He tried to picture his mother's and brother's ghosts paying his niece a visit and the thought was absurd to him. "Have you, ah, hit your head lately? Or... maybe the stress of the move and the pregnancy is putting strain on your mind or something..." But these things wouldn't explain previous visions, he knew.
"It doesn't matter," the Alpha male decided in the next breath. "Whatever you're seeing, whether it's somehow real or nothing more than the result of an overextended mind, I refuse to believe your pups are dead, Pied. Look at your belly. You wouldn't have that bump if there was something wrong," he said cajolingly.
When he professed skepticism, Pied didn't blame him. And, blessedly, when she reopened her eyes this time, the bodies were gone. She sucked in a deep, shaky breath and sat up straighter. Almost nervously, she looked around, as if checking to see if they'd simply relocated. She saw no sign of the five little bodies.
"I've seen ghosts all my life," she said somewhat blankly to Peregrine, "and I've considered schizophrenia and all those things. But it doesn't explain a lot of things, particularly when ghosts leave me with information I wouldn't or couldn't otherwise know..." She trailed off, feeling too shaken to substantiate her ability.
Her mouth twisted and she fought the urge to cry again when Peregrine reassured her with such confidence. Her lips parted as she prepared to say something when she felt yet another strange flutter just beneath her ribcage. It prompted her to climb to her feet, as if her distended stomach was somehow restricting her lungs and she could only breathe properly on all fours. And it did help.
"I keep feeling this..." And, suddenly, it dawned on her. "Oh my god, Perry, I can feel them. They're moving, inside me." Her wan face slowly but surely reassumed the earlier smile. Her pups were very much alive. Even though their tiny little movements hurt a little—probably the bruised rib smarting, which would explain the breathlessness—Pied was elated.
"My babies are alive," she murmured with happiness and more than a little relief. Her smile faded a little as she said aloud, "But someone's pups aren't..." and wondered over the real source of the ghostly, obviously miscarried puppies.
The swarthy male felt a little whiplashed when Pied's demeanor suddenly changed again, for the better. Still, he somehow didn't miss a beat when he said, "See? I told you they were okay, Pied." A small smile slid across his lips and he reached out to touch his nose against the corner of her eye. "I'm happy you can feel them. It's pretty cool, isn't it? Hawkeye's far enough along that I can even feel them from the outside..."
When his niece made an ominous remark about someone else's puppies, Peregrine couldn't stop the thought. Tytonidae and lil' Osprey? He shook his head. He didn't believe in Pied's vision and, besides, she'd mentioned five bodies. He and Hawkeye were only having two. (This was no more logical than ghostly premonitions but he wasn't about to admit it.)
"Everyone's pups are fine," he said firmly and soothingly. "Speaking of which, I'm due back at the den for a lunch with the wife and unborns." Peregrine paused. "Are you going to be okay, Pied? Would you like me to stay? Or would you like to come with me? You can come say hi to Hawkeye and you two can ooh and aah over each other's butterfly bellies..."
Part of Pied liked the sound of accompanying Peregrine to see Hawkeye, yet she didn't want to crash their lunch date. Besides, she wanted to find Kisu and tell him about the quickening. It was an exciting milestone in their pregnancy and she wanted to share it with him. They were about halfway there.
"I think I'll take a raincheck," she said. "Have fun and tell Hawkeye I said hey. She knows, by the way," Pied added almost sheepishly. "She's my sister and best friend. Only the two of you, Kisu and Jin—"
Jinx! They're Jinx's pups! The realization slammed into her, a precognition so strong she didn't doubt it for a second. Her heart seemed to stop for a moment before resuming thudding in her chest. Slowly, a frown took over her features. Jinx's pups are dead. She'd almost forgotten about them in light of the move but she hadn't, not entirely. And now she felt a strange sense of loss and grief.
"They're Jinx's puppies," she said to Peregrine in a quiet voice. "She's a former pack mate of mine. I'd actually... I guess it doesn't matter now." Pied sighed, her eyes lifting unseeingly to stare in the direction of Swiftcurrent Creek.
The Tau politely declined his invitation, yet Peregrine didn't take off just yet. For one thing, she wasn't done talking. For another, he was still worried about her. Perhaps it was silly and patronizing of him but he didn't want to leave her here, alone, near a cliff...
Her soft exclamation earned a hard glance from him. "Jinx?" he repeated. "She once trespassed here. I beat the crap out of her and sent her on her way." He looked smug for a beat, then peered into his niece's dappled face. "How...?" He then shook his head. "If it's true, I'd call that karma," was his only remaining comment.
"If you're sure you're all right..." The Alpha male paused. "I'll pass your regards onto Hawkeye. And needle her for not telling me your secret. Just kidding." Despite his uneasiness with the subject matter, he winked and swished his tail. "Catch you later, Pied. Congratulations on the bumpin' butterflies," he added, glancing at her belly before he turned and padded away, glancing over his shoulder only once before disappearing.
Pied had not expected the name to mean anything to Peregrine. When he told her about beating up the Kesuk, Pied's mind flew back in time to that day on the beach, when she'd helped the bloodied Jinx. She blinked, now looking at that situation in a whole new light. A frown touched her lips, which deepened at the Alpha male's comment about karma.
I was going to take them for her, she thought but didn't mention this. So much had changed since her last conversation with Jinx and she wouldn't have been able to take her puppies anyway. Maybe you're better off... she thought toward the never-born puppies.
"I am. Thanks, Perry," Pied said quietly, looking after him as he turned to walk away. "See you later." As soon as he disappeared into the distance, she sighed and dropped to her haunches, then slid forward onto her belly. She leaned slightly to the side to accommodate her belly (her heart fluttered) and crooked one foreleg beneath her white chest as she stared off into space.