It had come upon her so suddenly.

Then, it took her at the knees. Weakness, then vomiting, then pain so great she retreated from view. For weeks, she rankled in a den dug for her family, for the child she and Kestrelcloud meant to create.

And it appeared the child would kill her first. 

Then, one morning when the frosty fingers of dawn touched the distant horizon, the pain left her in a rush of tears and fluid.

She dragged herself from her den, to a patch of earth not too far from her convalescence, and she buried the child there. What would have been a child. She could see bits of its face, its ears, its so small paws. Never to walk, never to see, never to hear. The birds chattered and chirped and carried on.

Doedapple crawled back into her den, and did not emerge for several days.