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+--- Thread: Dragoncrest Cliffs Freshet (/showthread.php?tid=60803)
Freshet - Chacal - April 21, 2024
To the sea she went, taking the dark and tunnel that led from the cliff tops to the shore. She paused now and again to croon into the darkness, her songbird voice choked by spasms of pain. She leaned her shoulder against the dark, mist-damp stones, sporting a grimace of a grin as the stones she relied on so much now held her up.
There was little light to illuminate the tunnel’s exit onto the beach, the half-moon had dipped down over the horizon, leaving a starry sky above the dark and stormy waves that crashed against the shore.
high tide.
She groaned. This was not her plan; if only the children could have waited until the morning when the tide was lower, then she could have had the planned water-birth that she wanted to have. She could still breathe and move between her contractions yet- it wasn’t quite time, the children weren’t quite ready, but she felt antsy nonetheless.
She moved to the ocean’s edge where the beach was steep from where the high waves met it. Pebbles shifted beneath her paws, forcing her to take a step back. She meandered along the shoreline toward the tide pools which were even more dangerous than the open beach. Here, the water swelled with no notice, white caps crashing upon the rocks- before being sucked back out to sea.
Water surrounded the thoughtstone- it would be too small a surface anyway.
She waited for the tide to recede. Wave after wave beat against the beach, and wave after wave of contractions she weathered, stubbornly refusing to completely abandon her birth plan.
She called for @Mireille, @Val, @Svalinn- fully aware that she would be revealing the paternity of her children by summoning the golden man. She didn’t care- her feelings were the same. These were her children, she was their mother. She hoped that for them, Svalinn might step up, to be as doting as Val had been over the last few years.
The first child did not wait for an audience, however, and once she felt her legs become warm and slick she pushed. With a cry of joy and pain, her first child was born on a soft, wet bed of kelp, warmed by her body heat. She bathed her little daughter, and breathed the chiming syllables of her name into the misty night air.
”Chéri,” Her dear one, the fourth daughter that she had brought into the world. She coddled @Cheri, made sure her airways were clear, and held her close so she would be warm and sheltered from the blast of cold air. Chacal couldn’t feel it- her muscles seized and clenched.
She kept her nest of kelp orderly- still far enough from the surf that even a surge wave could not reach them. They would be baptized by the spray and mist- it would have to suffice. As her packmates arrived she would greet them, but her focus remained on her current task.
The second child born in the bed of kelp would be a sister for her first, and while she could not hear it, Chacal sang her name to her. ”Roux,” for her fifth daughter, who brought a smile to her eyes. @Roux was cleansed, kept safe from the grate of sand on the bed of twisted kelp, and nestled against her side as she began to strain again.
The next to be born would be her third son. His name floated to her lips, rising as if like a prayer. ”Jean-Heron,” she said, fascinated as she realized that the pale boy’s markings split right down the centre of his face. @Jean-Heron would be a striking lad, she decided, as she prepared to welcome the next.
She was weary, but her fourth child came forth swiftly and spared her the need to fight and shift. A little girl- her sixth now, making her the mother of ten!- brought with her a name that caused the now teary-eyed mother to smile. ”Elosie,” she breathed. @Elosie too would be cleaned, and tucked in safely by her side, resting on the bed of soft kelp as she recovered.
The tide began to recede, and over the cliffs the horizon began to glow, but never brighter than the woman who had become a mother for the third time.
RE: Freshet - Cheri - April 21, 2024
Chéri was born upon the shore, bathed in dying moonlight and spraying salt—a picturesque birth for the newest member of the sea-dwelling pack.
There were motions that the mother and daughter went through following her arrival; the first bath, the coddling, and the subsequent guiding of the child to the breast. When Chéri had arrived, she ate her first meal with vigor, drinking deeply until she'd had her fill and was satisfied. She kept close to Chacal's side, curling around herself as she settled down and quickly fell asleep with a soft snore. The sound continued as she slept, harmonizing the with constant ebb and flow of the waves that surrounded them.
RE: Freshet - Roux - April 21, 2024
Roux came swiftly after her sister. After the shrieking protest at being so roughly handled, at being exposed to the chill of sea air in the night, she was quick to settle in alongside the first of her littermates to find warmth and comfort in the familiar press of one small body to another.
Two others joined them, and Roux barely noticed their arrival - as though they'd never been separated. She nursed and dozed, content with the rhythm of her new life.
RE: Freshet - Svalinn - April 21, 2024
Svalinn abandoned his hunt immediately, running full tilt across the clifflands at Chacal’s alarm call.
It was time!
He had been frustrated to not convince her to labor in the warm confines of her den, believing the tradition of seawater-births to be entirely unsafe, but he could feel nothing but subsisting pride as he found her and their firstborn daughter upon the beaten shore.
Chéri was magnificent. A perfectly blonde angel. He could hardly look away from her. He paced, whining softly as Chacal tensed in pain and pushed out another daughter. A paler girl than the first, but another blonde of silvery sand and just as entrancing: their beloved Roux. The next contractions produced their first and only son, and Svalinn felt a glissade of worry at the sight of him, until realizing that it was just his coloration and not some malformation of an exposed skull – what an odd pelt, Jean-Heron! This one was healthy, too, as told by his loudest cries. Last to come was the treasured Èlosie, a smudge of ash among a rank of gold and cotton siblings. Irrevocably beautiful, she added a new color shade to his heart.
And if all his favoring over the pregnant Tanzanite had not been clue enough, then everyone would know him as father now. He caressed the beleaguered mother and kissed her pained brow.
You’re amazing. They’re perfect,he whispered.
He came to encircle their salt-sprayed children, minimizing the wind exposure after their baptism. He felt loathe to let anyone near at this time, though would begrudgingly allow the more comforting presences of Mireille and Valravn, if only to celebrate this moment with them also.
RE: Freshet - Jean-Heron - April 21, 2024
Jean-Heron was born in the manner of countless others before him, except perhaps for the moonlit seaside vista and a harsh wind whose surges would only make him stronger.
Broken from the sac, his first breath was limned with salt, and this taste would become flesh-memory, as the salted air coated his throat and sunk into his veins. He coughed and screeched, gullish squalls gurgling until he was cleaned and nestled in among familiar bodies. His loud, rasping cries died to whimpers as he eagerly fed, tucked between breast and sibling, senseless towards anything else.
Having washed away the tang of seasalt, a milk drunkenness took him soon after, and he could be seen bowled over by his swollen belly, smacking sopping lips in his sleep.
RE: Freshet - Èlosie - April 21, 2024
Even now, I don't remember much o' my first weeks. However, these moments would always be imprinted in my mind. I couldn't see, my eyes still sealed shut, but I felt the spray of oceanside mist. The salt on the wind. An' I wouldn't ever forget it.
The cold seaside wind chilled Elosie as she took her first breaths. Even in late April, the earliest hours of the morning held no sunshine in the sky. Only light casted by the fading moon. She didn't feed a substantial amount, but was rather more content with sleeping, dreaming of things she did not yet know of.
The sound of the waves provided an constant, undying reminder.
There's always music 'round you, if only you know how to listen. Always sights to see, if you know where to look.
RE: Freshet - Mireille - April 23, 2024
mireille knew, and she accepted. it pleased her to know that chacal had chosen svalinn and that she had chosen val; both of them had proven themselves time and again to sapphique, and the proud stride of golden legs proclaimed that now.
ignoring the misting spray, mireille trotted along the beach, bringing wide leaves of kelp wrapped around quivering piles of orange eggs scooped from urchin ovaries.
"you are beautiful, sister," the obsidian murmured, tucking her cheek against that of her sister for a close-eyed inhale of relief. mireille had never doubted the sea or chacal, or svalinn for that matter, but nature could be fickle.
now she looked down with deepened love over the babies who would one day soon know her as matant. sapphique thrived again, and she included svalinn warmly in her gaze.
mireille would linger only a short while. her own vigil would end when another arrived, but for now she sang out into the sea's presence, celebrating the birth of the newest little pebbles and the mother's strength who had brought them earthside.
ignoring the misting spray, mireille trotted along the beach, bringing wide leaves of kelp wrapped around quivering piles of orange eggs scooped from urchin ovaries.
"you are beautiful, sister," the obsidian murmured, tucking her cheek against that of her sister for a close-eyed inhale of relief. mireille had never doubted the sea or chacal, or svalinn for that matter, but nature could be fickle.
now she looked down with deepened love over the babies who would one day soon know her as matant. sapphique thrived again, and she included svalinn warmly in her gaze.
mireille would linger only a short while. her own vigil would end when another arrived, but for now she sang out into the sea's presence, celebrating the birth of the newest little pebbles and the mother's strength who had brought them earthside.
RE: Freshet - Chacal - July 09, 2024
The family, grown again, huddled together for some time on the beach while Chacal gathered her strength. Another find brood of children- another generation that might strengthen their ranks, or branch out on their own to find a future elsewhere. Comfortable amid the small gathering, Chacal remained on the beach with her children, her sister, and the father of her latest litter, listening to the bb and flow of the tide.
Like time, it came and went. Like her children, it came and went. Like the waves, her life went on; once she was steadied and strong, she, her sister and Svalinn would move the children up from the beach, and to the den near Bluepeace where they would be raised.