Moonspear snakehips

As much as she wanted these children and as ready as she felt to welcome them to the world, the pains that roused Meerkat in the middle of the night felt wrong. She slipped out of the ulaq to relieve herself and passed a fair amount of blood. Crawling back inside, she thought of waking @Njord. She decided to wait a little, set aside her disquiet and see if this developed into the familiar ebb and flow of labor pains.

The Gamma was so exhausted, she fell back to sleep, only to wake to shooting pains searing through her pelvis. Meerkat tried to sit up, a noise somewhere between a groan and a scream pulling from her throat as she instinctively bore down on the excruciating cramp. Something slipped from her body in a gush of blood.

Meerkat bent to nose at the impossibly tiny puppy. She clipped the birth sac with her teeth and began to lick him dry, panic rising when he didn’t move. And he was so small! She almost hesitated to cut the cord, though she quickly took care of that and pulled him closer to her chest, trying to warm her wee son and coax some life into his motionless body.

At some point, his mother’s tongue sparked something in the preemie. His little body twitched and he kicked all four legs as though he were trying to swim. But the liquid of the womb had been replaced by air. His tiny mouth opened to draw in his first breath, which he let out on a thin wail.

But something was gravely amiss. His little, undeveloped lungs couldn’t seem to make sense of this new environment. He tried to let his mother know with another cry, though he couldn’t draw in enough oxygen to make a sound. And the brief spark of life quickly began to fade.

Soon he stopped moving and his brief, dim awareness of the world concluded. There was no real cognizance, no fear or pain. He lived for only a few moments and knew only his mother’s love.

Njord was sound asleep when his wife stirred beside him. These days, Meerkat frequently needed to answer nature’s call in the middle of the night and, though Njord’s lids did fluter into a quasi-awake state, he thought nothing of it. One of his long arms wrapped around her for a cuddle as they settled back down together, though it did not last for long.

A scream shocked the man awake. Meerkat jostled into position. Blood filled the room with birth-scent. A sudden urgency speared through the man’s heart – it all happened so quickly that Njord couldn’t piece his thoughts together fast enough.

“It’s time?” he asked, the inflection of his words filled with hesitancy as he watched Meerkat’s figure bow like a swan as she tended to the tiny life she had bore.

Njord didn’t realize he was holding his breath as he waited for a sign of life that would never come.

Her heart leaped when the little boy moved! His small cry was music to her ears, though the next gasping breath quickly snuffed out her brief joy. Meerkat could see that he was struggling and she tried to help him by nudging his tiny body over one of her forepaws and using the other to rub at his back. Despite her efforts, he grew cold and limp beneath her touch.

Long after the newborn stopped breathing, Meerkat still alternated between licking his face and stroking his tiny body. She glanced up at Njord’s sleepy question, her face stricken, but didn’t have the wherewithal to answer him. She tucked the baby boy closer to her chest, as if holding him against her heartbeat might be catching and his would start beating again too.

When that did not work, Meerkat ever so gently shifted him back into the cradle of her arms. Her instincts told her to place him near her bosom but this baby would not latch. He would not feed, nor fuss, nor grow. He would not live. He did not live. Some part of her knew this, though acceptance would not come easily or quickly.

There was no answer from his wife, whose moving figure was laced by moonlight spilling from the den’s entrance. Njord found his feet and shuffled closer to observe Meerkat’s work.

A small – too small – baby was curled against her breast… but it was inanimate. No wriggling tail or toes… no fussing or suckling. No cries.

Any emotional response was trumped by practicality. Njord stooped down to help Meerkat rouse their little baby and licked his velvety fur with rough, short strokes of his tongue.

Njord moved closer and gingerly reached for their baby. Meerkat leaned out of the way to give him room to try rousing their son, hoping that her husband’s touch might succeed where her own had failed. But the futility of it all was slowly dawning on her.

She didn’t try to stop her mate, letting him draw his own devastating conclusion. But as he tried to stroke some semblance of life into their child, she slipped a paw off the ground and touched gently at her husband’s cheek. Tears began streaming down her own.

She didn’t realize that they were wetting the still newborn right away. When she did, Meerkat made a small noise in her throat and hastened to dry him. Her snout bumped against Njord as she licked the saltwater from their baby boy’s speckled coat, fluffing and warming it. She didn’t want him to be cold, even in death.

Whenever you like, we can fade this to segue into the followup thread, since I know this one is pretty heavy.

Last from me!

Despite Njord’s best efforts, there was no mewling cry from their baby boy. The pace of his work slowed and then stopped at the taste of salt.

Time felt mired. Their Ulaq was quiet. Njord leaned into Meerkat’s touch, though his body had not yet bridged this loss with his emotions just yet. There was an emptiness in his heart – a space that recognized the absence of what could have been. His blue gaze followed the thin streams of tears down his wife’s face…

And then his eyes became glassy as a veil of water turned the whites of his eyes pink. He curled around Meerkat and their son, stifling a sob as he exchanged a moan for a shuddering breath, and wrapped his red tail across her haunch.

If their child was a spirit, now… let him look upon them and know he was wanted and so loved.