Bearclaw Valley 'Cause you might enjoy some madness for a while

Only open for those tagged at the moment! Will likely tag others in later :)

Dawn broke, and as the light spilled into the valley, Ameline awakened and began walking. 

Walking,
walking,
walking.

It hadn't been enough to trigger her labour any other day- and she'd begun to wonder if it was possible for a wolf to go on like this for days, weeks, months...Surely not. Surely, Arlette would know another trick for hastening childbirth along, but when she felt the muscles in her sides quiver, she knew she would not need it. The time had come- and still, she walked, emitting a brief but urgent call for her family.

Now, though, she paced- in front of the den's mouth, knowing that the bedding had been prepared for her for days now. She paced, fur prickling with every contraction of her muscles. Both @Ancelin and @Athalia would be met with a curled lip if they pressed too close to her now, or went into her birthing den. She wanted them near, but not right in her bubble, not when it was so ready to burst. 

Something changed; and she pivoted without warning just as the sun reached its peak to tuck herself inside the den. She circled, circled, circled- until she couldn't be sure if she was dizzy or sick. She felt pressure build up, and she called out- finally allowing her husband and her daughter to enter if they wished- just in time for the first child to be born. 

The pup was wet and dark, but unmistakably vantablack in colour; velveteen. She moved, she breathed, she lived. @Avalita, the firstborn child- cleansed, and offered food, so that she could thrive and enjoy the limelight in the brief period of time where she would be the only one. 

Ameline would not have long with her firstborn before she felt contractions again, and gritted her teeth through them. For her efforts, she was rewarded with a relatively easy birth for her second child- @Adalynn, whose stony greys triggered a childhood memory; a sibling of hers, perhaps, long since forgotten. She bathed the girl proudly, and moved her alongside her sister. 

They would have some time together, before their third sibling, @Andrelia arrived. Ameline's features lit up to see one of her children resembled their father, with white fur and mottled patches. She glanced to catch Ancelin's expression as she bathed their third daughter, and moved her close to eat her first meal. 

She would have time to wonder, and time to begin to worry before the fourth began to come. She'd felt finished, but couldn't quite tell; she'd begun to worry if there was one more, if it would be born alive at this point. But when she came, @Athella came into the world and brought her mother a rush of pride to see her own, golden ruff on one of the children. 

Now, she could breathe- and revel in the exhausted but profound glow of motherhood.

there was a comfort in the darkness that the nameless cub was born from. 
but unbeknownst to her, a tapestry was being made. each stitch formed a little ear, or a paw, and eventually she was completed. woven from silver and then dipped in the same darkness she had grown so fond of, she held little clue of where or who she is, and where or who she would be.

the tapestry tears, and from it light seeps in. her creator reveals to her finally what she has been wondering all this time:

she is adalynn, second daughter of ancelin and ameline, and she has been born.

adalynn cries for milk.

avalita bearclaw, first of four.
the child flopped from the canal rather obscenely, a grim and ugly sight marked by blood and birth and mucus. perhaps this was natural, a rite of passage for all living things, and especially those who carry her surname. she is no more than a tiny black clump of cells, restless and rather cranky already, as it was. when her soft little head is freed from the flesh-sac which binds her, she greets her family with a shrieking, wavering mewl which surely pierced the eardrums of anyone in the remote vicinity. it was this singular rebellious cry which was her first mark upon the world, however short and fleeting her time on this earth may inevitably be.
as was the way of the world, as was the way of those whose bodies churned to nothing in the very soil which now provided her with her own waking.
being a clueless neonate, she is disoriented as she mindlessly searches for the previously cherished warmth which seems to have rudely abandoned her against her will. but, seeing as how she has first choice of boob to latch onto, she is in no rush. she takes her time figuring out what it is she is feeling beneath her feet and against her face, and how the hell to properly suck in air through her nose and out through her mouth.
but, as was driven by instinct, avalita settles in due time, happily suckling away. her tiny paws press up against her mother's stomach in cruel reminder that she is, in fact, here, and plans on making the most of her newly gifted consciousness.

none of this made sense.
athalia had tried to come into the den several times, only to be met with the flash of teeth and the cold, bitter taste of rejection. what was so important about pregnancy that meant she must be excluded, on this day in particular?
so, she'd waited outside the den beside ancelin, watching his behavior closely with sharp eyes. a thick feeling of discomfort began to rattle athalia as ameline began to shout. she'd never heard these otherworldly sounds from a wolf before, and the way it curled at her eardrums was — icky, very icky! startled, she began to slink away to avoid this increasingly unpleasant event before stopping short, pausing to stare down at her feet. she realizes something in that moment.
she didn't like that ameline was hurting.
slowly, she begins to turn back around, this time lowered almost to her belly with her tail tucked between her thighs. right as she does so, her name is called, and so she crawls through the denmouth, squinting as her eyes adjust to the lack of light. another sound takes her by surprise — it is the cry of a child.
she peels back with hackles bladed up in sheer confusion, lip curling defensively as if this newborn was about to reach out and latch onto her face. why did it make that sound? why did it look like that? it was so frail and fragile, dark as night and squirming like a bug. athalia ponders squashing it. it's so smooth-looking; it'd certainly be satisfying, but something stops her.
it reaches out for milk. ameline cleans the birth from its face and limbs. a warm, weird feeling spreads in the girl's chest as she watches this tender, intimate interaction unfold; she is here to witness it.
the jealousy she once held seems to dissipate, at least for now, replaced by a dazzling concoction of amazement and fascination. she settles comfortably in the corner of the den, prepared to watch as the other three sisters make their own grand introductions to the world.
and at some point amid the chaos and the beauty, to herself she whispers; family.

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WELCOME BABIES <333

it wasn't hard to hurt ancelin's feelings, and having ameline's teeth flash anywhere near in such a cold way hurt his sensitive male feelings as if she had personally stompled them underfoot and pitched them from a cliff.
he had been hovering in the manner of a nervous bumblebee these last days, perhaps crowding her a little, being a bit more attentive than he needed to be, bordering infantilization — all meant with a good heart but probably more than annoying as fuck.
something in the marrow-depths of his spirit had spoken when ancelin woke, and this had forced the young soon-to-be-second-time-father into such anxieties that he didn't blame ameline for her silent threat.
it scorched his heart, and for a moment the bearclaw was consumed by such a blinding jealousy that he scarcely knew what to do with himself.
he let it go — it poured from him in swirling waves of red, as if blood once more washed the densite of a bearclaw birth.
ancelin would not be that crazed father looming to strike.
instead the variegated man dropped to his belly, eyes flicking from the denmouth once to the face of his oldest daughter. a thump of his tail welcomed athalia, but ancelin was otherwise wholly fixed upon the shifting shadows within the den that signalled his mate's movement.
he was tormented by the silence, by the exhausting pressure of each changing moment; he felt as if he roiled with her.
and then as the sun rose high, ameline called for he and athalia. his eyes widened; his ears twitched, as if he had not quite heard. and then he was on his feet, shocked and apprehensive and filled with anticipation, nudging her gently ahead of him and settling just a bit farther back, where he could — could see —
he saw the first daughter born. his nose stung; his throat tightened; he tried to hold it together as ameline guided the baby to her belly but he couldn't. she was dark as night and so so so tiny. he hadn't imagined anyone could be so tiny, and shared in that wonder with athalia. 
wiping his face and feeling a little foolish, though the feeling quickly faded, ancelin watched worriedly as his mate began to tense and breathe again. a little stormchild was born next, and he caught his breath. two! two! his voice still wouldn't work, but the hunter's tail drummed out a happy, ecstatic rhythm just outside the den.
the third — his mouth quivered again and he stared happily first at ameline with misted eyes, then athalia. the third looked like him, and he was overwhelmed in the most beautiful sort of ways by that.
ancelin was more worried when the contractions started up a fourth time, worried with a there's more??? expression shining up his cheekbones, but there was indeed another child. another daughter, glittering already with ameline's gold.
ancelin didn't hear what their oldest said, but he slung a paw gently over her shoulders as soon as he could compose himself. "these," voice gravelled with a thousand new emotions, "are your sisters too, athalia."
very, very carefully, ancelin leaned into the den to offer ameline a radiantly pleased kiss, to bump his crown against athalia, to touch each of the small newborn bodies in turn; he moved so slowly that his muscles started to cramp.
the bearclaw backed from the den, and such energetic delight flooded him that he found himself running, running, faster and faster, until he leapt to the sentinel stone and howled out in brazen, reverberating voice the pride of bearclaw's expanding family.
he came back soon thereafter, smeared with cobwebs and blood, bearing many moles he had dug up as morsels for ameline. she could feast at her leisure.
ancelin propped his chin on the edge of the den and watched them all, his beautiful girls, their glimmering mother, and he knew he had never been so happy in all his life.

First, there was only darkness. Darkness and warmth. A void, a world all her own. The distant murmur of her dams own beating heart. Others, around her. This had been Athella's reality, up until today. She morphed and grew, nourished to slowly take on the lumpy mold of the wolf she would one day become. She was so unaware of the blood that flowed now in her veins; Bearclaw.

One day, she would know.

Her world shattered. A new light beckoned her with a pull she could not ignore. She fought and jostled, only to be left last to make her debut. No matter. She had bode her time this long. What was a little more? 

Her emergence was out of hibernation and into the cool air. Slick furred and wet, dappled with blood. She breathed in, taking her first breath. Strong lungs filled and she belted out a mighty squeak. Something solid lay beneath her. A new kind of warmth bathed her. A new force guided her close. 

She did not understand any of it. Her instincts were strong, and already she tried to shuffle forward. A gummed mouth, one day to be home to mini razors, latched forcibly onto the first teat she found. There, she distantly registered the wriggling bodies of her sisters. 

Grumbling with tiny paws pressed firmly at her mother's belly, she drank until milk seeped from the corners of her mouth, her little sides rounding. Even as she drifted off into a milk induced stupor, she held onto her claim.

third born more like born the literal day after at 1 am

... make no mistake.

on a scale of 0 to patrick bateman, andrelia was a soft—6.5.

the cricket tournament that assaulted her mother’s bladder was a pretense for unremorseful and maladjusted tendencies to come moreso than another colic baby (or a kidney stone, jeez). and, maybe she deserved some karmic retribution for that.

but this was just weak!

she was pulling a competitive backstroke to keep away from the limelight that invited the breath of life, the way she latched inside the carceral womb pretty much communicated andrelia was less than married to the idea, m’kay? it would take dr. pol and one of metal chains he used for turbulent calving to tow her out (if it wasn’t for flushing of the birth canal that her marginally autonomous muscles could withstand).

a willful contraction—a putty knife to a barnacle—though it’s like being squeezed through the eye of a needle! her nasal sense is adulterated with baby's rheum and the general detritus of childbirth--yeah, this was definitely weaker than weak.

the amniotic sac was the last thing apropos to uterine serenity she would ever feel; ameline has released cthulhu on the world and born with the cutest disassociated scowl to boot. at least there was the reverential breath of awe that baptized her--a definitive win for all the daughters that looked like their fathers.

there was something ineffable about the phosphene images of ursine deities behind the bruingirl’s eyelids, they are as terrible as they are bright and definitely harmless, but she wouldn’t decipher the eagerness in her bones from the curse in the laden palm of bearclaw or her affinity for malevolence. andrelia gives a nice mooning to anyone who happened to be present at the advent of her glorious birth and got to suckling.

that’s what a girl’s teen years were for, anyways.

With a somewhat guarded expression she watched her mate and daughter as they looked at the children for the first time. With Ancelin, she couldn’t be sure if he was going to cry, collapse, or leave to go and work out his zoomies. Sure, she’d noticed the hurt in his features when she’d fended him off earlier, but she felt justified. She had a lot of work to do, delivering and cleaning and nursing the pups- the last thing she wanted was for their overwhelmed father to accidentally be in the way while they were being born. 

Athalia had been more possessive of her lately- something that Ameline didn’t really mind or discourage. She allowed her daughter these habits because she wanted her Athalia to believe whole-heartedly that Ameline did, in a sense, belong to her. 

She worried Athalia would not accept them, and the odd expression she bore as she looked at the children for the first time was concerning too- but Ameline trusted the girl, and within moments, her expression changed. Ameline’s expression warmed, and she thumped her tail against the ground. 

”Family,” She repeated after her daughter, tilting her chin up as Ancelin moved forward to greet her. ”Four new baby thithterth,” She beamed. 

Ancelin left, and she heard the sound of him crashing through the wilderness, noted it with a light chuckle. ”And we’re a pack now,” She said to her daughters, eyes lingering longest on Athalia who would be the only one to hear her words. Ancelin’s voice rang out; for Athens and Annorak to hear and to know that Bearclaw Valley had almost doubled in number, now. ”Thingth’ll be good, for uth. All of uth.”

Ancelin returned. ”Lookit how thweet they are, all tiny,” She crooned.

so sweet.
so tiny.
he kissed his mate with great affection, overcome again.
and ancelin was completely in love. ameline would proceed to trip over him several times, but after that he would go into a phase of fearing that he would crush them.
shoulders set inside, chin on his paws, he would watch, however, watch them over and over as they snuffled and cried and slept and squeaked, fully and utterly fascinated.