Nova Peak III

General catchup thread for MR :) Ambiguous timing

There were familiar things.

The aromatic, defrosting loam. Sprigs of snowdrops and crocuses. Birdsong and the sound of running water.

Spring had some again.

But with it came unfamiliar things. Alien things.

Wolves infiltrated the Taiga. Cloud Dancer and Grim Tooth wandered from the mountain. Others invaded it.

Moon Runner was on guard. Disturbed. Confused. She did not understand the world in which the others lived. Why Grim Tooth, Cloud Dancer, or Waterstone’s mate meddled with other clans. Why so many wolves frequented Nova Peak’s borders. Stole from their hunting grounds. There was tension in the air and the smell of hostile pheromones on the wind.

Moon Runner had no answers. Only the feeling of being a stranger in these different times.

Ire rode Ayovi. It gathered with every encroachment, in every intrusion and slight, coming to a head with Faust’s haphazard attempt to recruit Lorcan into his war. Darukaal had long since violated the treaty for peace.
As for the dark hunter, Ayovi saw little honor in him. If he left, she would not welcome him back.
Hot blood in her veins is not good for puppies, and only after a thorough marking of the eastern hills does the affliction yield to quiet counter efforts. The calming scent of spring is in the air; the wormy earth of snowmelt and lenten-rose browning on the new-leafed bush. Her headache lessens, gloss driven into her eyes as fierce kicks strikes inside her belly. She had never been so glad for her flesh, layered like soft armor around her children. Sheltering them from the world.
Giddily Ayovi returns to the mount, speaking to her little warriors, heart taking on a new pace when it is Nemage that fills her eyes. For a moment she is only still, reading worry in the silent woman’s posture and allowing her own to be felt in the graze of eyes. The North had belonged to Nemage long before the packs of Saatsine, and Darukaal and Winsook. Uncertainty defines this time, but there is security, too; a comfort as Ayovi braces her neck over the snow-shawl of Sister’s spine. They would be strong together. 
“War has come to divide the North,” she murmurs soberly against the hunter's nape. “The mountain will have no part in it. I think— diplomacy is wasted on these neighboring tribes. We do not want the same things.”

A smudge of soft white appeared between rock and pine. Cloud Dancer had returned home! For a moment, the two women exchanged solemn expressions – loud, however silent.

Moon Runner shook the worry from her furs and eagerly joined Cloud Danger in a greeting ritual. Her bottlebrush tail swayed happily between her hocks as her nose investigated the smells from her voyage. She even preened a tuft of loose winter fur with her incisors.

But then Cloud Runner’s skycolor gaze became distant.

Moon Runner joined her and looked westward, out into the taiga, where other clans warred.

A flick of the ear to acknowledge her Wealda’s sentiments.

Moon Runner bumped her jaw and licked her chin.

Cheer up, the spirit said.

Then, her nose trailed to where Cloud Dancer and Grim Tooth’s children grew.

Not long now, the spirit knew.

It is impossible to hold onto fear when Nemage shares her joy, and soon Ayovi is weaving in twin steps, returning every affection with playful teeth to cheek, tongue trailing warmly across soft snout and ears. It seemed no matter how Ayovi presented herself she was alpha female to the snow hunter, and no longer did she contest this position; not when it gave structure to the young woman. The truth of Nemage’s origin may forever go unanswered, but it did not change how Ayovi felt about her.
“You have been such a comfort to me,” she breathes into silken nape words the other will not understand. And she does not need to. Everything is expressed in their wagging tails, the thrilling breaths and clasping hearts. Ayovi's ears fall as the woman noses into her stomach, somewhat shy to share this part of herself. But elated, too. Excited and terrified and feeling every emotion all at once. At last her voice comes again, this time gentler, soft upon spring's lazy breeze.
“I... want you to be there when they’re born. I wish for them to call you Paachin.” Aunt.

Moon Runner could see the gentle expression of mother-to-be and parsed what it meant to share this vulnerable moment. There was trust and rapport between them. Something rare in life… and something the young wolf did not take for granted.

Ah - but she had something to show Cloud Dancer!

Moon Runner leaned against Wealda and melted to the ground until she was rolled over with her belly exposed.

Perhaps it was hormones in the air, or the parallel pregnancies of Waterstone and Cloud Dancer, that had caused Moon Runner’s body to be tricked into a silent menarche and false pregnancy. The fur on her belly had begun to thin. Soon, milk would come in to nurse Winsook’s children. Her identity, forever Treow -- caretaker.

Nature had secret gambits to fight against the hardships of wild life. To give a pack’s newborns assurances of survival. It wasn’t about the individual – but the collective. And to Winsook she gave her body and soul.

Ayovi rounds her, tail a fiercer sway. A nose scents at the thinning fur, mouth dropping open into a beaming grin. Her exposed belly flowers, gently rising into the same rosy peaks that dot Ayovi’s own.
“Sister! You’re— you’re pregnant!”
But no, that wasn’t it. There is no swell to Nemage, no ancillary heartbeats along sister’s flattened flank.  Ayovi stops moving, dazed and surprised, but the message from the silent woman cannot be any more clear: she is devoting herself to Ayovi’s cubs.
The huntress blinks back a flurry of wavering emotions, shock and confusion and gratitude. She lowers her nose to plant soft licks along Nemage’s muzzle, leaking a grateful, excited cry.
The woman’s commitment to the unborn cubs proved something Ayovi was just beginning to understand: that extraordinary beings would come into her life in extraordinary ways.