Redhawk Caldera ridikolus.

@Gannet :D Only took me... a month?

After the fourth morning in a row of waking the pack up with the sounds of her noisily vomiting in the bushes, Fin was feeling pretty darn certain that she was pregnant. Three weeks ago, she would have been overjoyed at this discovery. But three weeks ago, she was feeling fit and healthy and happy. Now that her stomach was constantly rolling around inside of her making her feel like absolute shit, the realization was not unwelcome, but not as exciting as it could have been.

That afternoon found Finley flopped along the shores of the Caldera's lake. She'd come to rehydrate herself after a late morning of dry heaving and was now lying there like a lifeless sack of sick. The day was bright and calm and warm, which put her in a lazy mood, thus making her particularly useless when paired with her already not feeling well. Her mind, however, was kept busy as she contemplated how strange it was so feel so physically empty while knowing there were somehow puppies inside of her. Unless she'd puked them out.

<3!!!!

Gannet wasn't sure why Finley was sick, but he knew that when he was sick, he preferred fish to anything else.  He wasn't sure why, or if anyone else shared this odd seafood preference when nauseous, but didn't hurt to find out, right?

He found her a perfect one too!! The salmon had a good amount of meat on it, and he hoped she would like it!  carrying his prize proudly, he sought his aunt out, but wasn't able to find her around the usual spot.  Finally he checked out the lake, and his step gained a noticeable spring when he caught sight of a familiar lump.

Obviously alight with cheerful energy, he bounced up to Finley, likely looking a comedic opposite to her, and dropped his present with a triumphant air a couple of feet in front of her.

Fin's tongue ran along her lips as she laid upon the ground. It curved across the rounding of the tip of her muzzle and curled down the side of her jaw till it hit the corner of her mouth, which split then into a wide yawn. Her stomach made a sound halfway between a gurgle and a snarl, causing another wave of nausea to sweep along her petite frame like a sickening shiver. She groaned and rolled onto her stomach, lifting a paw to drop it over her face as though she'd somehow manage to block out everything she was feeling by covering her eyes.

In her distress, the alpha nearly missed the approach of her young Delta. Her ears twitched as her senses caught up to her and she shifted her arm to allow room for herself to peek at him as he happily trotted up to her. "Hey kid," she greeted, gently wagging her tail in an attempt to be personable in spite of wishing very much to retain her solitude. But that desire was quickly dispensed as her gaze shifted and she saw the fleshy, pink fish land beside her.

All signs suggested that Fin would puke all over it the second the scent touched her nostrils. The Blackthorn was pleasantly surprised and extremely intrigued, however, to find that she did not. The scent was actually... good. A bright shock of energy flickered in her and pushed her up onto her elbows. She scooted around on the ground to face the expected meal, reaching with her nose to sniffle at the shining scales. Fuck it smelled good. What was up with that?

"Please say this is for me," Fin requested, completely forgetting that she was alpha and could just call dibs, "It smells good and nothing smells good ever these days."

Success!!! Gannet nodded emphatically when Finley asked; she was the only one this fish was intended for.

He set it down within reach, then backed up a few steps and sat down, panting happily.  After a couple of moments, he finished appraising her.  "You're sick?" He asked, his smile fading slightly but his tail still thumping behind.

Fin felt the gratitude swell in her as Gannet nodded. Without further ado, she dove at the salmon, tearing into its scales into the pink flesh beneath. Fuck it was good. Good enough that she paid no attention whatsoever to how messily and greedily she went at it, not that she ever really did. She liked to look good, but not at the expense of enjoying herself as she so thoroughly was at that moment. Part of her suspected that she'd be throwing it back up in about ten minutes, but that was ten minutes worth of nutrients she might be able to take in for her puppies and ten minutes worth of tastiness she could feel on her tastebuds. Worth it.

She glanced up at Gannet as he spoke to her. She swallowed the mouthful of meat she had and offered an encouraging smile. "In a way," she said, "But, it's actually a good thing in spite of how miserable I feel about ninety percent of the time..." Fin paused to strip another line of flesh from one of the near-translucent rib bones, "I'm pregnant. And babies tend to make you throw up."

She certainly dug in, enough so that if she were trying to only appease his feelings in accepting the gift well, he certainly couldn't tell.  He grinned at her enjoyment, happy that he had had this thought and honestly a little gratified they had something in common.  Finley was family but it was moments like these that only cemented that fact.

Babies tended to make you throw up?  He hadn't been around Fox overly much when she'd been pregnant with his last siblings, but he did kinda remember that.  "Why? Do they not like food?"  Surely not, but it was the only thing he could figure it as being, some sort of shared aversion to food caused by literal parasites now dwelling in Finley's stomach.

Finley had not spent much time before with Gannet. She knew he had been close with Liffey, which had always amused her because she had so rarely even heard them speaking with each other. She had always liked him because of his quiet nature, and for giving her daughter a devoted friend. But they'd never really spoken much before now - if you could call this speaking much, which it kind of was for him.

"I'm not totally sure," Fin replied thoughtfully between bites, "They sure don't seem to at the beginning. In a few weeks though, I'll be able to eat an entire herd of deer and still feel like I'm starving. It's all very strange." And she really did think that. It was her third pregnancy now and while she was getting ued to the process, every step still seemed weird to her - including the part where she was growing wolves in her stomach.

"That's dumb", he said, frowning at Finley.  Why wouldn't pups like food?  Everyone liked food.  If they didn't eat, they died.  And that made no sense whatsoever when they hadn't even gotten to get out and see anything yet.

"Maybe they just don't know," he reasoned after thinking a moment.  After all, he'd seen his sibling in their pup stage, and they weren't the brightest stones on the bank.  That made a lot more sense.  They probably liked food, and were just too stupid to know what food was now.

Fin quirked a brow at Gannet's blunt response, but she said nothing to deny his claim. It was pretty dumb. Her train of thought seemed to follow her nephew's precisely, for she had come to the same conclusion he voiced only seconds before. "They're very small at first, so I suppose they just don't want any food until they get bigger. For all I know, they don't even have mouths when they first show up." She shrugged lightly, not finding her own hypothesis likely even though she was actually spot on.

It was right about then that Finley's body turned on her. Fin spread her toes and dug her claws into the ground as her stomach flipped. Bile rose quickly in her throat, and she'd just barely gotten up onto all fours before vomit began to spill from her mouth and splatter all over the remainder of the salmon. She spent a few minutes heaving while Gannet (presumably) backed away and stared at her in disgust. When eventually she stopped, she didn't say a word to him as she began to move forward on shaking legs towards the lake, wanting to wash the foul taste from her mouth and then just pass out for the rest of the day. Which is just what she eventually did.