Bearclaw Valley and fire coming out of the monkey's head

sick - and not just pregnancy either.

sick, from that wolverine.

how many months ago?

she trudged along, gravid with her spine showing. her teeth chattering some half-mad curse; but at who? ursus was fine - no ursus was not fine -- my daughter - her mate was fine. even her son was continuing to grow into his new role.

astara did not make it across the redwood path today. weak and feverish, she slid gracelessly to her side and splayed out in a pool of sunlight while flies and birds droned overhead.

tags for ref!

tuur had long gone. 
the medicine den was occupied now by @Arielle, but merrick had not needed to call upon her for any malady.
until his blackbird's aura shone sick-orange. he stalked after her now, flinging himself bonelessly nearby.
but his gaze was tense, and merrick passed it over the swell of her side and the back of her head.
"you've lost weight." petulant, hard. in it she would hear his brand of worry, which was to deny it ever existed.

lost weight, gained baggage. pari passu — astara’s dull gaze flickered over that of her rook. she licked her lips, tongue coarse over a sandpapery muzzle.

it bothered her for merrick to see her like this. weak. a burden. and yet she couldn’t make herself stand up, or pretend — it simply was just too much effort.

and she was tired, so tired.

a sigh in answer as she placed her head on her paws, ears having lost their rigidity and her hard gaze having lost its shine.

he did not like this.
merrick's tail twitched almost compulsively, as did the tight line of his scarred lips. he inched closer, nostrils flaring at the heated bearing and the way she now lay too softly against the earth.
mouth curled.
"should we get rid of them?" a rasp, but merrick was not attached to the lives cupped inside the corvid's new roundness. only her. and he would not lose her.

if merrick didn't like it, astara liked it even less.

she licked her lips nervously, a low fluttering growl given in answer as merrick crept close.

to kill what was inside of her would be to kill her; she was already so compromised that any further shock to her system would surely result in death -- and while somedays she wished for the suffering to be over, today was one of the few better days and if she was to lose her children, she would lose her life protecting them in the process.

the growl faded almost weakly away; astara lifted her head and attempted to reassure her rook with a lick to his scar-crossed muzzle. this was but a phase -- soon her body would be rid of its fever and her children and merrick would prosper.

how merciful for ursus that merrick had managed to spawn again whilst being fully uncomprehending of how it all worked. even now he refused the very pertinent nuance of being connected. and he was further deterred from analysis by how his raven stirred and warned him.
merrick was hurt! he pulled away from her, and would have gone on, had not her tongue swept out at the last moment to kiss him. "you are in so much misery!" he exclaimed, curling close as she would let him, preening the bulb of one jet-faded ear. "it is unfair. thank you," he added breathlessly, thinking of how greatly she sacrificed the cunning litheness of her being for them, twice now, and how without her, ursus would be nothing.