Dragoncrest Cliffs vwa lanmè a

slightly early birth as ill be busy next week! like before, the orange x is the den, the blue x is where she is starting her labor walk :) no posting order, everyone is welcome <3

this time mireille did not curse the tribulatory pains so very much. she had sought @Chacal and swayed in the arms of her sister; she had stayed some time with maleah and sought @Sobeille and @Astera for this as well, showing her contractions and their grasp upon her. if one day they sought motherhood, then this sight, shared also with chani, would prepare them well. a time of silence was given also near @Kheviel, mireille searching only in silence for whatever power the elder-woman possessed.
their men she did not seek, save for val and @Thibault; this was a time of great change for a woman of sapphique, and it was with her sisters and daughter and nieces she must spend this. their aventurine was the only other permitted thus to attend the obsidian in this time; he had earned it. she did linger near @Ravin and @Theo for a moment, allowing them also to bear witness, though this would not be their lot to carry.
and the cries did not come half so early, half so harshly. mireille strode the night away, a low thrumming sound deepening in her throat each time the pains bore down and removed her ability to take another step. and back into the sea she returned, long swimming strokes occupying her mind while the pains eased. she ate ravenously and rested upon the sand, and woke to greater pains and a fierce, breaking ache.
mother's-body told mireille that now she must return to her hollow, and with small strained smile for any gazes upon her, the redfurred obsidian caught the glow of morninglight just as the thorns embraced her gravid figure. no mothers here, but again she wept for them all the same, ensconcing herself amid the downward curling of moss in the upturned palm of the broken tree where she had borne her first four.
her pain trailed then into the flowing seasalt air, trickling with agonies yet to come, and as the morning glittered down its first glow into the green-draped little archways, @Jadou emerged from the panting body of the ocean-mother and lay over one quivering thigh, caul pulled and passages cleared. a son, mireille saw, but was not displeased. so autumn-red and delicate.
the bright scarlet of @Shadess was next to follow within the hour, and mireille churned to bring this child earthside, to lay her alongside exhausted belly beside the little jadou. her tears fell freely as she kissed their small ears and carefully cleansed all birth-matter from downy spines.
ah, motherhood! and she did not fear it so much this time.
but the pains bent her again to fearful whims; her whimpering became a full-throated cry as blood came. her pushing was to little avail; mireille dragged herself upright, and set toned shoulder against the mossweave side of the hollow, and braced herself, crying out into a scream.
@Lucette! @Lafayette! curled together, sharing one breath, and she saw the color of them, and their small closed eyes almost in a row, and swallowed hard.
twin children, cleaned as meticulously as the first two and tucked against the curve of her side.
four! marveled over by their mother and she looked up and saw the next afternoon had come, paling to the gold of twilight as this quartet of seababes mused in their first breaths of air on a shoreline conquered long ago so that they might live free.
"mamans," the exhausted mother whispered as she lay her head upon one outstretched arm, eyelids barely hanging to consciousness, "i know you see dem. an' sobo, ah, i know you be t'ere also. look, look," the obsidian murmured, drifting into a wakeful napping as the wonderment of four children lived their first at her breast.

jadou, from the beginning, was the most average puppy one could expect.
he slides into the world a pale, messy blend of deep red shades, stretching out his stubby forelimbs in search of his maman, much in the same way every other child of his freshness does. he rolls around, lazy and lopsided, and from his mouth come the pathetic cries of finding one's voice for the very first time; help me! i'm cold! i'm hungry!
boys are all take and no give, and on first glance it must seem jadou is no different — he snuffles his way to a teat and latches with no other care or tribulation, no regard for the three other bodies at his side. no one truly knows if these are traits we are born with, or if they develop over spans of time; if separation from the norm is learned or baked into our brains. this is especially not so certain when you have only just been yanked earthside by the will of higher power. but what is certain is that, even as a newborn and typical as he may seem,
there is something distinctly other about this firstborn child.

welcome babies <333 i wanted to mention each of u in this thread but didnt want to make assumptions, so kept things vague!

val knew this was the woman's crucible -- there was little he could do to ease the torment. he did not breach the surf with mireille that evening. he stood along the swashline, and when it was time, paced with her as the night bled into a magenta-tinged spring morning.

it was mireille's hour now. val paced as her thrumming transformed into pants of pain. he wished in that moment he could do anything to cease the pain - but between maleah and chacal, there was little he could offer the sisters had not already given.

four new lives slipped into the gentle arms of the broken tree that had once before, borne four other lives. val peered at their small faces. two were dark cinnamon, tinging val with nostalgia as he thought of their proud grandmes. and the other two -- why, they looked like twins!

val looked upon mireille with deep-rooted pride. she had made these little lives; she had carried them in the crook of her belly for weeks now, and here they were, ushered into the brilliant eaves of existence.

a warmth enveloped his fur as he looked upon them all, his eyes resting for a moment on jadou as the boy fought for his needs to be met, and had his efforts rewarded by the gentle attention of his mother.

maman was going to give birth now.

maman had instructed sobeille of what to expect earlier; how it was the mother's gift to the world, and how she and all her sisters would come together to celebrate new life.

sobeille was lukewarm to this prospect. new life meant more siblings. more siblings could be good or bad. her current siblings weren't so great, in sobeille's grim estimation. thibault was alright, on account he'd stayed.

despite her best attempts to steel her heart, sobeille felt a pang of loss thinking about tousaint and chantale. no! she would not mourn them.

maman rose from the sea, her fur sodden and trailing saltwater as she pulled to the shore. in that moment the full breadth of her belly was evident. sobeille's gaze flickered to val indifferently as the pair made for the mosswood.

sobeille was fascinated by what came next. she crawled her way atop one of the broken arms of the ruined tree, peering down at maman as she folded her way into the palm of the collapsed trunk.

maman's belly hosted four lumpy lives -- how had she managed to fit all of those under the small twist of her ribcage?

sobeille watched, her curiosity hardly sated as she peered down on the gristly ritual below. each baby was strained from maman's belly, ensconced in a dark film that reminded sobeille of jellyfish skin. were they swimming in that otherworld, before they were evicted to earth? her wide eyed gaze absorbed it all; the way maman cleared the caul from each head with surgical precision, cleaning each babe and stirring life into their small, protesting bodies.

they were so fragile -- so vulnerable.

surely, sobeille had never been that small.

lil maleah cameo <3

mireille, now a mother for the second year.
maleah had watched her change under pregnancy in quiet admiration, always offering whatever assistance she could. away from the eyes of their sisters, the healer gave soft glances of longing; sometimes, her touch lingered a bit longer than was necessary, breath caught in her throat like a swallowed knife, wishing in some distant way that the children she bore belonged to both of them.
weeks passed and with them came preparations for the birth. she worked alongside chacal and val to keep her safe and cared for; a warm tea here, a soaked clump of moss there; dried kelp and lavender, prayers to whatever higher powers that might be. and then came the classic signs of labor, the tightening of muscles. maleah could do little but watch from afar.
mireille had gone to her nursery, and all the while the sapphire was a nervous wreck. for hours she sat near the roja den with the eldest children, tail twitching subconsciously against the thawing earth. she gauged reactions from miette and thibault, and in some way sought comfort from them as well. little sobeille, ever faithful assistant, had grown so much —! her heart aches for how she will once again watch as the seababes sprout into grown spirits.
when the time comes for visitors, maleah hurries to beat the inevitable crowd at the side of sobeille; with her she brings a calming root and moss soaked with drink. there are four. four beautiful, tiny bodies, and at the center of their orbit is mireille — fierce, radiant, incredible mireille, sleeping peacefully now.
they're beautiful, aren't they? she whispers in passing to val as she reaches to touch her palm to the obsidian's wrist. you did good, mir.
as she gazes down at the new mother, her eyes sting with silent affection that for now only exists between them.

The start of a life is much like the end.

Perhaps there are signs. Little warnings of things to come, neither understood nor accepted because change in any form is never an easy thing. You are changing, the world says, but not today. Not today, met with smiles and nods and averted eyes. Until quite suddenly it is today. It is now. You are changing.

Change is never an easy thing: the first lesson, and the last. But not all had changed.

Disinterested from the first, Lucette shirked the obligations of new life in favor of curling closer to her twin. Sleep and sustenance would come later. For now she simply breathed and took in the newness of her own existence.

She came like all the rest: wet and mucusy, her limbs flailing about while she was being cleaned. She grunts and squeaks until she is rested warm at her brother's side. Then, to her other side later, twins. By the time they are born, Shadess is fast asleep. 

Bundles of reds, snuggled against one another and their red mother. It mattered not which man sired who, for all would see without exception from who which they had come. Hail Obsidian! Hail Sapphique!

This year, she had the pleasure of seeing her sister through her pregnancy without the distraction of her own children interrupting the journey. She sang songs to her sister’s belly so they might come to know not only her voice, but the voice of their people and the songs of their family. These songs would be lullabies for them when they arrived, to settle them and soothe them.

When the day came for the children to arrive she prayed to their mothers for a safe birth. Chacal did not often address the Loa, knowing that not all of them would be benevolent. But she knew that Rosalyn and Erzulie would look kindly upon their daughters and all future children from the afterworld- so it was to them that she sent her whispers.

She watched the blossoming understanding and fascination in Sobeille’s features. She whispered reassurances to Maleah, who she thought might yet conceive later on in the summer- she hoped that she would revel in the birth of the children, and not fear the pain of their coming.

What surprised her lightly was that she recognized the anxious pacing of a father when she saw him move. She wondered for a moment- rifling through her memories for anything that might have been considered a look that might have passed between Mireille and Val- and she found herself brimming with hope.

If Valravn was indeed the father…He would be the first in Sapphique who had remained true to the pack, and to its mothers and children. All the more reason for her to cherish him, and be grateful for his presence and contributions.

She would keep her musings to herself, and they were soon forgotten when she looked in to the tangle where Mirelle had given birth, to see her sister tired but glowing- and with four healthy children at her side. She gave Val a gentle nudge, smiling as if with a newfound wisdom. She pressed a gentle kiss to her sister’s brow as she dozed, and then left, in search of a treat for her sister so that she might have something to eat when she awoke.

twin flames, born from water into it;

a seeming paradox. yet here they were, little embers, nearly fused together as they left their mother's body as one and tumbled into a much wider, wilder space. the boy was quiet, though no one knew if that would carry on into the future—least of all him.

he knew only yearning. the struggle against his wriggling siblings to find a teat, to nurse, to grow.

and the yearning for what once was.

the world beyond mireille's embrace was cold, vast, often unforgiving.

how, then, could one fault lafayette dahomey-rivaini for his burgeoning yearning for the tides?

after all—a boy born from the water of the womb will search endlessly for that same comfort and security in the water of the sea.

Oh, they were so small! So perfect! Four, just like last year. She stared at the four embers, violet eyes full of awe. 

Jadou.

Shadess.

Lucette & Lafayette.

She sat next to Sobeille, wondering. What would the sea have to say for them? All that was far off.