Stavanger Bay angel from montgomery

Come, @Muses, and learn about the birds and the bees as we nurse our young charges! (+cousin/sibling meet and greet @Redshank @Smokestep @Julep @Isengrim @Whiskey). Loose post order. We will probably do rounds.

Already, the red mother had developed a deep affection for Muses. The pups had been hectic enough when it was just the three of them, but things had now grown exponentially worse. Not only were her own children now larger, smarter, and wiler - she now had four more that were in that terribly vulnerable state that her own four had just moved past. (Three, she reminded herself. She would never forget how easily four had become three.)

Having the pale shewolf there to help her eased not just the strain on her body, but on her heart and mind as well. As much as she had valued and relied on Szymon's aide, it was better still to have another woman there to be with her through these times. (Sometimes, she looked at Muses and thought about Mirage, and she wondered if it would have been like this, if she'd chosen to follow the path set before her.)

"Thank you for doing this with me," said Doe in a hushed voice during one of these moments, gazing warmly at the other female. "When your time comes, I will be prepared to act in kind."

The horror of her birth already forgotten (for the girl, there was very little to be remembered about the event even if she could have remembered it, having been blind and deaf at the time), Moorhen lived a comfortable life. She was always warm, always fed, always surrounded by the hum of many hearts and the whoosh of many breaths, and always, always, always ensconced in the crashing and receding of the waves. The sounds of the sea echoed strangely in the cave where she was nursed, but Moorhen was not to know. To the tiny girl, it was simply the way of things.

She could not remember a time in her life when the sea's presence had not been felt. She'd yet to see it, but she'd yet to see anything. She knew the sea as well as she knew her siblings, her mothers, the feathers that made up her bed.

Just like the tides of the ocean came in waves, so did Redshank's bouts of restlessness and peace. One moment he was calm and suckling, content as could be, the next the boy seemed to be at war with his very existence. At the moment, he was in one of his moods. He fitfully batted against the air as he lay on his back, having only just removed himself from one of Muses' teats and began to heckle one of his litter mates. Which one, he was not sure, he was only dimly aware that there were even others in the den besides himself and the giver of milk.

The cub moved to nudge another with his pugged snout, tiny squeaks escaping it as he harassed the unknown being. He was warm, he was fed, but he was unhappy.

"It's really not a problem," Muses answered kindly, leaning into give Doe a fleeting, but reassuring nuzzle. "I missed having a dedicated duty." She admitted, her attention shifting between her company and her charges. Carefully, politely, she did not respond to Doe's offer, opting instead to give a small, warm smile, and a little thump of her tail. She was not yet sold on the idea of having her own offspring, but it seemed unnecessary to outright dismiss the comments. Perhaps it was something that older women enjoyed speaking of. She could vaguely remember her older sisters gossiping about such things. Occasionally, they would talk about which one of their brothers they found the least handsome, or how much they hoped that father would bring in an outside male. Muses thought that he would sooner allow a cougar to join their commune, but she dared not voice such sentiments. After all, there was no harm in dreaming, she thought.

Idly, she watched Redshank disengage from one of her distended teats, feebly wriggling away. She quirked a brow, wondering what he was trying to do, before it became clear that he intended to heckle one of his siblings. "Trouble maker." Shaking her head, the pale female chuckled, and indicated to the wily pup. "You know, I don't think I mind this. Seems like I skipped straight past the hard part." Referring to the ordeal of birth, she wrinkled her nose as she recalled the moment when she had happened upon Doe, Skellige, and Mannoah. The poor woman had died even before she could deliver her pups. It was a pity.

Sandpiper was almost constantly at a teat, trying to fill her rotund little belly as much as she possibly good. She suckled greedily, and became ornery whenever she was separated from the milk dispenser. Unless she was asleep, of course - then all else be damned! At the moment, she was not capable of caring for anyone other than herself. After all, her sole task was to survive infancy, to grow big and strong, so that she might be able to grow old enough to procreate. It was the cycle of life, and she was at the very beginning. 

What was perhaps worse than being forcibly removed from a sore teat was being harassed while she was trying to eat. Something clumsy and small bumped into her side, and she detached herself only to issue an indignant squawk of protest. How dare. In retaliation she delivered a swift karate chop with a front paw (ie, clumsily flailing with three out of four limbs because lol what is motor control?) aimed in the general direction of her nuisance of a littermate, Redshank.

isengrim had followed his mother dutifully, if only because she was the wolf equivalent of a moving taco-truck. it was hard to eat on the go, and he let her mother know how displeased he was by delivering small nips aimed for her hocks. fortunately for his mother, he was neither accurate nor strong and many times it was her hocks that hit him.

he stopped his terrorizing of her hindquarters when she came to a den he wasn't familiar with. this meant exploring! sweet! wide-eyed with floppy ears pricked he looked about him with wonder, until his vision came upon a pale wolf and some squiriming lumps. he stopped, slackjawed, looking at them with disbelief. "oooo?" he questioned, looking at his mother with a vexed expression on his face.

Tail whisking, the red woman placed a sloppy kiss on her companion's cheek, glad that this was not the Great Burden she had worried it would become. Deirdre, of course, would have been the optimal choice, but Doe was certain she could not be mature enough to provide what Skellige's brood needed. That Muses had been willing to fill the role was a blessing Doe would never forget.

Her ears flattened as Isengrim's little voice made itself known, and the mother turned her head to fix the little greyling with a flinty stare.

"Be gentle," Doe instructed her son, nosing carefully at the wiggly lumps of his cousins to demonstrate how he should treat them. "These are the children of the Leviathan, and we must always protect them," she explained, being without the intelligence to dumb it down for the young wolf.

Muses watched with open curiosity as Doe demonstrated to her son how he should handle his younger cousins. Although he was not much bigger, he was able now to move around independently, somewhat, and could easily make a much smaller cub uncomfortable. It was quite impressive how quickly the children grew, Muses contemplated, her eyes shifting from one set of pups to the other. "They really are little miracles, aren't they?" She hummed, lowering her muzzle to lick at @Smokestep the way Doe had done to her. "My litter had been the youngest among those in the pack, and although it was rumoured that one of my sisters might have been pregnant, I'm not sure what became of that." She shrugged her shoulders in a helpless manner, reluctant to worry over something she would not be able to find the answer to. "It was a very sacred thing, you know." Muses mentioned, referring to gestation. Between the harsh climate and the inbreeding, pregnancies would often naturally abort.

Roused from her slumber by the the voices of her caretakers, Moorhen let out a mighty yawn and scrabbled closer to Redshank and Sandpiper, instinctively seeking to both share their warmth and investigate their activities. They did not appear to be doing much, but alas, her eyes were closed, and it was not for her to know. Unsure what else to do, the girl let out a few quite yips, hoping to gain their attention.

Gonna go ahead and keep the going with Doe and Muses so they can get this conversation in. Feel free to jump back in.

"In my pack, too," Doe shared, tail thumping at this new belief they had in common. "Now that I've had my own litter, I believe it more than ever - but I have always believed it." She smoothed down the fur of one of the more wiggly charges and tried to remember if she'd told Muses this same story before. Oh well. She was sure the other would stop her if she began to repeat herself. "Before I was born, our shaman forsaw that I would bear many daughters. The alpha of the pack - my father, Riverbone - had only sons at the time, and I was to be given to him that I might give him daughters, too."

It was still painful to think of the family that she'd left behind. Doe missed her mother most of all, but she wished for one last conversation with Riverbone almost as much. What she might say to him was still unknown, but she wished for it all the same.

"But his mate became jealous. It is not the way of our pack, but she wanted him all for her own. And because I could not bear to have her bitter toward me, I left."

It'd been the hardest thing she'd ever done, and the journey had taken more from her than she could ever have predicted - but look where I am, now, she thought, eyes straying to the strong features of her son.