Stone Circle Sister, you are going to be an aunt.

Valette hadn't been sure before if she was pregnant, but this changed the last week. She felt some cramping in her belly that she had not felt before. And there were also some other weird movements that startled her. Last night when she was in her den, the female noticed that her belly was distended and her fur was thinner. She noticed her teats were more swollen. The female felt quite ecstatic. At first, she didn't want to believe it but now she was certain. These had to be her babies.

The next morning Valette went for a drink and noticed that her shape was different too. It looked like she had eaten too much meat. Pack members would start to notice soon. She had that feeling at least. She hadn't told anyone yet, not wanting to find out later she wasn't pregnant. She decided to tell her sister first now she had her back. The dark female howled to @Nanook eager to tell her sister the news. Perhaps she should tell Ezekiel as well, but she rather wanted to talk to her sister.

She had spent the night awake, reading the stars, and had watched as each blinked to sleep at the coming of the dawn. The sky now spoke a different story, and Nanook gathered herself with a long and drawn out stretch beneath the vast canopy of gold. A few high clouds, plumy and white, hung about the western mountains, but they hardly brushed the earthy peaks. Everywhere else, the summer morning rang clear, and the dew beneath her paws confirmed the dry weather to come.

Nanook had only the time to begin to wonder if she would rather the sky speak of rain when her sister's voice called out over the flatland. A light prickling touched her spine, but she eased quick enough - Nanook still hadn't gotten used to being known, and being wanted was a thing she hadn't felt since childhood. At a brisk trot she made her way toward the source - Desna, who struck an impressive silhouette against the brightening sky.

Nanook waved her tail in greeting, but stopped short with a quizzical turn of her head before she drew nearer, her neck outstretched, perplexed and curious. There was something notably different about her sister today, but she couldn't pinpoint what. She certainly looked more like the Desna she'd left, an odd plumpness beneath her summer coat, and she squinted at Desna's face with a clear question in her eyes.

Valette didn't need to wait long by the creek for her sister to be there. She was curious how Nanook would react to the news. The dark female looked a little plumper as she did when she was a pup herself. Her tail wagged in response to Nanook's arrival. She quirked up her lips and let out a soft woof in greeting. She could see the questioning in her eyes. She wasn't sure if it was about the howl or if it was because how her body looked.

"Hi Nanook," she greeted. "I have some news and I kind of wanted to share it with you first," she admitted. Valette wanted her to know that she was the first to know. Nanook was still important to her. Valette sat down which only made her belly bulge more to the sides, it also showed that her summer fur on her belly was thinning out. Her teats were more swollen as well. Valette was not sure if Nanook ever saw a pregnant female to tell right away.

"I'm pregnant," she announced.

This is literally all I thought of: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EShUeudtaFg
Also, congratulations! I just realized that Nanook doesn't actually know how babies are made lol

Nanook drew back her head and felt her brows raise. Desna had news? And to share with her first. At this, something wormed in her heart, a warmth, and Nanook fell back on her haunches and crooked her head with the same curiosity she had probed her sister with. Desna took an equal sit, and this only brought further suspicion that perhaps her sister hadn't quite outgrown the habit of sneaking food...

And then the bomb dropped.

She blinked. Pregnant. Her sister? Logically it made sense. "Ma said you'd need be grown to have them." She mused quietly. Nanook hadn't quite understood at the time, but she had grown since that day, and had come to understand, and so had Desna, apparently, on levels much more personal than she. But pregnancy, outside of a concept, was a new thing to her, and Nanook found herself on her paws again and inching closer to her sister, wanting to examine the strange phenomena that had overtaken her now. The bulging sides - that wasn't food. Those were little wolves, and Nanook squinted, trying to imagine what inside would look like. "Weird." she murmured, and turned her head the other way, "So how did you do it?" Nanook knew a lot about the stars, the sky, the weather, the ground, but in all the chaos of her childhood, this talk had seemed somehow inconsequential to her. She'd had plenty more important things to think about, after all.

I love that video, haha. It is hilarious.
OMG THIS IS AMAZING. Welcome by Sex-Ed with Valette. Haha. I love this curious side of Nanook! :D

Valette watched her reaction with a bit of tension. She wasn't sure if Nanook was going to freak out about it or not. Maybe Nanook didn't feel like she was ready? Their family had split up after all. Valette made sure that wouldn't happen. Unless they were old enough to explore the world, like Keoni and Nikai. Her sister blinked and then repeated what she said. Her first sentence wasn't at all what Valette expected. They were grown! Perhaps, Nanook still didn't feel like an adult yet? It could be, and that would be okay.

She could tell her sister was curious. She liked that she wanted to know more. The tip of her head made Valette chuckle. It was a bit weird indeed. The concept was a bit strange. "You can come closer. I trust you," she spoke to encourage her curiousness. However, her sister's next question made Valette blink in surprise. Didn't she know? Valette realized that Nanook hadn't been there for ... the talk. Valette cleared her throat, taking on a bit of a mother role.

"Oh. Well. I let a male breed me when I was in heat," she spoke. Her hazel eyes going over her sister. "Being in heat feels really weird. You only want to be with a male basically. When you breed while being in heat there is a big chance there will be pups. If you breed outside of your heat there won't be any pups as far as I know," she spoke. She felt a bit flustered because that sounded like she was super experienced with breeding outside of a heat. Technically, she was, but to admit that to her sister?

"But often only the alpha pair is allowed to breed, and it makes sense to only do it when you are mated," she explained to Nanook. At least then the pups would have the highest survival rate. "Perhaps you have seen a coupling of deer? Or the rabbits? It is much like that," she added. Not sure if she wanted to explain the whole thing of a male having to mount the female.

Isn't it fantastic, though xD
lol Valette is surprisingly chill, for having to discuss all the details of... you know haha! And Nanook is a very curious wolf, so expect much more in that regard as she starts to feel comfortable and open up (:

Nanook shimmied closer upon Desna's permission, and trained her sister with a bright and curious gaze. Her whole body leaned forward, like an eager pup ready for a bedtime story, and she received what her sister told her with slow nods and quiet hmms along the way.

She concluded pretty fast that she had never been in heat before, if being in heat was anything like Desna described. Nanook recalled times she had been strangely drawn to a male - that dark one on the Plateau, the quiet and wild rouge she'd met in the Valley - but those feelings had never been so intense to make her only want to be with them. They were merely curiosities - wolves who had intrigued her with feelings which faded with their absence. What Desna described was something new altogether, and Nanook wondered if she would ever experience that herself. Those feelings, that desire - the thought made her squirm, and she shifted her weight to ease off the sudden surge of both longing and anxiety.

Nanook had never watched the act done anywhere, so Desna's comparison flew right through her ears. But her mind caught more on the details of who, and her face screwed in a quizzicial pinch. "But your mate. He... died."  Her eyes sparked beneath the crease of her brow. "Are they his?"

I love all the questions! Valette would love to explain her things. She can practice her mommy skills :'D

Valette wondered if she had freaked out Nanook by what she told her. By reading her face she didn't get enough information. Then she realized she forgot to tell a really important part. However, as she wanted to explain it, Nanook asked another question. Valette blinked and let her ears drop to the side for a moment. She wanted to believe it was Steady's offspring but she knew they weren't. She wanted to tell her sister they were Steady's but then she would have to lie.

What she didn't like about what she did is that she just used Ezekiel. It felt like she used him. She knew his affections for her, plus she had been pretty sure he wouldn't deny her. He hadn't. She cleared her throat. "No. I wish they were though but my heat came too late," she admitted, feeling her cheeks flush. Luckily they were covered by fur, and wolves couldn't technically blush. She didn't want to start her new relationship with her sister with a lie.

"Ezekiel is the father. The Beta of this pack," she relented and let out a soft sigh. The reasoning for her pregnancy might have been wrong but she would make the best of it. She wanted to be a mother but her selfish action of using another wolf in the process was a bit foreign to her. She just tried to comfort herself that no one was perfect.

Haha! I see she's had to explain the process twice now - after all her adopted children are through with her, Valette's actual pups will be a breeze... or something different entirely xD

Her sister seemed to deflate, and Nanook took the change in her to mean the worst: that these pups would face life without their father. Papa hadn't been around much for them, but he had been alive, and even that was something. Even when they'd left him, Nanook knew that, somewhere, Pa might have been missing her just as she had been missing him. But if their father was dead - if they had never known him at all - even that would be gone.

But then came Desna's no, and Nanook blinked and jerked her head back as her running mind hit something of a wall. "Oh?" A statement of surprise, but little else beyond that. Nanook knew about as much of navigating interpersonal affairs as she did of making children - or perhaps even less, now that her sister had kindly described the process of the latter to her - and only knew what she would have done if she had been in her sister's position. Probably never move on, but having encountered many who had faced hardships and lived, she had come to see that her methods of coping were not the norm for most.

So she simply said, "okay," and accepted that this was a good thing - but a sadness still radiated from Desna, and wormed beneath the slighter woman's fur. Nanook shifted, and with a frown and a throaty grunt, finally asked, "Then why're you upset?" Maybe something was the matter with Ezekiel, too, or maybe she still mourned the loss of her mate. Nanook couldn't relate on every level, but she knew the hold of grief far too well herself.

Haha, totally! Though if I look at the kids' bio I am not sure if she will have an easy time raising them xD Little trouble makers!

Valette decided that it had been better, to be honest with her sister. She wouldn't want her to believe a lie. Nanook was good with noticing how she was feeling though. Perhaps, her face was a bit like an open book. "I just wish they were Steady's children. I love him. I miss him," she spoke. There was also the feeling that she just used Ezekiel.

She cleared her throat a bit. "But I am happy with these pups though. I am. I love being a mother and I wanted little ones. It is just upsetting to me that Steady won't be around. And technically I've been with another male than him now. Often males don't like that... but then again... I have to remind myself that he isn't here anymore," she ended in a whisper.

She battered her hazel eyes at Nanook. "Do you want to be an aunt and help with raising these babies? If that makes you uncomfortable then I won't ask you to babysit or come see them," she spoke. Though, she hoped that Nanook was willing to help her. Valette liked the idea that Nanook would help raise these babies with her.

Even for someone as naive in relationships as Nanook, her sister's situation seemed a messy one. Over the months she had considered her parent's split - and had remembered her father's absence almost more than she remembered his presence. Nanook hadn't payed attention enough to know the fine detail of ma and pa's collapse, but at Desna's words she wondered if thoughts like her sister's had at all spurred them to run in different ways. Had ma been unhappy with their father? Another face shared her early memories - a male, large and stormy grey. She remembered so little of him, but his presence - and that spawned a sapling of wonder to whether the strain in ma and pa's mateship had been shadowed by something her young mind couldn't understand at the time.

"Hmm."  Her mind turned with ideas and possibilities - ways to solve the emotional struggle her sister chewed on now. The logical course would be to accept whoever this new male was as her mate, and give him total fatherhood of the pups. After all, that is what he was, and the pups would need a father. But reality groaned, because then there were those feelings involved, ones that flowed so readily through Desna, and Nanook's face sunk to a frown.

But before she could speak, Desna turned the conversation on her, and whatever perplexion had begun to form lifted with a blink. Her mouth opened, and closed, and opened again, all without without words. "You - me - you want - " She didn't finish, but a tiny laugh escaped her throat. Desna couldn't be serious - her? Did she even understand what she was asking for? She lifted her gaze to her sister's eyes, to retort with a shard of her lingering ice, but a flash of heat drove her tongue to silence and her heart to a skipping rhythm. Oh. She wasn't joking. A chorus of alarms sounded in her brain - no, no! This was a terrible idea! But there was something in Nanook that wanted this, deeply, and her ears pressed against her skull. "Are you sure?"

Valette was unaware of the thoughts that went through her sister before she turned the conversation. The female thought about taking Ezekiel as her mate but she wasn't ready yet. It wouldn't be fair for Zeke. She was still mourning the loss of Steady. It wouldn't be far to mate him while her heart was with someone else still. The strict warrior that was the father of these pups already had such a hard past. If Valette would mate him then she would only do so when she was ready for it.

Valette watched the shock on her sister's face. Her ears fell a bit to the side. "I mean! Only if you would want it, of course. I wouldn't force you. You can say no," she quickly spoke. She just wanted to give Nanook the sense of a family. Valette wanted her to experience that they could still be a family. Perhaps she was wrong about Nanook and she didn't want to be part of this family. Maybe she was too broken to want to be part of something. Luckily Valette was too stubborn to believe any of that.

"I am sure but if I am asking too much of you, just tell me. It is okay if you don't want to," she spoke kindly and smiled at her sister.

She could say no - Desna gave her the out. And her mind said take it! - but how could she say no to this? Family. At the very core, that was her sister's offer. To have a family again. With a twitch, the corners of her mouth searched for a nervous smile. Her sister had already extended such grace toward her. This offer doused her in kindness she didn't deserve, and Nanook chewed her lip.

"I want to," she finally said, and toyed with some grass at her paw, "I just don't understand why you'd want me to help." The Apaata could think of more reasons against her involvement with the kids than she could think of for. A lack of experience, for one. And she'd been back for such a short while, and the time she'd spent with Desna before had been so strained and full of aches, so many caused by herself. "I haven't been a very good sister to you."

Valette looked up with a hint of surprise when Nanook was so clear about helping her raise the pups. It made the female's heart feel warm with joy. However, Nanook seemed confused as to why Valette would want all of this. She cleared her throat but just when she wanted to explain Nanook spoke once again. Valette didn't want her to think that. Sure, the dark colored female had been mad at her sister for leaving but now she was older. Now the female understood that everyone reacted differently to trauma. She honestly felt that the monumental event of their parents splitting and their pack being taken apart was a traumatic event for a young wolf.

"Because I have been alone as well ever since mom died," she spoke in explanation She might not have been as alone as Nanook but she had her moments of feeling lonely, abandoned. "Nanook, don't say that. With what happened in the past there was no time to think about siblings and being an idyllic family. I processed the whole ordeal differently than you did. I focussed on our mom, who was rather mentally unstable, and doing well for the new pack. I stuffed all those feelings away, deep down and ignored what happened. In a way I could label myself as just a bad sister as you think yourself to be," Valette ended softly. "And i don't want you to think as a bad sister."

She looked at her sister with her hazel colored eyes, a determined glance was coming her way. "Please don't say that ever again. You don't get to assume how I feel about you as my sister. I want to focus on the good and on the now. I already forgave you so stop looking back, Nanook," she spoke. "We are here now and things are good. I like spending time with you. I'd like to get to know you better. You are smart and independent. You know about the stars and the skies, I don't know anything about. And most of all, I just want to give my own pups a true sense of family. A new start for us both," she didn't keep her eyes off her sister, hoping her words made sense to her. Slowly she pulled her lips in a hopeful smile.

Heat flushed through her cheeks, and Nanook shifted her weight. The strength in Desna's voice wasn't something she'd expected. Her words, even less so. In their time apart, her memory of Desna had chipped to leave only strokes of perfection. Whatever her mistakes, they were buried deep. Her sister was the wise one, the one who had done right in the end. Nanook struggled to see her sister as anything less - but her words resurfaced the scale of reality. And, for a beat, her lofty thoughts subsided, and she blinked to see Desna, a wolf like herself.

And then the moment passed, but Desna's words spilled strong and free - that things were good. That she was wanted, and Nanook couldn't argue herself out of trusting that Desna meant everything she said, as little as she believed them herself. And her chest tightened, but not with fear. This was a different feeling, one that made her want to try harder, to be better, not to boost herself or make her wrongs right, but for the pure joy of seeing like joy on Desna's face as they learned together. Laughed together. Lived together, as sisters should.

The smile that crossed her sister's face pushed her to the edge, and her thoughts corrected her - they had a new start - they had one since they had found each other in the Valley. Nanook had simply not believed, and it would take some time yet. But every reassurance pushed her closer to accepting that.

She pressed the faintest smile. "You don't think of yourself as a bad sister either, okay?" Nanook's thoughts bounced through all of Desna's words, but settled on the last. To give the pups a family they themselves had never had. Nanook had no idea how she could help, but she knew she wanted this, too. "Maybe I could show you the stars, and you could teach me more about pups." Her face turned sheepish. "So I'm a bit more ready for when they come."

Valette could tell that her words had an effect on Nanook. The right effect it seemed. Valette hoped that it would boost some of her sister's confidence. She stepped forward and then nudged her cheek. "I will try not to think that" she spoke in return. She saw the smile her sister gave her in return and quirked up her lips. Valette hoped that her sister would come through. It was tough on her as she didn't know what Nanook was thinking for most of the time. Valette was just trying to be understanding. That was the most important.

"Of course. I'd love to learn about the stars," she spoke. She had always been rather practical, focusing on skills that were needed. But perhaps it would be good to hear what the stars were offering their world. Nanook knew things about the sky, perhaps she could also tell what the weather was going to be like? Weather could be taken to their advantage. "I'm glad you want to help," she spoke with a soft smile. "I believe in us."

The shiver of her smile stayed, and Nanook reached out - paused, as if hesitant - then slowly pressed a soft tap of her snout against Desna's neck. The warmth of her sister's fur wrapped around her muzzle, and though the touch brought the slightest squeeze of fear to her heart, the familiarity of Desna's scent, and the resonation of her words, eased her, and she relaxed. If Desna believed they could do this, then perhaps they could.

She lingered for a moment, and then drew back. A new excitement filled her, and she found her thoughts firing rapidly. Did Desna like to travel? Nanook had seen a neat many things around the Wilds, but would her sister show interest in them, too? And what did Desna like to do? Did she like to fish? Hunt? Fight? No, she didn't seem like the fighting type. Why with Desna did she almost feel like Nanook again, like the girl she'd been before their family had crumbled? And who had that girl been? At the forefront, the moment preoccupied her. She still had so many questions, and her eyes brightened as they spilled from her tongue. "D'you know how many there are? D'you know when they'll come?"

Valette watched as Nanook's fire colored eyes brightened. It was a wonderful sight. The female chuckled when she asked her about her pregnancy some more. "I have no idea. They can kick a lot though. At least two? I don't know," she admitted. Maybe there were even three! She hoped so. She really liked puppies. "Um. Sort of, not really. I think I will just go by instinct. Now it has been a month. So another month I believe?," she had the feeling that her instinct would help her.

Valette wasn't too worried about it all. But then again, she had only heard how wonderful birth was so she didn't know about the pain and the blood. She thought it was going to be easy. Like... poopin'. To her, it seemed the same thing. She quirked up her lips into a smile. "Do you think you want pups of your own one day?," she asked curiously.

Desna didn't give much solid ground to build on, but Nanook salvaged what she could. At least her sister knew when her pregnancy had started. Now there was a fact she could play with. A simple track of the moon would tell her once a month had passed, and even if Desna was wrong on that, she would keep watch on the skies and mark the time until the tiny bodies - however many there were - bumbled in the deep reaches of her sister's den. And maybe, once Nanook fulfilled these 'aunt duties' of hers and the pups could handle themselves, she would have the chance to observe her sister again, or maybe some other expectant wolf, and test her findings against them.

A plan she kept retained, and a simple, "kicking doesn't sound so nice," was her verbal extent of these thoughts, until Desna blinded her with a question from left field. Nanook shifted her head with a puzzled flick. Somehow she kept herself from blurting, no - because actually, she didn't know. Nanook gave a passing glance at the sky, and her face opened with a look reminiscent of a shrug. "Never really thought about it," she said.  "Kind of need someone to have them with, don't you?" That was what Desna had said, anyway. Nanook didn't have any experience with boys, and the thought of ever finding a wolf to be to her like Steady or Ezekiel was to Desna looked so much an impossibility - and so far fetched - that she hadn't given boys much thought at all.

Valette chuckled softly and then shrugged lightly. "Well, in one way it isn't nice. But in another way it feels good that they are alive and kicking, you know?" She didn't want to go through all this effort and have her babies be born dead. She would be extremely upset if that happens. Hence why she was glad when the pups would give her a reminder that they were still there.

Valette licked her lips. "Well maybe you will meet someone one day," she offered with a smile. "But I guess you are right. Perhaps I was thinking too far ahead." Valette would just want Nanook to be happy, so if she was happy without a man or pups she would fully support that.

"Maybe." Nanook murmured. How odd to consider that one day, she might be in the same position as her sister. Bound to another, on the way to motherhood. The thought of having children passed little more than a curiosity; she had no urge, no desire. Would that come if she met a man she liked in a more-than-friendship way? Maybe. But the woman couldn't see herself in a situation where that would happen, for as far as she saw, romance and pups were things for wolves like Desna, or mother. Tender and sweet. Not for wolves like her.

She would brood on that thought in days to come, but for now, she dwelt in the here and now. On Desna. Nanook stood and drew back to give her sister more space, but she didn't leave. Though her mouth pulled flat, her eyes glowed with the remnant of a smile. "Do you think you can still hunt with them kicking all the time?" Her words dripped with the suggestion she wanted more than an answer of yes or no. Though she felt tired from the night awake, these hours were Desna's world, and Nanook would stay up well past sunrise if it meant spending time with her.

Valette looked down at her belly, they were relatively quiet now. She was glad for it. "I can still hunt, sometimes it is distracting though. I'd like to hunt but at one point I will be too fat to do much," she admitted. In that time she would have to rely on others. But she believed in her pack that they would take care of her. She quirked up her lips into a smile.

"But I am certain you guys can help me," she smiled and nodded. Valette wondered how motherhood would be. She felt strong motherhood feelings for Nikai and Keoni so perhaps it would be the same? She had no clue but she was excited about it!

Shall we have a new thread where Nanook can meet the babies? :D

I would love that! <3 Also, Nanook definitely lacks social grace.

Nanook scoffed and whisked her tail in a single lash. "Of course we will." Even Nanook knew pack wolves didn't let each other starve. How much less, sisters. Still, she wondered how long before Desna found her belly too cumbersome to move. How fast did puppies grow? Desna had said another month, but that told her squat about how big they grew inside you before you couldn't carry them anymore.

The thoughts tumbled through her mind in the usual waterfall of noise, but Nanook didn't worry. The time would come - but not yet. Her sister could still move and hunt. "Do you want to hunt with me now?" She scuffed an antsy paw against the ground. For all she knew, the pups could pop in size that very moment, and she tacked on a blunt and hasty, "Before you get too fat."

Valette had to laugh at her sister. It was not laughing at her, but more joining her humor. She was about to get fat. There was no denying. Just as fat when she was little and also could barely move as one pudgy pup. Those were good memories. "I'd love to," she agreed with her sister. Perhaps Nanook didn't even know that she liked to hunt, that it was her trade she followed and tried to learn from. She would show her, perhaps learning some tricks from the former lone wolf.

-end-