Bearclaw Valley in spite of all the wherewithal

WHOS A BAD MOM, IM A BAD MOM - @Merrick i guess you can come out now; all are welcome & tags for reference

the days leading up to merrick's birth passed fleetly; indra's stomach swelled to its zenith, then it sagged and dropped. her mood grew more reclusive, to the point where even @Tadec, @Laurel and the children were turned away with sharp snarls. taking it upon herself to nest in the den that the two redleafs had originally hollowed out upon inception to bearclaw, indra atrophied.

there was little she could do except suffer; the lives that grew under her breasts did so without her consent. their invasion of her body, their total occupancy and their constant stirrings in her belly, settled without her consent. nor did the redleaf consent to the wild pangs of seizing pain they inflicted endlessly, to the point where in the final hours of her labor indra was ready to fling herself off a cliff and rid herself once and for all of her desperate and agonizing existence. the arrival of new lives came through sharp as a knife and was not the happy moment indra expected, but there was no soul to witness it.

hours later after the struggles and small cries in the den had ceased, indra had not roused nor risen. her eyes, hollow and filled with pain, looked dully at the singular child that stirred atop a bed of dead and eerily still siblings.

had merrick known he was to be crushed bodily from his mother into a charnel house, there was a high chance he would have opted for literally anything else.
as it were, this was exactly how things panned out: the chamber that had housed merrick and his unfortunate siblings began to contract inward, a veritable indiana jones booby trap. the old heave-ho; the child had no way of knowing his emergence into the world had been marked by some extreme form of torment. he tumbled onto velveteen and bone; the boy writhed within the remains of his caul, which had ripped upon his poignant entry into the whelping den.
it was as if a coywolf had made weird love to a sack of jellybeans; merrick's rotund frame thrummed helplessly as he struggled, and soon his tiny jaws parted with a shrieking mewl of hunger and confusion. his wet down was growing uncomfortably cool as the dampening began to dry; instinctively the boy began to seek his mother, blunt blind head bobbing and dipping with exhaustion.

Laurel had herded the pups outside of the den so that Indra could have it to herself when it was time. She was nervous about this, about her sister's health and how it would go, but knew she could do nothing. She knew nothing about giving birth, after all. So she, Tadec and the pups waited outside impatiently. Laurel shot Tadec a few glares here and there -- he had done this to her, surely -- and otherwise wondered how many there would be. They would do their best to raise them well, alongside the unofficial pups of Indra (Marten and Nunataq).

It seemed to take forever, and it took really long before any sort of cries were heard from the den. Laurel wondered frequently if all was going well but she didn't want to disturb Indra. Not as long as she still heard her sister make sounds.

After a good while finally, finally a single cry came from the den. Laurel breathed, relaxing, figuring it was the first pup, and she waited patiently until she would hear more cries, while unsuccessfully trying not to seem too nervous to the rest of the pups.

In the last days of Indra's pregnancy, Nunataq was at complete loss, why her favorite person in the world had suddenly changed and told her off in a quite an angry manner. This was definitely not the obliging and patient caretaker she had known and this gave her a sense of wrongness and worry. And though she still spent the majority of her waking hours playing, exploring and learning with the other puppies, now and then she would steal herself away, approach the den's mouth and from a safe distance she would sniff out or try to see anything in the darkness. Now and then she would whimper quietly and listen, if any response came. Usually there was silence only and Nuna would go away.

Laurel had done a splendid job of keeping the hyperactive brat occupied and in line, in order to to disturb Indra. However, one day things changed and Nuna picked up the brown she-wolf's unrest, stopped playing and sat down, staring intently in the same direction, but not approaching, because the orders to keep a distance had been very clear. With focused gaze, furrowed brow, ears cupped forward and somewhat stiff stance, she looked worriedly from the adult wolf to the den, trying to comprehend, what was happening.

indra would speak nothing of what transpired in that quiet den; as shapes moved outside she answered their presence with thick guttural snarls. deep, unsettlingly violent snarls that the likes of which had never fully been articulated from her lips. of this dark place in which she had settled she had no name, and would never speak of.

the cairn of dead puppies was at length taken care of, but not before she fell upon their tiny and bedgragged shapes in fury. why had they died? what had she done wrong? why had only one lived -- and what foul beast was it that choked the lives from his siblings so callously and uncaringly?

indra could not look on merrick; not immediately -- once she was sure both nunataq and laurel had left she stole from the den with the tiny heads of her dead children in tow.

she would bury them into the cold and uncomprehending earth, and would speak of them no more.