Ouroboros Spine i am not standing still, i am lying in wait

Apologies for how short this is, I’m still working to get my muse back <3

In the gentle twilight, Vairë labored.

Tucked away in an idyllic little hidey-hole beneath a long-fallen tree in the Repose, she felt the first touch, water down her thighs, and she began to move. She weaved through the boughs and grasses, let them touch her sides, drift over her shoulders. After a while of this, she stopped at the edge of the repose, tilting her nose to the sky.

With a yell, she called for @Kukutux .

Then, she was moving, slow and cramped, back to the den in the earth. The next hours were pain and toil, push and push and hope.

Until one joined her in the world. A squalling, cream colored creature with fire for ears. @Natahala , though she would not carry this name yet. Vairë stubbornly held her tongue with naming, washing the child until her downy fur was soft and dry. By then, the cycle began anew.

@Lariat was next. Small and brown and..she swept her tongue across her back just the same.

The last was the hardest. Vairë pressed, and pressed, and pressed, until finally the last child joined them in breath. A screaming, large daughter, who quieted almost immediately when she got to washing her.

Help me.. She cleared her throat.

Help me give them their spirit names, anaa. I was so late last time.This time she would be early, she would hold their names under her tongue to speak them to their little ears when they opened.

She blinked a few dark spots out of her vision, army crawling to the front of the den. There, she let her voice rise again, this time for @Valiant .

the stars had aligned almost perfectly on the day of "lilyflower" nuiruk-morningside's birth. this, of course, was in the sense that if one was to believe in astrology, she was a picture perfect aries tornado.
the little yellow-flecked girl came battering from her mother's womb and out into the open, and the first thing she did upon having the birth removed from her face was scream a profound, squeaky holler. her callname made her sound as though she must be dainty and beautiful, and though she was indeed small, she was possibly the furthest thing from a beautiful blossom blowing in the breeze — more like a little shark, wriggling about and screeching as sharply as her little lungs could muster.
as firstborn, she immediately felt it was her god-given right to have the first dibs on a teat. oblivious in entire to her mother's pain, she wallops her with a tiny pale paw as she blindly fights to find a place to latch her little shark mouth.
the newlywed parents were certainly in for a hell of a ride.

when the pain of moondoe reached out, kukutux felt it. all day she had watched her daughter, noting any pinchedness to her expressions, any stiffness to her gait. the way that vairë lowered herself to the ground brought a knowing hum from her mother as well.

her emerald eyes did not insist upon watching moondoe through it all. she knew her daughter was in the repose and busied herself with pelts, though she could not concentrate upon them.

@Aiolos, kukutux knew, would be nearby. she went to the ulaq of @Shikoba and whispered that the young woman's time had come. with a glance to her mate, moonmother rose at the cry which held in the plum-purpled spread of early night and gathered a skin of herbs she had prepared.

for a moment, the duck trembled; her paw smoothed the silken finish, for she remembered, remembered the sea-girl.

send down your love to vairë, came the whisper to the dancing lights as she motioned for @Nasamiituuq to follow and hurried down the years'-worn path to the repose. if valiant stood close, she would give her law-son an encouraging grin.

the birthing songs followed. kukutux thought the growing daughter of moondoe quietly lay out the herbs as she chanted. "breathe, paniqa," said mother into the laboring ears. "sedna hears that you cry out."

water, sips of it offered from moss, and bites of elk's liver mixed with the piercing taste of elm.

against the earth vairë bore down, and a girl-child blotted with sunshine was born, shouting lustily in the immediate moments after her birth. her grandmother chuckled aloud, offering moondoe more water now. "you see? she answers!"

the pains went on; she chanted moondoe's anguish into herself and passed it out to the night. a second child came through the efforts of vairë, a thistledown daughter with alabaster tones. two girls! kukutux was pleased, and her joy came again in the form of renewed chants. nasamiituuq then was asked offered to her mother the elk, the elm, the water this time.

the thirdborn was destined also to be a daughter, a robust squalling babe with a striking curve of gold around her spine.

when vairë had been settled in her sleeping-skins, the trio of girls nestled beside her, kukutux nodded and fell into a contemplative silence.

for lightfoot: "ukluqiia. bear-caller girl."

for lariat: "qilaqnaq. she looks beyond the sky."

for lilyflower: "katuuniqi. thunder-drum voice."

she sat close as vairë called for valiant, glowing with her pride and great energy as the children made their small sounds.

Valiant had been through this three times before. He thought he had, anyway, before experiencing it with Vairë. But it was different when it was his own children than it had been with the black bear. Those had been his cousins, and more poignantly, Easy had been something of a caretaker to him even in his adulthood.

He'd run the whole way back from the deepwood, but that had been two days before. He wondered, vaguely, if Minnow was going through similar pains, and the idea filled him with guilt and joy and trepidation.

But most of his focus was on Vairë. He remained nearby, outwardly stoic for the most part. He asked, once or twice, if she might stop and rest — but he did not insist, wary of the short fuse he associated with labor and birth. Easy had lifted her lip at him more than once, and although he'd forgiven her immediately, he still felt an uneasy pang at the memory. He did not want to have a similar one of Vairë.

But, despite the risk, he stuck close. He pandered where he thought he could get away with it, and otherwise he tried not to be too obvious about his surveillance.

And when the time came, he found himself sitting at the edge of that invisible barrier. Rose gold eyes stared toward the repose, straining as if it was only the distance that kept the doe from his gaze. His ears flew back in agitation each time he heard her cry out — and then nauseating fear roiled in his belly, gathering strength through each stretch of quiet.

He sucked in an unsteady breath as the first thin little cry reached his ears. His heart leapt and then dropped again in the same moment. He crouched low, muscles coiled tight, as if he might race toward them. But the isbjørn held himself in place — ready; waiting.

By the time they called for him, he knew that all was well. His heart still pounded in his throat as he hurried to Vairë's side, his eyes dancing dizzily between her beautiful face and the three perfectly formed girls nestled against her belly.

"You — "

He tried to say something meaningful, but a moment later he gave up and pressed his forehead to hers, breathing harshly through his nose as his dread finally gave way to joy.

"They're beautiful," he said at last. "You did so good."

He glanced toward Kukutux and Nasamiituuq as if only just remembering they were present. Words failed him once again, but he offered them a dazed smile.

Anxiety plagued the father so deeply, it made him sick. His stomach doing flips and eventually causing him to hack into an unfortunate bush as he slowly made way towards Vairë's chosen birthing den. 

His circling is wide spread, watching any with a close eye which may cross his path, yet he remains at a distant. The cries of his daughter leaving ginger ears to press against his skull. Kukutux is not the only one who's memories turned to sea-girl ... 

Then, when the cries stopped, a quiver ran up his spine. Aiolos usually took to staying back and guarding, yet worry this time brought him to the den site. Through the fire in his eyes was a wild panic, his body tense. Is... is she okay??! He could not see her! ... between the bodies of his mate, Aiolos granddaughter and Valiant.

Yuralria, the middle child, was about as different from her newborn siblings as she could be. While their squalls could be heard loud and clear from the hollow tree and probably across the whole of the spine - near enough - the thistledown girl remained quiet and subdued even as her mother's tongue lapped her dry. 

It was only as she began to suckle beside her dandelion sister that she finally found her voice. Quiet grunts of pleasure accompanied her contented feeding as her belly warmed from milk and her fur from the jostling of her siblings. In time, Lariat would learn to call them by name, but for now, she dozed in and out of sleep, her mind's eye gazing beyond the sky for which her spirit was called.

What.

The entire fuck.

Lightfoot was born in a state of confusion, upside down in her own head. She felt like a hamster being flung off its wheel, unable to understand what was going on. Her shrill shrieks echoed through the den, the confusion palpable.

Then, everything was chill, because mom brought her to milk and now it was cool. Lightfoot stuffed herself full, and dropped into sleep, snoring already.

Anaa guided her, and Vairë loosened a laugh at Valiant’s words, leaning into the touch so welcome. She let her eyes close against the crystalline tears gathering on her lashes.

They are half you. How could they be anything but? Tongue in cheek, Vaire glowed beneath the loving gaze of her husband, her family. Her taataa’s worried voice rose above the din, and she raised her head to meet his eye over Valiant.

I am alright! There are three! She called to him, before lowering her head to Valiant again.

We need to name them. But what?