Hushed Willows someone (holy) insisted

Mature Content Warning

This thread has been marked as mature. By reading and/or participating in this thread, you acknowledge that you are of age or have permission from your parents to do so.

The participants have indicated the following reason(s) for this warning: Childbirth!

Open to @Tambourine if Kat wants to make any sort of posts. Also open to Warbone for the first bit, maybe others later. Sorry it's so long, I've been working on it on-and-off for a couple of days. :P This thread is dated May 4th — Tambourine is a little early because of stress! 

The pack had run to the Crook for safety with Warbone in the lead, and Octavia following as quickly as she could behind him. Once inside they each got settled. Octavia found it very difficult to do that, though. Lingering by these strangers she did not trust was harrowing for her, and the added bonus of the locust's endless hum from outside made everything far worse. To say she was stressed was an understatement — the locusts were everywhere. They did not seem to abate, although she did not know that they had begun to drop off like flies as soon as they had concluded their business among the willows. As badly as she wished to return to her own beloved tree, Tavi had been herded to the back of the Crook and lingered there, temporarily content with her housing options, while the pack waited out the insectoid storm. She remains adamant that her children not be born here, though. As the hours pass, Tavi is up and walking - slowly - around the Crook despite her heavy condition.

It doesn't look like a safe place to have children, not here, not in this potential mass grave; maybe it is her nerves that are doing the quaking, but Tavi thinks she feels the whole earth move as she slides along. Anyone who approaches her is met with the same low growl of warning except for Warbone — but over time, as it becomes apparent that the pack will be hunkered down here for far longer than she could ever want, even he is unwelcome around her. Tavi passes by the dark wolf from the other night, the one who had found her in such a state of pain and confusion she had been in a panic; then the other black-faced thing, the girl's red eyes setting Tavi's fur a-point along her spine. No, this was not a safe space. She had to find somewhere, quickly.

She seeks out a dark spot in the cave and slips in to it, knowing at least one wolf will have seen her attempted vanishing act; the corridor has no scent to it but the muted tones of earth, and Tavi is reminded of the den she had once worked so hard to build. She rounds the corner of the corridor to confront a passage nearly blocked by a crumbling stone wall. It looked as if something had come bursting through the stonework on its own accord, pulling down spikes of rock and crumbling the ceiling to dust. She finds a seat between two piles of loose stone, though it looks like it has not been disturbed in some time, and tries to relax. This is far from ideal, she thinks. Beside her is an unseen locust husk, which may have found its way inside by the irregular skylight lending just enough illumination so that Tavi cannot get lost. She does not see it, and would probably have moved on if she did. 

If she had the interest, she would have explored more of this strange little room. It was more spacious than she anticipated. It was large enough for at least six wolves, with ledges and divots throughout, and may make a good store-room in the future, if only to avoid such catastrophe as these locusts again. She studies the walls, her eyes skimming the rock face as if she is looking upon a beautiful painting. She sees shapes in the stone, attributes value to them, and soon enough imagines a scene carved across the cavern's inner sanctum. That shape looks like Warbone, she thinks, though to anyone else it was just an undulation in the wall's surface; that one there, small and dark, that's Reek - and her heart seized briefly. 

There was a sensation in her gut which felt like a kick, and Tavi was briefly drawn away from her study of the room. She stared straight ahead at the dark with her mouth agape, and then began to stretch out her body. Maybe it was only a cramp from the many rocks digging in to her? The babies must not like it - but as she shifted, another pain came, this time stronger. It was concentrated to her lower back at first and so Tavi lurched to her feet and tried to turn, stretching her body and twisting her neck, to try and reach her lower back with her teeth and give it a scratch. She couldn't reach it due to the oddness of her current proportions, and huffed in defeat a moment later. As she settled back to the ground, the pain once more bloomed - sharp and definite, eliciting a small whine from her lips.

Should she call for @Warbone? There was little doubt in her mind that someone could hear her struggling now, and imagined that someone had been sent to watch her — a brief sensation of paranoia dominating her mind, and she thinks of the dark-faced strangers who could very well be watching her right this second — and Tavi levels quite the look at the darkness just in case. Then, the pain comes. Different from the abdominal pain of before - she recognized it as similar but not similar, and is quickly swept away by it - and soon Octavia was overwhelmed by it. It was time. Here, of all places. In the dark of a strange cave protected by a strange man, and his strange people. 

It happened quickly enough once this new pain began. It felt like her abdomen was trying to squeeze itself flat, like someone was using her as a roll of toothpaste and needed to get that last little bit out, so why not roll the whole thing up? Except Tavi had no knowledge of this comparison; she felt the pain acutely and became a thing of grunts and groans, feeling this deep internal "pulling" and just wanting it to be over. The pain began to ebb once the first child had been brought in to the world, and there was some calm. Brief, welcome calm. Tavi did what instinct dictated and brought the child close to her belly, pulling them with a hasty forelimb, and just as its face met the sparse hairs of her underbelly, the next one fought for her attention.

For as long as she could, Octavia ignored those pains and focused on the bundle of wet fur beside her. She nosed at it, licked its face, not even caring about the strangeness of the situation or the taste on her tongue; just trying to give this little bundle of life some warmth and comfort, welcoming them in to this life. The chill she felt within the cave paled in comparison to the dullness of this new life, though. She poked at them with her nose, sniffing, licking with her tongue — and then let out a pained moan when she could no longer fight her biology. 

Octavia grit her teeth tightly, and she pushed.

The second child was born in tandem with her realization that the first-born was indeed dead. Tavi's eyes squeezed shut as the second pup came sliding out of her.

She had one child embraced against one limb, and the other held adjacent with the opposite; a dark baby and a pale baby. One living, one dead. And it hurt her more than anything to see this absence. In her study of them both, Tavi learned that they were brother, and the dark one — like Reek — didn't move a muscle. She resumed cleaning them as if they were both alive, though. Maybe if she tried harder - maybe if she just warmed him up - maybe if - 

Then she noticed the dampness on her face, and knew that this struggle was unneccessary. She had one precious little boy, and she would keep him safe from the cold, and the scary bugs, and all the ruin of the world. She would do anything for him - as Tavi looked down upon the little one, she pushed the dead first-born aside with a paw, then lay with her head wedged against the gray pup's little body. Little one, she sighed in to the cave, I'll keep you safe. I promise. The sound of her voice seemed to prompt a response from the child, as he finally managed to work his mouth. A little peep came from him, then a chirp, and Octavia shifted him back towards her belly where he could eat.