Ankyra Sound as your heart measured in mountains, fell and climbed

birth of Lycaon, Wylla, and Ingram! i'll be out of town Sun-Tues, so getting this up a few days in advance for the guppies. Lauren, Lusca would do her best to hide the bebs for the first week but if you want Caiaphas in here now that's copacetic too <3

As it turns out, consequences come in multiples and are highly customizable.

Lusca's Consequences, in particular, came in the form of three whelps. Two inkblots--a male and a female--and a third, mink colored male. They'd arrived, free of complications, early in the morning and after countless hours of laboring. 

To say their grand debut was a private affair was to say the very least. Yup, it was very grand, very debut-y. Oh yeah, privates definitely involved. It was also gushy and slimy and captioned with snarled exclamations of "why am I so fertile! this is stupid!" and enough expletives to penetrate a nun's thick-coming fancies.

Listen. Bearing life is, like, a miracle, guys.  

All of the effort, sweat, and amniotic fluid ejected from weird places led up to her eventual responsibility for the three new lives. Initially, she was unimpressed, and left the den for a brief intermission to air out her crotch (cuz ow damn). But a few minutes of reflecting on her life choices and taking the brunt of disapproving glances from her conscience appeared to do the trick, because she returned from her break, towing a line of resigned sighs with her.

Lusca started to get the hang of things after a few hours of practice. Keeping Consequences fed was the hardest part. Not for lack of milk itself, but for her inabilty to reconcile herself to the transition from incubator to 24/7 taphouse. She hadn't even known her dignity was tied to the structural integrity of her nipples until she was faced with the wildly unattractive appearance of them after nursing for an extended period of time. However--slowly, slowly, she became comfortable with the idea of not having to do anything except eat, relax, and occasionally check pulses in order to keep things groovy. 

As to be expected, she was curious, and explored newborn features with an impolite sort of intrusiveness. She pressed her cold nose into pawpads, repositioned bodies, stepped on heads (accident). Also to be expected, these pokes and prods didn't go unprotested by the subjects of her harassment. Spatial awareness be damned, an intractable body-part flailed in her face--the tiny extremity barging rudely into her nostril with a squeak from its operator. Lusca recoiled, snorting with surprise. The kick was an impotent sensation outside the womb (a tickle really), but she could not help but feel like a target of the fruit of her loins. This was evidenced, in her eyes, by all manner of ways they'd caused her bodily faculties to malfunction throughout the weeks of her final trimester. Emotional continence left first, and then the legit pissy type of incontinence happened. Oh, and the raw, weepy nip situation. Care to explain this fresh hell, Mama Nate? 

Her nose wriggled. "Mmmyes, very strong." she murmured, an expression of wistfulness upon her brow. "Almost like you've been practicing." Side-eye game coming at you, Ingram. Apologize to my bladder right now. It's traumatized and probably suffering from battered wife syndrome because of your karate sessions.

Shifting her attention to the last-born of the litter, she rearranged the little black female with the broadside of her snout, snifting the fur of her nape and drawing her into the tilde of her wrist with an inward sweep of her chin. Any touch administered was patient and gentle, and she allowed herself to linger for she did not now how much time she would have with her--or how many of these little, meaningless seeming interactions she would have to sentimentalize about later. "Sorry, young one. You deserve a better start." They were illegitimate, and would quickly come to understand what it meant to struggle. The famine was tough enough on the most self-sufficient individuals, but vulnerable, dependent beings such as these had no chance. Bundles of joy? No. Burdens to bear, through no fault of their own. 

It was because of their inevitable separation from her that she felt bitter. She resisted the postpartum bonding process, fought off the oxytocin that flooded her body--denied herself access to any emotion that had the capacity to complicate things.

Even still, she often noticed herself staring at them, and noticed serene smiles unfurling upon her lips, and noticed herself loving them. And as you do when you catch yourself drifting into another lane, Lusca overcorrected and swerved; turning away to close off her body language. This was ineffectual as a long-term solution to her problem. Any belch or sly hormonal flutter compelled her to peek between her legs, just to make sure... and detachment would fold under concern, folding under intrigue, folding under humor and loving gazes, til she was an origami model crafted from maternal warmth once again.

Were any of the newborns to fuss, Lusca was quick to fulfill their needs as to avoid drawing undesirable attention to the rendezvous site. She quickly learned, however, that some needs were simply unable to be satisfied by anything she had to offer. Squeals, squalls, emphatic suggestions--Lusca's brood feared not to speak their incipient minds, and under any normal circumstance this would have delighted her. Now, it stringed her up by tendrils of hypervigilence. The trundling shadow of a pine-needle at the denmouth had the ability to dose her with adrenaline. She could have sworn mushrooms exploding from the decaying bark of logs were footfalls, and there was a certain distinctness to the sound of mothwings beating against the membrane of a leaf. "Shh shhhhush." 

Unfortunately, in spite of all her anxiety and whispers and careful minding to, Saltwinter's tenderest feet were not long for stealth.