Stavanger Bay the girl the size of a gumdrop

Something in Doe bristles at the tiny squawk, and the small, faint grinding sound that comes with it. Her eyes flick over the four and fall on the smallest, darkest of the bunch. Hind's grandaughter.

"Oh," she breathed, nudging Qilaq's paw and extracting the still, tiny form of her daughter from underneath. A profound sorrow grips her, threatens to bring tears into her eyes, tries to stop her throat - but Doe pushes all that back, gaze leaping to her oldest child. "This one is sick," she blurts, trying to fix this, to hide it from the delicate child. "We... we have to be gentle with them - they are very small, and they break so easily..."

The pup is clearly dead, at least to the mother's eyes. She takes the limp body and tucks it behind her, moving to arrange the remaining three in safe, secure positions. "We have to be careful with them," she repeats, head spinning a little bit as she holds back these emotions. Looking at Qilaq's dark, pretty face seems to ease these feelings. She was never meant to live. Neither of them, Doe thinks, releasing the tension in her body breath by breath. It is enough that Qilaq has survived, against all odds. One miracle girl is enough.