The Sentinels estranged

Puppies can totally jump in wherever; post all you want! I'll get Moorhen in as soon as I get home.

Doe turned toward Deirdre at once, tail waving weakly at the sight of her friend. It was good to have the healing presense of the forest queen among them, and the red mother was already thanking the Wickeness for guiding her teeth - for this grisly birth had not been the work of Esa.

"Yes," Doe agreed when Muses offered her own advice. "Will you see to this, Skellige?"

Although she understood that he might have a desire to remain close to the newly born children, Doe knew also that he would be of more use to them doing this task. It was women's work to soothe the newborn babes, and as far as Doe was concerned, the Sea King had no business here. Still, she had more sense than to say such a thing.

Doe had already laid the first pup she'd taken against her belly, and there, the child called Redshank was still nestled. The red mother glanced toward this one before tracing her eyes over the others, calculating. Four more pups were a lot to take on. If Deirdre were older, she might've asked the forest queen to help her nurse them, but, as it was, there seemed to be no help from any corner.

Doe's eyes landed on Muses. She seemed an adequete age.

"We should get them into the den," she murmured, plucking Redshank from her teats and rising from the ground. "None should be left in the open - All of us will need to carry one, and then the bitch can be taken away."

Resolutely, Doe carried the precious babe from the bloody scene of his birth and took him swiftly to the place where her own children had been born, where they would have come into the world, too, if their mother had remained where she'd been told to remain. Doe's nest was still warm, her three children still huddled under the sheepskin that Szymon had brought her. Doe placed their cousin among them and moved aside, allowing the others to do the same as she went to the natural shelf that held some of her herbs. From there, she took red raspberry leaves and dried, chewed nettle. She was producing enough milk for her own three pups, but perhaps not for four more.

These herbs she placed beside the nest before climbing in and rearranging the little bodies inside of it.

"These herbs will cause a mature shewolf to produce milk - Muses, if you and Skellige both are willing, the help could mean the difference between strong, healthy pups and... dead ones," Doe explained.