Hideaway Strath ceathairéad

Thread is open to all puppies, Hemlock, @Chusi, @Arturo, and @Dagfinn if in earshot. ♥
Hopefully it does not tag everyone a billion times again. x__x

Lotte was exhausted to a degree she could not accurately measure, in a way she could not coherently articulate. Nestled at her flank were three tiny bodies — smaller than Olive’s had been but vividly, palpably alive. She felt — everything. She felt what Olive had felt — a link to the mist-shrouded mother, to all mothers — but she felt it too late. She felt surun aihe for Hemlock — for surely, the honor of bearing Teaghlaigh’s first litter ought to have belonged to its first mated couple. Now that she could afford to be, she was worried about Aries and Cassiopeia — about Sirius — and she feared that her softness in regard to the remaining child would draw the attention of wolves like Declan, Conan, and Lia, who were accustomed to Quicksilver Hollow and Teaghlaigh’s first incarnation. Above all, though, she felt love — love for her husband, her daughter, these smaller daughters, and her son. “Liekkikukka,” she murmured, her argent eyes heavy-lidded with a sudden overwhelming sense of calm generated by the nursing of her cubs. “What do we do about Sirius? He is ill — and ours. Can he be saved?” She craned her neck to fussily preen at the white cubs in particular, grooming their white fur to as immaculate a state as she could. The dark female — dark as Dagfinn, Lotte beamed with pride — was next on the relentless grooming list; Banríon feared she was too still, though in truth the girl was just sleeping. Long sweeps of her tongue bathed her firstborn’s tiny face.

Just when Lotte thought everything was settled at last, a sixth and final set of contractions gripped her. In comparison to his siblings, the boy who would one day be known as @Ceallach was gentler — a fortunate thing for the exhausted young mother. Ten minutes of moderate pain and forcible straining later, she held her second son between her forepaws — and what she saw made her weep. She bathed him as ardently as she had the other three, her tears falling upon his infinitesimal face — for here was Arturo in miniature form, brown as a sea lion with a telltale darkening of the velveteen upon his face and legs.

“Hemlock, liekkikukka,” she breathed. “Without you, they would not live — maybe I would not live. I would lay down my life for you, liekkikukka.” The smoke-and-shadow Banríon bowed deeply to her companion before calling in her husband, brother, and daughter: “Come and meet the little bears!” The nickname she’d coined was in tribute to Arturo’s own name as much as her family suffix, -bjørn.