Hideaway Strath ceathairéad

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Chusi comes to the mouth of the birthing den but does not come inside, likely waiting for an invitation. The gangster’s gaze settles upon his newborn children as Lotte invites Chusi in with enthusiasm. The press of bodies makes the gangster feel claustrophobic and he resists the urge to raise his hackles and upper lip and chase all that are gathered and crammed in out. This many bodies means a greater chance for one of the newborns to get trampled and her territoriality and protective instincts have only strengthened over the course of Lotte’s pregnancy. Ceannasach is distracted from his heightening desire to command all besides Lotte (and himself) to get out as Lotte names their children, naming the darkest of the bunch Mallaidh Furiosa and the smallest and frail of their newborns Eirlys Dagny. The question is posed out loud and not to anyone specific though Arturo, as the father, feels that it should fall to him to name the two boys and speaks up, “The twin of the smallest will be Roarke and my miniature will be Caellach.” As he christens the boys he touches each of them in turn, gently, with his muzzle before he does the same to the girls, extra careful with the frailest of the four.

Realizing that he had yet to address her first concern: the two stillborns his gaze goes to the stiffening corpses. He realizes he does not have any traditions for this is the first time he has ever had stillborns. He was fortune that all of his children survived in his first litter to not have had to think of it. The birthing den was crowded and instead of chasing those out that he felt didn’t need to be there — because he is prickly and still on razor edge from everything that had befallen Teaghlaigh and the immense pressure upon his shoulders — Ceannasach scoops up the corpses gently and takes them one by one outside the den where he finds a nice spot to bury them. When he is finished he lingers, sentry to the precious lives within the birthing den but he does not re-enter until the others have parted ways with the young, new mother and the newborns suckling at her breast.

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