Bearclaw Valley you are a brick tied to me that's dragging me down

it was finally a true spring morning — blue skies and lifting temperatures — and annasiak was sleeping right through it.  the pups were a week old now and still as small and needy as ever, given they were born prematurely, and motherhood was taking more out of it than she had ever expected it to.

she did not wake at the sound of heavy and self-assured footfalls; normally those belonged to her mate, and the only other that had come to the den had been @Forrest as she tended to the new mother and child.

it was only as the redleaf's scent became clear that annasiak blearily roused from her slumber and protectively she curled around the tiny bodies of her newborns.  laurel was the one she was least worried about — she had extended an olive branch and it had seemed to work, but the matriarch did not like her so close to the den without having had her own pups yet.

she held her breath, hoping the other female would just pass on by.