Stone Circle Round and Round

The only child who hasn't had the talk (:

She'd tried hunting this morning, to little avail. The waterfowl along the river seemed fiercer than normal, as if they suddenly realized all the things they had to lose by having wolves living close. Her head hurt from where one of their beaks had bruised her, even after she'd tried to numb her scalp by burrowing into one of the lingering banks of snow. But her head still hurt, the duck was still alive, and all she had to show for her efforts was a twisting of fur along her cheeks where the moisture still dripped from her.

Clary decided she would handle this like a big girl, but seeing the familiar shadow of her mother just beyond her made her forget she had been trying not to cry. A small lump rose in her throat and she leapt, gangly and deer-like, across the stretches of grass between them. "Mom!" she called out to catch Valette's attention, and neared with the intent of pressing herself into her mother's sturdy body. But something looked weird and she stopped before she came too close. She didn't need to look long; her gaze fell to where her mother's belly distended beneath her, and her eyes widened. "Mom - you're fat!" and she quickly covered with a shy turn of her ears, "But - not that that's a bad thing. You're still the prettiest to me."