Swiftcurrent Creek Don't call Marian, she's my alibi

Set June 1st.

"Why does it look like that?!"

She'd gone out to take a shit after enduring an entire day of abdominal cramps. The worst kind of cramps. The kind that even made her lady bits ache and moan. She'd rolled over countless times trying to get comfortable, ignoring the rhythmic pains that clawed at her insides. God damn, even her pelvis felt bruised. At long last, her bowels relented and the telltale sensation of sudden motion urged her out of her little den under the stump, where she had been for upward of three days. Grief had kept her away from her pack mates, and then the cramping. All women could relate. Who wants to go and deal with others when their stomach is on strike?

But what came out of her was nothing like a shit. It was round, slimy, kind of gelatinous, with a sickly sheen in the sunlight like some kind of amphibian. Wylla's tail was pressed tight against her hind end—which was awash in blood now that her extremely extended labour was over, because how the hell was she to know she was supposed to start pushing, like, nine or ten hours ago?—and she stooped to sniff it gingerly. It didn't smell like shit, either.

"Oh my god," she panted, staring bug-eyed at the little sac that had come out of her as it suddenly shuddered. "Oh my god it's a fucking alien, I had a fucking ALIEN living in my ass, holy shit," but we all know that's not what it was. She retreated from it initially, cowering away—she was infected, she was going to die, she knew it—but some minutes later, decided if she was going to die anyway, then she might as well get back at it by eating it.

So she carried the slimy gross whatever-kind-of-parasite-that-is back into her little den and settled down to consume it, only when she bit into the sac—which, lemme tell you, if she didn't want to barf before she definitely did when that touched her tongue—it wasn't an alien that came out, it was a crumpled little wolf pup with a slight dent in the side of its head from hitting the ground when it came out of her womb.

What, her brain slowly said as she held the thing—miraculously alive, Jesus Christ, how—and then Instinct came out of nowhere, tired of this shitshow, and delivered a swift kick to her head. Some time later Wylla had cleaned her sole daughter, aptly named What The Fuck for the time being, and placed her at her side and was still marveling at her when the sun began to set.