Emberwood the black hills, the bad lands, the calloused east

Thank God that Cortez was here. He was like a balm to her soul, which hurt so very much at that moment. He gave her all the words that she gave to other wolves, and just like the other wolves had, she found it hard to believe. She nodded anyways. “H-hold me,” she breathed into his neck, shielding her eyes from the sights of the world around her. It was too much, but now he was here, and because of that, he was all she needed.

Now it was not just random pain, but it actually felt as if things were happening; like the forces of nature were churning away at her body, and even though she didn’t understand it — Olive was very much still under the impression that she was far from her due date, and things like this did not happen to her — it was happening anyways. This couldn’t be the birth of her children. It just couldn’t be, but here she was, feeling an impulse to push that what stronger than anything she had felt in her life. It was as if she needed to push more than she needed to breathe, so she kept her inhale locked within and hiked up her leg and struggled alongside the supernatural forces at work here.

She grit her teeth and leaned her upper body into the solid form of the man behind her, drawing strength from him being there. Knowing that he was there to protect her, Olive felt capable of fulling turning inward in order to work with her body’s impulses — but they were so fast and difficult to read that by the time she realized a contraction had hit, the dizzying and disorientating effect was almost over. It was all just a red-hot searing, all over, all the time. Her efforts were ineffective, and she was struggling at best.

A deep, undulating moan rang out from somewhere deep within her, unable to be controlled. The druid shut her eyes and laid her frail head upon Cortez's forelegs, taking a brief respite between contractions. "It’s not working…” she moaned quietly. She was tiring quickly, and the pain was too great. The amount of blood scared her, as well as the idea that this could all be for naught. What babes survived being born a week and a half early? She didn’t want to fail her children — she didn’t want to fail Cortez. Stigmata. She didn’t want to fail Seabreeze and Delight, and the wolves of Elysium who loved her.

Her breathes came shallow, weak. Maybe if she just laid here, her body could do all the work, and her mind could rest. She was just so, very tired…