Stone Circle how rare and beautiful it is to even exist

Welcome kids! :D I did not proof read this so you have my deepest apologies if there are any ridiculous mistakes hahaha Tagging in birth order: @Selamuit @Kallik @Taktuq @Ikiaq  (@Siarut @Valette I imagine you would both be nearby haha) And anyone else in the pack who wants to hang around outside the den outside is a-okay to do so, please feel free to hop in! <3

The contractions began shorly before sunrise, and carried on through the day. She welcomed dawn with a nice puddle of vomit, and preceeded through the morning with the most pitiful bouts of shivering she'd experienced since she'd been a child. Nanook had considered calling in her sister, or Siarut -- but her independent streak won out. She pressed deeper into the recess of the whelping den, where the ground was just a little bit cooler, and where the sticky air outside couldn't reach her.

Around noon, her panting ebbed, and her body felt... ehh, relatively normal again. Yet in this time, the first child pushed through. Nanook had watched enough births to know what to do, and even if she hadn't, her response came almost instinctively. She contorted around, reached out, and bit the cord and sac, and the child -- her firstborn -- breathed.

How curious. Even in the pain that shot through the naturalist's body, she took mental notes for later. Very different, very different indeed, to be the one giving birth, rather than one watching on. It almost felt surreal -- but with every lick she meted out to this here child of hers, who looked as dusky as any newborn pup ever did and ever would, she knew this moment was very much real. Nanook placed the child by her belly, and let him do whatever work little goobers like him would do. Another contraction told her that her second was on their way.

This one came out butt first, and Nanook tried to help them come out with the slightest tug to their tail. Which, seemed to do the trick -- she cleaned this one up like the first, and flipped him over -- yup, another boy, oh boy -- and plopped him down next to his older brother to hopefully behave themselves while she tried to get the others out as swiftly as she could manage.

The third took a little longer in coming, and Nanook was starting to wonder if she would have as many kids as her sister after just her first litter. It was a good thing she and Siarut were both well in years -- may this be her first, and last delivery -- yet this thought tempered when she looked to her sons, and now, as she bit the cord, and cleaned the mouth, and warmed the body, of her seemingly only daughter.

A smile pricked her lips, and she put her daughter between the two boys.

And then, nothing. Nothing, for a very long while. Noon slipped away. The sun shifted, and she waited, and long shadows harkened the approach of the evening. The three children suckled away, or slept at her belly, but the mercenary felt tense, even as her body sought to rest. Someone still kicked inside her, and they weren't coming out.

Were they ever coming? Nanook knew that life wasn't always promised, even to children. That death could come swift, before their eyes had even seen the light. This one hadn't died -- she knew by the occasional thump against her abdomen wall -- but she felt thick worry cloud her mind. The silence felt excruciating, and she wished nothing more than for someone to be there with her.

Sometime in the waiting, she let her panting voice break out. "Val -- "

Yet as she spoke, the final contraction came. The mercenary pushed, and pushed, and the little sucker broke loose. She gave them the same treatment as their siblings, cleaning them up, flipping them over real quick to check -- yup, a third boy, good luck daughter -- but she lingered on this little one's face and smirked through the residual pain. He would either be a homebody or a troublemaker, she decided, and she put her final child, and final son, to nestle between her second-born and herself.

With a giant sigh, she flopped back to the earth and closed her eyes, happy all that was over. With a quiet word, she lulled out her voice, "Siarut. Come." They would name them together.