Whitefish River That just happened

Moonshadow had been avoiding him; it was obvious. Despite him trying to converse with her and have the discussion they needed to have, at every chance, she had dodged him. That wouldn't stop Howl, however. He wasn't about to hunt her down and force her to speak with him, it went against his gentlemanly nature, but a bit of spying couldn't hurt.

Even with her elusiveness Howl was able to catch glances of her and track the progress of her pregnancy, comparing it to the shape Heartha had been in when they were expecting. He also made note of where he saw her most often and deduced the location of a den she would slip into. It was a well-made den, but Howl wished she had simply asked him for help as he wouldn't have had any trouble doing so. Despite what she had done and continued to do, those were his children she was carrying, and he would take full responsibility for them as their father. But there was only so much he could do when their mother acted this way.

The area around the den had been where he hovered for the past few weeks. Trying to see when she would stay in the den for extended periods of time as her estimated due date approached. When she did not emerge for some time, he walked up closer to the den's entrance, pivoting his ears so that he could listen. Moonshadow's breath was heavy, and the intense smell of her alone made him believe that she was in labor. He sat down and waited continuing to listen. Worrying for the fate of his children and praying they would not sucome to the same as their former siblings. Moonshadow's moans and whimpers were hard to hear as he didn't wish her any pain.

The next sound he heard he had never heard before, but he knew instantaneously what it was. The loud and persistent calling of his children as they entered into the world, alive and breathing. His chest filled with warmth that went throughout the whole of his body. The feeling you get when you think you might die but survive in the end. The feeling of joy and elation was one he had never felt before. A simple cry from such youth was enough. The continued sound of panting from Moonshadow, regardless of her actions, was also a great relief to him, showing to him that she too hadn't sucome to Heartha's fate. 

After a few minutes, when Moonshadow's breath became somewhat more even, he daringly crawled into the entrance of the den. As he continued to crawl through the long tunnel, she had dug the sounds of his children's calling grew tremendously, causing him to hasten his movements. Moon had clearly made with den with only herself in mind as he felt almost as if he were squeezing himself through the doorway into the whelping area of the den at the end of the tunnel. Noticing Moon's immediate aggravation, he didn't enter fully. His head and paws through the minister doorway and the rest of him laid in the tunnel. "I won't come in any further if you don't want me to. But I need to see them. I need to know they are OK... I need to know you're OK," he explained.

And they were OK. They were better than OK. In Howl's medical opinion (He has none). For they were alive and breathing eagerly suckling at the teets of their mother. The more voiceterious one was a dark brown with black and white accents. The other, slightly more composed, was a mixture of dark and light grays. They were both sooo beautiful, more beautiful then any other he had ever seen (though he had seen plenty of beautiful women). "Thank you Moon," he said lightly in the more earnest voice that had ever come from him, "Thank you for them."