Wheeling Gull Isle Some feathers I stole from the birds

Mou looked as if he had been buried deep in to a carcass by the time he was finished the work; his body was numb, the blood having cooled him considerably as it coagulated across his once-pale body. He looked down at the bundles the newborns formed in the grass and took a shuddering breath, tasting the overwhelmingly metallic flavor of Niamh's blood with each inhalation.

Maegi needed his help. The newborns needed him too. He tucked in close to them as Maegi cut through the sac of one, then another, and tried to gingerly remove the last from the final child before pushing them close to his wife's belly. She could at least warm them, groom the fluids from their little dark bodies.

His work was not yet finished though. He looked up at Maegi with an apologetic expression, his face drawn and red. He could not speak — but as Mou turned towards the ruined body that was once Niamh he appeared resolute. She needed a burial. The children were safe with Maegi for now, as far as he could tell.

Wordlessly Mou stood up and on shaking limbs (muscles weary from the toil of the birth he had forced to occur) he dragged himself a few feet aft, and began to claw at the spring dirt. His paws turned black with mud soon enough; when the pit was good and deep he would drag what was left of his old friend to it.