Neverwinter Forest lxxiii. when my working day is over

all of WG is welcome but notably: @Muttn @Hermes @Wilwarin @Keyni. Also @Kukutux and @Shikoba if they'd like to join the party! <3 @Kjalarr (wasn't sure if he'd be around but we can play it as if Lótë sent for him behind the scenes if you'd like.) Andddd finally @Fjall as the newest member of the family! <3

It was deep in the night, in the dark, when Lótë woke to the pain. It was familiar, as an old friend was, and the cloudberry might've welcomed it if not for the fear that gripped her. (Suppose this time things didn't go well. Suppose all her children were born twisted and deformed, proving the spirit-bear right in his prejudiced assumption that something was amiss with her totem. Suppose it was worse and they were born still and sleeping, never to wake.)

The paintwolf tried to banish such worries from her mind as she paced, flitting about like an agitated bird and ensuring everything was in place while she was still able. Chewing the herbs moonwoman had given her and trying to control the rate of her anxious breaths, the pounding thunder-roll of her heart. 

By the time brother sun breached the horizon and shone light upon the state she was in, such movement was no longer possible. Neither was being quiet, as she'd hoped to be in order to not scare her young daughters. The guttural cries left her of their own accord as she sunk down, down into the primordial haze. 

Thoughts came broken, unfinished. Figures rallied about her, bringing comfort and the bitter scent of herbal remedies. Instructions were given. Lótë obeyed. The pain crested and crashed as brother sun along the horizons. 


At last, a burning. An immense pressure, the seismic shift of moving earth within the mother's body. A wet sensation, the iron of blood. 

The first was a taunt, her worst fears breathed into life. She clipped the girl, the first twin, from her sac only to drop her child with a cry upon realizing she was lifeless. 

"Auk! the word tore from her throat in Kukutux's language, half a sob. "Come back," the doe slipped instinctively into the language of her own mother, of the foresters, as she struggled to nudge and rouse the stillborn girl, to rub life into her tiny body. Eventually, the pain called her away and someone -- Lótë couldn't be sure who -- tactfully removed the lost daughter from the den. 

The second twin gave her cause for bated breath, trembling as she went to remove the child from the membrane that encased it -- safe and unseen from the world. Lótë might've hesitated but instinct begged against fear. 

New sobs, these of relief, escaped as a warble broke the tension -- hugging and lapping at the living child, a boy, almost fervently.