Moonspear snakehips

As much as she wanted these children and as ready as she felt to welcome them to the world, the pains that roused Meerkat in the middle of the night felt wrong. She slipped out of the ulaq to relieve herself and passed a fair amount of blood. Crawling back inside, she thought of waking @Njord. She decided to wait a little, set aside her disquiet and see if this developed into the familiar ebb and flow of labor pains.

The Gamma was so exhausted, she fell back to sleep, only to wake to shooting pains searing through her pelvis. Meerkat tried to sit up, a noise somewhere between a groan and a scream pulling from her throat as she instinctively bore down on the excruciating cramp. Something slipped from her body in a gush of blood.

Meerkat bent to nose at the impossibly tiny puppy. She clipped the birth sac with her teeth and began to lick him dry, panic rising when he didn’t move. And he was so small! She almost hesitated to cut the cord, though she quickly took care of that and pulled him closer to her chest, trying to warm her wee son and coax some life into his motionless body.