Bearclaw Valley 'Cause you might enjoy some madness for a while

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WELCOME BABIES <333

it wasn't hard to hurt ancelin's feelings, and having ameline's teeth flash anywhere near in such a cold way hurt his sensitive male feelings as if she had personally stompled them underfoot and pitched them from a cliff.
he had been hovering in the manner of a nervous bumblebee these last days, perhaps crowding her a little, being a bit more attentive than he needed to be, bordering infantilization — all meant with a good heart but probably more than annoying as fuck.
something in the marrow-depths of his spirit had spoken when ancelin woke, and this had forced the young soon-to-be-second-time-father into such anxieties that he didn't blame ameline for her silent threat.
it scorched his heart, and for a moment the bearclaw was consumed by such a blinding jealousy that he scarcely knew what to do with himself.
he let it go — it poured from him in swirling waves of red, as if blood once more washed the densite of a bearclaw birth.
ancelin would not be that crazed father looming to strike.
instead the variegated man dropped to his belly, eyes flicking from the denmouth once to the face of his oldest daughter. a thump of his tail welcomed athalia, but ancelin was otherwise wholly fixed upon the shifting shadows within the den that signalled his mate's movement.
he was tormented by the silence, by the exhausting pressure of each changing moment; he felt as if he roiled with her.
and then as the sun rose high, ameline called for he and athalia. his eyes widened; his ears twitched, as if he had not quite heard. and then he was on his feet, shocked and apprehensive and filled with anticipation, nudging her gently ahead of him and settling just a bit farther back, where he could — could see —
he saw the first daughter born. his nose stung; his throat tightened; he tried to hold it together as ameline guided the baby to her belly but he couldn't. she was dark as night and so so so tiny. he hadn't imagined anyone could be so tiny, and shared in that wonder with athalia. 
wiping his face and feeling a little foolish, though the feeling quickly faded, ancelin watched worriedly as his mate began to tense and breathe again. a little stormchild was born next, and he caught his breath. two! two! his voice still wouldn't work, but the hunter's tail drummed out a happy, ecstatic rhythm just outside the den.
the third — his mouth quivered again and he stared happily first at ameline with misted eyes, then athalia. the third looked like him, and he was overwhelmed in the most beautiful sort of ways by that.
ancelin was more worried when the contractions started up a fourth time, worried with a there's more??? expression shining up his cheekbones, but there was indeed another child. another daughter, glittering already with ameline's gold.
ancelin didn't hear what their oldest said, but he slung a paw gently over her shoulders as soon as he could compose himself. "these," voice gravelled with a thousand new emotions, "are your sisters too, athalia."
very, very carefully, ancelin leaned into the den to offer ameline a radiantly pleased kiss, to bump his crown against athalia, to touch each of the small newborn bodies in turn; he moved so slowly that his muscles started to cramp.
the bearclaw backed from the den, and such energetic delight flooded him that he found himself running, running, faster and faster, until he leapt to the sentinel stone and howled out in brazen, reverberating voice the pride of bearclaw's expanding family.
he came back soon thereafter, smeared with cobwebs and blood, bearing many moles he had dug up as morsels for ameline. she could feast at her leisure.
ancelin propped his chin on the edge of the den and watched them all, his beautiful girls, their glimmering mother, and he knew he had never been so happy in all his life.