Greatwater Lake buck moon

the humidity of the day made the birthing hovel feel claustrophobic to zharille, who had given up the constant patrols of her lake in favor of the den; who no longer was so friendly to the child nutu, or welcoming to any man.

mezen-ka had gone to the palace. he had left food and herbs with her, at least within reach, believing the litter would arrive soon but not knowing that the labor would begin as swiftly as his paws crossed the border south.

zharille knew the sensations - remembered them from her first time. the churning of her gut; the pulse of pain that would sweep in and out again, with less break between. she rumbled notes of discomfort as these pains grew, and stood, and adjusted, and paced; then when she could not handle the suffocation of the den, she emerged with fervor to the gleaming gold of a full, burnished moon.

the children slipped from her over the course of an hour; one, two, three. each hitting the wilting summer grass above which the ogre loomed.

the first was a golden boy painted in that moonlight, smeared with blood (@Ibrahim); the second a girl as red as the palace of her father's people, which drew a flash of fangs from zharille (@Taliba); the last, dropped in to mud and briefly forgotten as zharille's rage was stirred, a final boy (@Aiman).

hours passed as they came free of her, and mezen-ka appeared; at a distance, perhaps aware by now that his feral wife was not welcoming.

the urge to tear them apart came in a torrent, and so too came the motherly tempering. as zharille reached for these little helpless lumps she reminds herself - her blood, her flesh, made them. here the clay of the soil holds them. here the grass fed by the lake has served as a nest.

no matter where they go, they are of greatwater.

those teeth shine in the moonlight - but she gathers them closer, plucks them free of debris and roughly begins to clean their fetid bodies. her children. her army.