The Tangle sedna.

wind comes from the east and there is blood upon it.

sobeille followed it stiffly, the wounds on her face still moist. she grimaces as a thorn snags one and reopens a welt of freeflowing blood; but it is not her blood that worries her.

she froze as a cry pierced the night air and rerouted towards it. the scent grew thicker, mixed with something else -- the putrid smell of birth and death.

what is this she comes across?  sobeille's eyes adjust to the dark and the horror of it. first, an impossibly small body resembling a lithopedion; disfigured and hideous.

beyond it coiled another body; larger and emanating a fading warmth.

a woman.

sobeille did not react right away to the two children she saw squirming by her hind end. both were encased in caul, their wobbling heads contorting the thin sheath that made the difference between their life

and their death.

another scent pervaded the air slick with amniotic fluid and blood. a male.

sobeille's gaze flickered around them; the screen of thorns and shadows too thick to pierce.

making up her mind, the emerald seized the first child between her teeth. the power of her own instinct surprised her; it told her to pull back the membrane and lick until the babies bodies were warm to the touch.