Arrow Lake and my words are forever, my blanket, my shiver

never in ingram's life (that he remembered, anyway) had he been put in such an implacable position. he was conflicted as he glanced down at those doe-soft eyes, noticing the lilt in her speech that seemed punctuated by an unusually drowsy affectation. was she drugged? ingram could only assume she was -- or maybe she had hit her head.. but head injuries usually came with lots of blood, and he saw none on her pearly fur.

his brow knitted in a frown as she rolled onto her opposite flank, clumsily coming to grips with the marmot under her fur. "marmot," ingram supplied helplessly, his tail hung low in confusion and his ears pulled back, down into the tufts of his dark fur. "are you okay, aurewen?" he repeated again, feeling ghastly and so out of place. he nearly jumped out of his skin as she tried to nibble his feet -- eeek -- the resulting action of pulling away was far from graceful, and was exactly the kind of reaction you would expect from a cat who placed her paw on a still-hot stove. "maybe you should wait to eat that," ingram decreed, nimbly plucking the marmot from her embrace and doing his best to avoid a second bout of contact as he did so. trying his best to normalize this extremely odd situation, ingram placed the marmot on a nearby shelf of stone and turned back to aurewen with a jagged clearing of his throat. "blodreina and i found a den, it's not so far from here. i thought i would check in, and see how you and the puppies are doing.. and maybe ask you if you think there is anything i should do to make sure blodreina is comfortable?" his ears betrayed the uncertainty he felt -- he was going to be a father in a matter of weeks; it was a fact that both heightened his heart-rate in joyous excitement, and terrified him -- but more importantly, blodreina was going to be a mother -- what could he do to ease her difficulties, and make her comfortable? he assumed a woman who had gone through a similar hardship would have some answers worth hearing.