Redtail Rise I shall be punished for it now, I suppose, by being drowned in my own tears

set for 6/14 around 2am

It was the early hours of the morning, long before the sun would rise when the sky had opened up and dropped a downpour. Veins of lightning crawled across the sky, minutes apart, and were followed soon after with a booming thunder that rumbled the ground. The bear was angry with her. She had been a loyal subject to the spirit and now she had abandoned everything. Every day, she waited for the other shoe to drop, for her punishment to be dealt in some horrific, scarring way. She could feel it coming, though she said nothing of it to anyone. The bear was nothing here. It held no power over anyone else, but it still had power over her. The bear haunted her thoughts and dreams and was slowly driving her deeper into the depression that had started before they left Ursus, when she could see how the world was battering @Aventus and driving him to madness. 

Rain pelted against her and soaked her to the bone. She was panicking, trying to get back to the den because she knew the children were coming. She had felt the cramps starting yesterday, and they continued throughout the day and night. Until now, when they felt like they were trying to split her in half.

When she drew close to the den, she was seized by a pain so severe it made her stagger. The pain struck again, and this time she cried out, but the sound was drowned out by a smash of thunder above her. Arielle fell to the ground with only seconds of consciousness before she was yanked into darkness, Blood pooled around her tail, far more than there should be. A pup squirmed within its sac, its struggle ignored. 

She dreamed while she was out, but of nothing good. The bear stood before her with giant teeth bared. Blood dripped from its jaws and a tiny brown infant lay dead and mangled at the spirit's giant paws. Arielle started to cry. That was her daughter laying there, gored and lifeless. Her heart broke into a million pieces. She was powerless against the bear; this was her punishment and she could do nothing but accept it. The bear only watched her fall apart, cold, beady eyes judging her. The spirit had forsaken her, though only because she had abandoned it first.

Minutes passed that felt like hours to her, but she finally came to. She was groggy and in pain. Sorrow beat at her relentlessly until she could remember what was happening. Arielle turned and found the lifeless puppy, still in the sac. She quickly cleaned it off and brought it inside; she swayed as she moved but fought stubbornly against the weakness. She set the puppy down and went to her herb stash to find something for the blood loss. She ate it quickly, along with a few other things she had been saving for this day. Then she returned to the child. It was dead, she already knew, but that didn’t stop her from licking and nudging the tiny body in the hope that it would stir. But it had been too long. Her tiny daughter, with her downy soft, dark brown fur was gone. Tears formed in her eyes, but she had no more time to mourn; she was struck with another contraction, this one nothing like with the first pup. It hurt, but it was mostly bearable, unlike before. She worked hard for however long it took, pushing when she felt like she was supposed to. Finally she delivered the second puppy, and this time, she was there to clean it off and stimulate it to start breathing. This one was a boy and mostly white with blobs of coloring in a similar pattern to hers, though the colors were slightly different (@Ancelin). When she had cleaned him off, she pulled him close and helped him find a place to feed. A flash of guilt stole her breath for a moment as she looked down on her son, so tiny and helpless, like the first born who had been left to suffocate, alone. Tears filled her eyes again. Her decisions had cost the life of her child; she should have protected her.

Again, her thoughts were pushed away when the pain started. She was afraid to sit up and jostle the pale puppy, so she tried to remain where she was and just breath through the pain; it helped that she knew it was temporary. She was completely out of energy at this point, a combination of labor and blood loss making her almost dizzy with exhaustion. But she refused to lose another child to her weakness. So she found some primitive drive to keep going and delivered the next pup with quite a bit of a struggle. She immediately pulled him over and cleaned him off. He was black and reddish brown, and another son (@Atreus). When he was crying, she pulled him close and helped him find a place to feed like she had the first son. 

She could only watch over them for a short time before she could no longer hold her head up. Arielle rested it on her front paws and watched the rain continue to pour down outside. The full moon cast a glow across the entrance of the den that was only made brighter with each flash of lightning. Tears flowed from her eyes unbidden and stubborn. She had no more energy to hold anything in, so along with the pain and exhaustion, she was battered by a fiery rage that took her breath away and a bone deep sorrow that made her wish for death. Everything seemed to crash into her at once—the space that had formed between her Aves, how lonely she had felt the last few months, her betrayal. She had tried to be strong and ignore the way those things actually made her feel, but now they took advantage of the open floodgates. She was unable to fall asleep despite how tired she was because the emotions were too strong. The tears wouldn’t stop and she just let them fall. She had given up.