Blacktail Deer Plateau Flawless

Hawkeye woke with a start, gasping for air. Owls appeared everywhere in sight in her dream. First, it had been one, perched on the branch of a tree. It's eyes were yellow, until it turned its head around, showing red orbs. Suddenly, a mass of owls moved in around her, backing her into a corner and making her feel suffocated, all with those red eyes, The ones her brother had had before, and the ones she imagined she'd had before.

Shaking, Hawkeye carefully rose inside of the den. She moved forward, not acknowledging whether her mate was there or not, and pulled herself through the entrance of the den. Maybe walking the borders will help, she thought, since it had always taken her mind off of things before.

The Alpha made a face as she moved, feeling even more awkward and bulky than she had the previous day. Somehow not taking this as a sign, she began to trot, unknowingly, to the altar Lecter had help her readjust.

When she arrived, the black female looked behind herself to see if anyone was watching, then moved through the thick trees to the opening. The place had gone unmolested by any creature, but it was apparent that the rain and snow had moved items. Hawkeye moved certain things back into position, then sat back, staring at the altar, but focused on nothing in particular.

Suddenly, a sharp pain came from her stomach. "Shit!" Hawkeye looked around frantically for a moment before taking a deep breath and laying down. "I've helped my mom many times. I can do this myself," she encouraged herself.

After giving birth, biting off the two pups' umbilical coards, and removing the amniotic sac surrounding them, Hawkeye guided the newborns to her nipples and they began to suckle immediately. She curled her large form around them as much as possible to keep the two warm.

Before long, Hawkeye raised herself up and gripped both of the small pups in her mouth. The exhausted Alphess moved through the forest toward the den. When she arrived, she gently placed the pups down, laying next to them in a state between awake and asleep.

"Wait until I tell your father that we had two girls..." Hawkeye mumbled with a small laugh before drifting to sleep.

When Peregrine awoke to find the space beside him empty and cold, he immediately leaped to his feet and sniffed out his mate's scent trail. It led away into the dark forest. He stood there a long time, pondering whether to track her or just leave her alone. Eventually, he set off into the dimly-lit woods, just to make sure everything was okay. She was due any day now and Peregrine just wanted to make sure all was well.

When a rabbit suddenly darted in front of him, instincts took over and the Alpha male found himself giving chase. It led him on a zigzag course across the plateau, weaving between trees and making long sprints across open ground. (Meanwhile, Hawkeye was busy giving birth next to the secret altar.) Eventually, he caught up to it and swiped the rabbit's long feet from beneath it with one black paw. After pouncing on the unfortunate critter and dispatching it, he realized just how far he'd strayed from Hawkeye's trail. He paused, deliberated a moment, then began to lope back toward the den to see if she'd made it back there yet.

When he arrived, Peregrine paused a few feet from the den's mouth, set the rabbit at his feet and caught his breath. As he stood there, he froze suddenly when he heard strange sounds in the den. He crept forward a few feet, nose quivering and ears pricked now. The scent of blood made a bolt of panic race through him but when he came near enough to look down upon his mate and spied the two tiny bundles suckling at her side, Peregrine's breath caught in his throat.

"You... you... when...?" He stuttered even as a broad grin crept over his dark face. "Babe," Peregrine practically choked, emotions overwhelming him. His eyes were full of warmth and affection as he proudly regarded his mate. In the next instant, his dusky blue-green eyes shifted to the tiny pups and he said, "Babies," in the same reverent tone of voice. Then he just stood there, staring between his gorgeous wife and his tiny son and daughter—just like they'd predicted (or so he thought).

"Can I come in? Can I... touch them?" he said quietly to Hawkeye, wanting to reach out and grasp all three of them in a fierce bear hug but afraid of agitating the new mother or upsetting their tiny babes.

Hawkeye was rather proud in the fact that she had done this all on her own; she also felt that her mother would have been proud of her. She didn't physically smile when she thought of her parents being grandparents, but it definitely shone in her eyes.

A real smile did show, though, when Peregrine showed up. Hawkeye nodded when he asked if he could come in. "Ty is the girl on the right," she said, motioning to the mostly grey pup and eyeing Peregrine for his reaction to not having a son quite yet.

He took her smile as permission and he stepped forward, then swiftly but gently slung his belly to the earthen floor to put himself at the same level as his family. When Hawkeye spoke, his eyes met hers wonderingly and then he looked down at the two puppies again. "My girls," he murmured happily. If he was disappointed that their prediction of a son hadn't come true, Peregrine himself didn't even know it.

Now that he was closer to them, he could see the slight differences. The pup Hawkeye called Tytonidae was slightly paler than her sister, who was black as the deepest, darkest night. "What's that?" the new father blurted, reaching out his nose to touch the darker pup. She'd squirmed onto her back, exposing patches of white fur beneath each of her four short, shapeless legs. "She has white armpits," Peregrine marveled before a deep chuckling noise burst from his throat. "And Ty has a patch on her chest," he observed aloud, still chortling.

He sat there for a while, very quiet and still, simply watching the puppies suckle and squirm. Eventually, his eyes lifted to Hawkeye's face and he smiled at her with fierce adoration written on every plane of his face. "I love you," he told her, "and you and you," he added for the pups' sake, even if they couldn't hear him. "Daughters. I have daughters."

Peregrine suddenly exchanged a look with his mate, then leaped onto all fours. Wordlessly, he slipped from the den, strode a dozen yards away from its mouth so as not to disturb his new family, then threw back his head. "I HAVE DAUGHTERS!" he veritably roared into the sky, his powerful howl resonating across the plateau and into the lands beyond it. "Hawkeye and I are happy to announce the birth of our little girls, Tytonidae and Osprey Jr!" he added a bit more formally.

The Alpha male's head dropped and he hastily trotted back to the den. "We'll probably have visitors. I can tell them to stay back if you like," he murmured to Hawkeye, his tongue bathing her face in kisses before he settled down next to her, positioning his body so that the two of them surrounded their newborn pups like two dark crescent moons.

I'm only posting once in this thread, but yay! I'm born'd!

Although Ty wasn't actually aware of what was going on, she did sense a sudden coldness, followed by warmth, followed by coldness, followed by warmth. Things shifted so often and so drastically, her little voice wailed in protest. At least, she thought she was wailing. If she was capable of thought at all, that is. The noises that actually fell from her tiny maw were just whimpers and she scrambled to push herself to an available source of "yum."

The newborn had only two senses at this point: touch, which she felt much of, and the faintest sense of something that she would later learn was called smell. Instinctively, she always searched for the smell which produced the "yum." But suddenly, another not-yum thing was sensed, and the smudge whimpered. Eventually, she would know him as Dad. But for the time being, her little body was exhausted, and Ty promptly fell into a deep slumber.

I'm also posting just the once to make my debut. ^_^

In those first moments of her life outside the womb, little Osprey Jr. experienced the various and opposing forces of nature: warmth and cold; dryness and wetness; upside down, right side up and even topsy turvy! She opined noisily throughout, creating a range of sounds, from happy whimpers when her mother's jaws clasped her around the middle, tickling her tiny belly to a comically loud grunt of protest when something (her sister's paw) batted her rudely in the face.

Presently, she rolled absently onto her back, her four teeny, tiny paws wriggling in the air, the toes spreading. She felt something warm (her father's breath) wash over her and she squealed, her tiny, whiplike tail twitching erratically. Still vocalizing loudly, Osprey Jr. righted herself and sprawled on her pudgy belly, her distinctive white markings now hidden by rolls of healthy puppy fat. Seeking to add yet more fat to her collection, she wriggled now in purposeful search of sustenance.

Instincts (and perhaps a gentle nudge from her mother) guided her to a teat and she latched on vigorously, her miniature paws rising up to scrub at her mother's belly, framing her tiny black face as she suckled. Milk dribbled down her chin as she began to drift to sleep, though she never fully detached. Her wriggling slowed down, then stopped, yet she remained fastened to her mother's side like a tiny leech, giving the very occasional tug as she dozed.

Peregrine's howl jerked Pied from an uneasy, uncomfortable sleep. With a groan, she hoisted herself to her feet and climbed slowly up the tunnel to the mouth of the den. Her eyes narrowed against the morning sunlight but she didn't pause to let them adjust. Moving slowly and carefully, the big-bellied she-wolf began to shuffle through the woods. She scarcely left the area near her den these days but she wouldn't miss this occasion for the world.

She arrived about an hour after the Alpha male's call, very weary and out of breath. The Xi wanted to sink down and sleep right there on the open ground. Instead, she pushed herself toward the entrance of the Alpha pair's den, though she didn't intrude. The dappled female hovered outside, her nose wriggling and her ears pressing forward to catch the scents and sounds emanating from the den. Despite her exhaustion, she smiled brilliantly at the evidence of the newborn pups.

"Congratulations, you two," she managed, feathery white tail waving to and fro. "Welcome to the world, Princesses Ty and O.J.," she added despite knowing her greeting would fall on deaf ears. She chuckled lightly at how strange the word princesses sounded in combination with the girls' not-so-feminine names, which were so very fitting considering their parentage.

Pied wanted to stay and spend some time with Hawkeye and the puppies but she knew now was not the time. Other visitors would want to come give the parents well wishes and the new mother would soon need to rest. Giving birth was no easy task, after all, and the Alpha female would need her sleep now. She wouldn't be getting very much of it in the coming weeks.

"Congratulations again. I'll give you a few days to rest and have your privacy with the girls, then I'll stop by again. Love you, sis," Pied said quietly to Hawkeye. She gave Peregrine an affectionate smile too. The pregnant Xi then turned and began to the slow trek back home to the burrow, hoping and wishing that her own litter would come soon.

Atticus was elsewhere in the lands, following game trails and scouting out prey movement, when his brother's triumphant howl rippled across the sky. The call beckoned to him, pulled at his heart, invited him to come to them and celebrate the arrivals of the Plateau's first litter. But he remained where he was, though it was a decision made out of practicality and not out of any spite, jealousy, or otherwise negative thinking. No, Atticus was not in that dark emotional place anymore. He could not even bring himself to be jealous of Hawkeye's place in all of this. He was an uncle.

A broad grin spread over his face and he couldn't help the giddy laugh that bubbled up from deep within him, ringing out into the quiet around him with a suddenness that started birds and elicited angry protests from squirrels in the trees. Tossing his head skyward, he sent up a howl of his own, his dark, rich baritone jubilant and sweet with notes of joy and pride, as well as a message for Peregrine: Well done, my brother! I hunt for your girls -- I will return with gifts of food! And with that, he set forth resolutely in his new role as uncle: tracking down food to help ensure the health and well-being of the puppies and their parents.

Blue Willow heard the joyous howls and smiled as she jogged softly to the den. A rabbit in her maw. She had caught it and rather than put it in any of the caches she had decided to bring it with her. She stopped short of the den and sat down softly a pant coming from her mouth. She did not wish to intrude so she just whispered a soft hello at the mouth of then den and then looked at Peregrine. "Congratulations Peregrine.

I thought I'd post again and poke this toward a conclusion. :)

Indeed, visitors came, though thankfully not in droves. Peregrine met both Pied and Blue Willow with smiles that clearly said, I'm a proud papa. His face glowed whenever he looked upon his mate and pups. He accepted their congratulations and the Healer's gift with a gracious nod, a thump of his tail and a quiet, deep, "Thank-you."

When Atticus's howl poured over the territory, the Alpha male cocked his head and smiled. Whatever issues still lingered between the brothers, Peregrine was too happy to let them touch him today. Atticus sounded truly proud too, which warmed his heart, as did his litter mate's promise of gifts to come.

Pied didn't linger long. After wishing the new family well, she shuffled back to her burrow. Peregrine's dusky eyes followed her, unaware that this would be the last time he saw her alive. His gaze then flicked to the medic and he reported, "Everything went perfectly, as far as I can tell." Thankfully, there was no need for direct medication attention for either mother or babies.

Knowing the pack's members would come and go a lot in the coming days, Peregrine positioned himself in the den's mouth presently, blocking Hawkeye and the tiny newborns from view. He would be happy to tell any passerby about their status but he didn't want his family constantly disturbed. Like a good husband and father, he watched over them and kept them safe, standing between them and the great big world, his fierce love written plainly on his swarthy face.