Phantom Hollow In my hands I hold a jar to gather up the evening dew [birthing thread]

Forward dated to the 5th of April (birthing order: @Lumiya @Revan @Venamis @Zan , 2 unnamed puppies will not survive due to the stress of traveling) @Damien is of course welcome, I think the others will have to wait a little to meet them (Looking at you, Moath)

Perhaps it had been a bad idea to move from the Weald so close to her due date after all. It begun the night of the new moon around 12 am when the stars were out and she had found a place to rest. It was just slight discomfort at first, an ache she couldn't get rid off no matter how much she turned and huffed and puffed. Left side? Nope, the ache was there again. Perhaps upside down? Dear God no, now her head lay in a puddle of water. Huh... strange, she didn't remember settling nearby the stream. Her ears swiveled. There was no rushing of water nearby and the sky was clear. It smelled like iron, a thick scent she only remembered from the borders and successful hunts. And that one time she almost ate someone's face. The aching became worse.

She woke up in a cold sweat, panting now. How much time had passed? She had dozed off for what could've been a few minutes or a couple of hours with her stomach cramping and a terrible pain deep inside her flower. Her breaths became shorter and she got herself up, only now noticing her head was covered in liquid that was most certainly not water. Was this it? But it was too soon! She still had a week, right? There was no way they were coming now. She reached down, noticing the iron scent was strongest around her entrance. Oh Mephala have mercy, she wasn't ready to do it here! They had to get back home, or at least to Blackfeather Woods - not this awful Hollow. No wonder she couldn't walk any further, her children were ready to come out. Damien...! She gasped, not even remembering if she had settled with him. Her vision got blurry but something told her to push and get them out of her, right now!

With her head between her paws she squeezed and breathed and pushed. The pain made her lose track of time and space, all her other worries shoved to the back of her mind to make way for the emotional journey ahead. She felt something move - someone - and out the first popped. Everything went way smoother after that first little head was out of her. She cleaned the light, slimy, wriggling ball of flesh and bone and instinctively moved it near her teats. She barely had time to see how her firstborn looked before the other eagerly made its way outside. This one was bigger, she felt, because it hurt more even though she was numbed by the pain at this point. This one got the same treatment as the first; clean, alive, to the teats, repeat. The third one came with a struggle, and when she nosed it over she knew it wasn't breathing. Like the good mother she was, she tried to bring it back to life, get its little heart pumping and its little lungs working, but there was no point. She barely had time to discard it when the fourth came sliding out. Luckily, this one was breathing and well. She placed it with its siblings and for a little while nothing happened.

Calm before the storm. It wasn't over. The fifth took its sweet time but mother had had enough. She pushed a little harder and out came the fifth, just as alive as the other ones. Four out of five, that was good, but it wasn't over just yet. To rub it in that it hadn't been a good idea to travel, there came a sixth. It was cold when she touched it, more dead than the other had been. She whimpered as she shoved it around, licking its little face, but it had to join the other one that hadn't made it.

And then it was done. The aching went away, her head cleared up, and the pain was numbing. She collapsed in exhaustion.

The spirit was born, even though the womb was so nice. Peacefully floating... if this was all existence had to offer, she didn't mind. Even when she bumped into the others, her heart was content just like this; blind, deaf, thoughtless. But apparently this existence had more to offer. She followed the stream that brought her out of her mother and into her fleeting embrace. It was cold here, wasn't it... And this solid ground was strange and prickly. She kept her tiny mouth shut, moved willingly as she was pushed around. This was fine. She could work with this as well. Everything was going to be okay. Mother smelled nice, and her little wet nose moved over Mother's belly. A teat was found and quickly she stuffed her mouth, eagerly sucking up the milk that came with such an incredible find. Content again, she was, even if her peace and quiet would most likely be short lived.

The whole ordeal of being born had come with a lot of stress for little Revan. Whilst the entire pregnancy had been comfortable and chill, the last days had been packed with action and unsufferable tension, making things displeasing in there with the rest of the litter. Revan was one of the lucky ones to survive, strong enough to fight his way through the last days of pregnancy, but there were two others that simply couldn't make it. Perhaps Revan would never know this, or maybe unconsciously he would always lack two siblings, but for now he could only respond to life the only way newborns could.

He was feisty at first, probably posing a challenge for a stressed-out mother trying to round him up with the others, but as soon as he found a teat to suckle on and he found out what it felt to be nourished he was calm. He went on in silence, almost still save for his aggressive suckling technique, until he dozed off to sleep out the rest of his first night in this world.

Beneath a star-speckled sky of deepest navy, under the shadow of a new moon, a dark child was born.

He entered the world with ease, though he was sure to make his arrival known. As soon as teeth nipped him free of his connection to the one he'd come to know as Mother, when a cool nose bumped against his face to roughly clear his airway, his newly inflated lungs swelled to release the sharpest of yowls.

Breath swept over his slick hide and, nudged alongside the wriggling bodies of litter-mates he'd shared a womb with, the raven pup found comfort in their proximity. He settled, voice quieting to a soft murmur as he latched onto an offered teat to drink his fill.

Nyx had labored amidst the ghastly glow of the new moon, birthing four living and two deceased offspring; Zannah had been sandwiched by death in her rearing. She came out headfirst into the world, landing ungracefully on the ground. Zannah wasn't unattended for more than a millisecond, as Nyx was quick to grab, clean, and reposition her. Although competition flanked her, Zan paid no mind to those who suckled at her side. Instead, she latched on to the nearest teat and ate until she was past the mark of satisfaction. 

Filled to the brim and content, Zannah curled up at Nyx's side and fell asleep.

Not a single thing about his children's coming had been the way Damien had envisioned, or even remotely imagined. Against all odds Damien's crew ad been outnumbered by the usurpers of Blackfeather Woods and he had no choice but to retreat and regroup with his wife's convoy to realize he was too far from Deepwood Weald to ever get back safely before the whelping. They had to try, though, and they walked as far and as fast as Nyx was capable of, but it wasn't very far. Not a day went by after their regrouping when Nyx showed signs of inability to finish the journey back home, and so Damien was forced to set up camp in the last place he could have ever imagined his first legitimate children to be born in. Phantom Hollow had been the cradle to many of Blackfeather Woods' problems, where the sickness that killed it had been born. Naturally Damien had been feeling uneasy for days, not only because they were trapped in the most undesirable place ever, but because he didn't know how to handle or soothe his wife to have a successful and painless whelping. Everything seemed to be against them, and Damien was borderline obsessive with making the wretched place that would see his children's birth as secure as he could manage.

Eventually Nyx entered in labor, and the night befell with uncharacteristic calmness. The sky had closed its eyes to the world, and Damien was thankful to the princes for providing such very needed privacy. He had caved out a thickly rooted den for Nyx under an old oak, hoping that its age would provide with the right kind of energy for Nyx to go through it all at well guarded, and he had mounted watch upon it with almost unnatural commitment. He could hear her panting and whining, and he went in to check on her and try to soothe her with an occasional gentle kiss on her forehead, but her patience ran low that night and he was allowed but mere seconds within the den before she changed her mind and lashed out at him for no reason at all.

One by one the cubs were birthed, and each time Damien peeked inside uneasily to see if they were healthy. He couldn't really see or make out much, but hearing their faint whines and cries sent such a strangely soothing energy through him that he knew to let the mother do what she had to do. And after things seemed to go more silent Damien peeked inside once more, sniffing out his way to Nyx, who seemed to have collapsed out of exhaustion, curled around their newborns. He ran his nose over them all, licking each one of them gently and sniffing them out to make sure they were all alive, and when it was confirmed he simply found a way to curl up around them in silence and spend the rest of their silent first night in peace.

Finally, Damien had a family of his own.