Whitebark Stream baby tingz, yes

@Grezig. He's tongue-tied. :(

something wasn't quite right. grezig's milk tasted fine, but alsek often found himself pulling away without having gotten his fill. sometimes, drinking from his mother's store was painful; he would whine while drinking, and often screamed after detaching. frustrated by this phenomena, the child settled onto his side and continued to cry, unable to process the cause of his agony.

@Minnow - come help Grezig figure out what’s wrong with Alsek!
Content warning: Grezig contemplating eating her child.

Alsek’s constant crying was an irritant to Grezig, more so than she thought it would have been. It’s not as though she’d never had babies before. This was her second go around, yet the constant screaming was just as annoying as it had been the first time. Yet, Pele’s near-complete silence was almost worse. It was eerie. It bothered her. She often had to nudge her runt child to make sure the girl was still breathing. Yet, despite Grezig’s dread that she would find her daughter dead one morning, the girl continued breathing and eating. She was simply quieter than her brother… by a lot. Too much.

Alsek was screaming too much. And he wasn’t eating the way he should, yet Grezig had no idea how to fix whatever might be wrong with him. One day, after getting completely fed up with his incessant screaming, she quickly left the den and sat at the entrance, breathing in and out through her nose for a few moments to calm herself down. Simply eating the boy would be easiest. He was still so little, she could probably swallow him almost whole. She pushed that thought away. Alsek was probably the only one of the two who would survive. She still had no confidence in Pele whatsoever, who, despite eating currently more than her brother, was not growing very well. What had gone so terribly wrong this time around? Was it her curse because she had chosen to follow her heart and fuck Kavik? Or had that simply been hormones? Lust, not love? Who knew?

With a sigh, Grezig tilted her head back and called for a healer within the pack, wondering if someone else could tell her what the fuck was wrong with Alsek.

(coming in for Aphrodite's second healing thread) 


The call roused her. It was long enough she needed to examine the new pups, and judging by the fact the call had come from the direction of the whelping dens, it was apparent that a mother needed her sooner. 
She Quickly found her way to the exhausted looking shewolf, sitting outside the den with a distraught expression. 
"It's good you called me- I had been meaning to come by and check on you soon. I heard it was a difficult labor." 
Difficult labors often meant sickly pups, and as she saw the two emaciated pups, she wondered why the shewolf- or her mate- hadn't called her sooner. "They don't seem to be eating well, do they?" 

Grezig was immediately suspicious of this woman she had not met… although, she held herself back, since she had not really met anyone in the pack other than Artyom before she had given birth. When the woman moved closer to look at her children lying curled up in the den, Grezig forced herself to withhold a growl. This woman claimed to be a healer and Grezig had no way of proving otherwise. Still, the fur along her spine raised and she stood, curling her tail up and over her back in a sign of authority. “I will permit you to look in on my children, but if you harm them I will rip your throat out and feast on your blood.” She said this in a matter-of-fact voice that was almost calm, though there was a slight tremor that betrayed her true feelings.

She cleared her throat, acting as if what she had just said to the woman was completely normal and non-threatening. “The girl is simply a runt, which makes her look more emaciated than she is. She is eating fine. The boy, however, seems to be having trouble drinking my milk, and he screams often. Not the normal cry of babes, but true screaming.” Grezig felt uncomfortable admitting to this female she did not know that her children had problems. It made her feel like an inadequate mother. But… she knew she needed to tell someone about Alsek’s inability to eat, or it might end up costing him his life. She would never forgive herself if her pride ended up killing one of her children.

The threat was neither surprising, nor unexpected. In her youthful eagerness she had forgotten simple courtesies, she bowed her head to correct the mistake. 

"I am Aphrodite. I adopted Minnow earlier this spring, I'll be training her. Where I am from medicine and healing was sacred. Your pups are in no danger."
 
the shewolf explained her troubles, and Dite listened intently. She had a few theories, but would need more time and evidence. 
"How are your breasts? Any redness? Pain when nursing? Yellow or green discharge? Swelling?"  
The first thing to rule out of course was mastitis. An infected teat would be painful to digest, and spread infection to the pup.