Sleepy Fox Hollow and hoping made you hurt more

In the small hours of the morning, Wylla finally gave birth to three puppies.

The first was a large smoke-dark boy, mottled with darker hair upon his back that would one day form a more distinctive marking. The second, she struggled with; he was especially rotund, a dark child who appeared to share her same charcoal in the darkness, but who would come to exhibit his own unique blend of her colours. The final puppy... Well.

When Wylla first freed the only girl from her sac, she nearly shoved her out into the cold. Even in the low light of the den, she could see that something was wrong. The puppy's fur was green. Never in Wylla's life had she seen a green wolf before, which led her to the conclusion that this one was fated to die. She was sick. She was tainted.

Maternal instinct was what guided the girl to her breast, but Wylla placed her aside from her brothers. Worry churned in her gut. Would she make the other two sick? If it hadn't happened in the womb, then it shouldn't happen out here in the world, right? Would she die violently or would she slip away in her sleep without a sound? Had this happened because Mahler himself was ill?

When Wylla was assured that all three puppies were eating and no more were coming, she crooned a low note for @Mahler. He would know immediately that something was amiss... and hopefully, as with Phaedra, he would know what to do about it.

had this been anyone else other than wylla, mahler might have found himself irritated at her refusal to allow his help. 
but it was she, and so mahler spent his hours beforehand traversing the hollow, attempting to find herbs he had stashed away long ago. for each two inedible or ruined caches, the gargoyle discovered one that held vibrantly preserved leaves. he carried all he had salvaged back to the moss-covered log where wylla had made her den.
mahler trailed her as she marched, understanding that she traversed through labour pangs.
and when she entered the den to keep him at arm's length, he hung back; he forced himself to be well and lay down as the night began to shift the sky to darkness.
once he patrolled.
once he hunted.
once he called for their eldest, telling phaedra that the time had come for her little siblings to be born.
listening to wylla pant and moan was a singular torment, but he forced himself into the midwife's mind and ascertained that despite the birth's clear difficulty, it was not dire.
he paced.
the heavens lightened.
and wylla called for him.
mahler was gentle, careful; he remembered too well how she had scarred him the last time. first his seeking muzzle, then the broad shape of his head, and next the expanse of his shoulders. he would not enter all the way into the den.
three of them, he realized as his eyes adjusted. two boys. and a third, a girl, though she was tucked away from the others and —
green?
mahler's countenance changed ever so slightly from doting, relieved father to a brief confusion. he inched closer to sniff at the child, noting that she carried no scent of sickness and ate as well as her brothers. "how vas her birth?" the gargoyle asked hoarsely of wylla, torn between concern and his great shimmering love for her.

Nothing special, Wylla answered, shifting a little to give Mahler more room to inspect little @Isa. She did not lunge at him as she had last time. @Anselm and @Emmerich drank with greedy gnashing gums. Wylla winced against the onslaught to her poor body and hoped they would fall asleep soon. At least the girl was gentler.

She came after the fucking fat one, so she came real easy, she said, hushed. What... what's wrong with her? She almost called Isa an "it" just then, but even if the girl was sick and needed to be disposed of, she was still their daughter. There was a crushing amount of disappointment in Wylla that this birth had not gone perfectly. Last year, Phaedra had water in her lungs.

This year, she feared their newest daughter would not make it.

under normal circumstances, mahler might have chuckled at wylla's crass descriptor and looked over to see that it was quite accurate, that their sons were robust. after a moment's hesitation, he chose again to brave his wife's postpartum strike and drew the little girl gently closer to him with a controlled sweep of his large paw.
as he had done with phaedra, mahler checked each inch of her tiny round figure and waving limbs. he sniffed at her miniscule mouth for any signs of disease, and tested the greenish coloration with a lick.
she breathed. she squalled. her only difference was a tendency toward being somewhat smaller, appropriate for the size of her mother. mahler looked up toward his silent, tense wife. "there is nothing vrong vith her," he rumbled gently.
the child was whole in all ways. "perhaps it vas something you ate during pregnancy. perhaps it vas our journey here," he surmised, "but i do not think the inside of her body is affected. only her fur."
mahler was quiet then, awaiting wylla's reaction.

Wylla tensed when Mahler reached for Isa, but managed to still herself from striking him. She knew he meant no harm. He was their father, for god's sake! That didn't make it much easier to tamp down the surge of maternal protectiveness, but this year she managed it.

She watched his examination with bated breath, turning her head now and again to nudge Anselm or Emmerich back into place if they lost their latch. Soon they would sleep, but only for minutes at a time. They would wake and feed for many short intervals at a time, and she would grow sleep-deprived as a result, but it would all be worth it. This year they would not lose any of them. This year things would go perfectly.

Mahler concluded his assessment and Wylla frowned. There has to be, look at her! She couldn't remember eating anything strange, and surely the trip up Sawtooth's sheer slope was as arduous as this, and done much later in her pregnancy! She was frantic for an explanation, but there seemed to be none. Isa was green. That had to be something!

Mahler was skilled, though, and Wylla knew despite her raw nerves that if he said Isa was healthy, she was. That would not stop Wylla doting on the girl to the point of coddling in the following days to ensure no sickness crept into her from the stain upon her fur.

another time, mahler might have found wylla's continued dismissal of his skill an affront.
the gargoyle of this moment saw her only as she was: a frightened mother faced by another affected daughter. "i vill check her each day, geliebt, hmm? every day." and he would reaffirm their girl's health as often as she needed to hear it.
perhaps mahler was finally learning the details of what it meant to be a husband.
as his mate settled their daughter back at her flank, mahler looked at the boys: a pair of good-sized sons. thade — his heart and his mind raced with the recurrent pain of repeated loss. had they ever been whole since the first time? he did not reach to touch the other children, only looked at them and then the daughter again with love.
"i think you should rest. i vill stay close."
and then he would hunt a fat-rich meal for wylla, his most commonplace post-partum offering.
the hollow would keep the growing sonnenwasser clan quite fitted, he felt.

His promise to check in every day settled her enough that she stopped worrying at her lip with her teeth and bent to give Isa a gentle nudge. He was right, and even if he wasn’t, there wasn’t much to be done about it. In the days to come, Wylla would give more attention to Isa than the other two to ensure no sickness found her, but that was the extent of what they could do.

The mention of rest reminded her how exhausted she was. She yawned widely and slung her thin muzzle down across her ankles. I love you, she murmured, and by the last sound of it, she was already drifting off.

"i love you."
mahler watched her fall into slumber. she was exhausted, and from the looks of their particularly large son, the birth had been harder upon her this time.
resplendent with protective affection, mahler waited until her breathing had smoothed into the cadence of one deep in slumber. she was joined there by the pups, nestling against her belly and one another.
the amethyst eyes glowed. he could wait a little longer.