Lost Creek Hollow [B]Couldn't see through the tinted glass

It was in the late evening when her children decided now was the time to be born. She had felt the strangeness in her body all day, but it had stayed away.

Now the pain was sharp as serpents tooth and it railed against her like a thankless child. She whimpered and panted. Her prayers running towards Atka, towards Sos. Though the dark bear had no place in birth as its counterpart did. The prayers that rolled off her tongue were half gibberish and feverish, but she railed onward.

It was with a tightening and the sharp sharp pain against her lower back that her first child came into the word. A son painted in shades of early sunrise and late sunset.

She purled to him as she pulled him nearer. Licking at the blood and dirt that marred his pretty face. 

My son of morning sun and early dusk. May you brighten the world around you and tread gently with Atka in the ways of light and balance. @Darrow .

It was peaceful for a time while Darrow suckled and stayed in the warmth of her belly. But her body was not done. With a cry her body buckled and her belly rolled. Sharp pain in her back again. She hissed and cried, but as with the first. A child came forth. Spun in shadows and moonbeams. Star kisses on her cheeks.

She gently pulled her daughter towards her licking across the sprinkling of colors in her fur. Each lick bringing warmth to her. Cleaning the pretty stars in her cheeks. So beautiful. Pressed her next to her brother as she whispered.

My precious daughter spun in gossamer threads of moonbeams and starshine. Shadows cloak you. May Sos lead you in life so that all may know your might. @Aerilyn

May you both know true balance of oneself and the world around.

Ash paw curled her children to herself and smiled a secretive grin. A follower of both light and dark and she had been given a child cloaked in each. It only felt right. And one of each gender. Balance. Balance was key.

not my best by far, but welcome to the world little ones.

She was safe and warm and then soon she was so cold as she got evicted. She made no sounds at first until something went across her tiny body and she voiced her displeasure loudly until she felt the warmth of her sibling and smelt the sweet scent of milk as she nosed around her mothers fur to find the source. The girl grunted softly as she suckled. Content  eating; she dozed off to sleep.

He came with the sunset, on the wings of deep shadows, slithering out from the warmth of the womb to the welcome of cool air and tender care. He cried with his first breath, but only for a moment; comfort came and wrapped him up with her arms about him, her breath but a whisper, and speaking love he could not hear. Life-giver. She moved him gently about, and he did not fight her. He tasted and touched and filled himself with the milk of his Life-giver - with her, yet alone, and he felt it.

There had been another with him before.

Another suckled.

Where had that one gone?

His Life-giver soon gave him the answer as another - the other - settled alongside him, and he squealed when her fur brushed his, and nestled closer. Together here, just as they'd been in the warmth. And he knew an unspoken trust, and how right he felt at her side, and at his mother's, too.

Stars and sunlight in the night.

They were noth cleaned and curled into her belly fur. The afterbirth surfaced and also now gone. She finally lifted her muzzle to call out to 

@Silvertongue, @Wren, @Ksura @Shadowpaw @Esma

Let them know she would allow visitors now. For the two babies. She would doze fitfully as visiotrs arrived if any would.

As he had haunted Mira’s birthing place, he now haunted Ash Star’s. There was nothing he could do for her, if something went wrong, but he lurked as if in hopes that his presence might be enough to bring her some luck. 

He kept his ears tuned for sounds of distress, but waited patiently out of sight and out of reach until he heard the woman call out in invitation.

He was first in arriving not because of any importance he might have, being the biological father, but simply because he had been lurking like a shadow on a cloudy day. 

He slung his head low and peered toward Ash Star, just able to make out the two small, slumbering children at her side. She seemed calm, tired but well herself. He uttered a proud, affectionate note, but did not approach to investigate closely- such an honour would likely belong to Silvertongue, or one of the other members. 

He kept an ear flicked in Ash Star’s direction should she call for him, but otherwise turned his beaming face so that he might begin his first watch as guard for the new litter of children now under his protection.

silvertongue was no medic, but out of necessity had she learned enough to support ash star as she went to ground. the riverclan woman flowered in childbirth and glowed thereafter. silvertongue smiled and attended her co-leader, taking a close post and offering a meal of a single fat squirrel. "estrellitos," she murmured in delight to the babes and their dozing mother. when ksura arrived, the sharpfang watched him for show of any masculine nuisance, and when none came she would rest her head and watch over riverclan's renewed mother and newest star children.

All childhood's come to an end, but few are lucky to pinpoint the exact moment, when it happens. For Esma's narrator this happened, when she was 11 years old and she and her friends agreed to play with dolls for the one last time. It truly was the last time, because after that the previously prized toys were laid to rest and collect dust in shelves and boxes, until the time came to pass them on to children, who would play with them again. 

Esma had sensed for few weeks now that something in her life was about to change. Maybe her mother had mentioned in passing about younger siblings arriving soon or maybe it was something she had heard and picked up on from other people. She had not been mature enough to truly understand, what it meant. But the girl grasped it now, when she was the last to arrive in response to her mother's call. There were others already on guard, watchful and alert. And somewhere in the darkness of the den her mother lied with new children by her side. 

Which meant that there was no place for her daughter there any longer. When this realization hit, the invisible bond that had kept Esma tethered to Ash Paw far longer than her siblings was cut and gone. While she observed the party that had gathered to congratulate the new life that come in this world, she inexplicably knew that her childhood was over. That she no longer belonged to this circle. Without coming closer to engage with anyone, she turned on her heel and disappeared quietly in the shadows.