Sequoia Coast [m] pineapple

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The participants have indicated the following reason(s) for this warning: graphic descriptions of birth

ravens had led him to an elk carcass.

even with help, it had taken him a day to haul back the bones for marrow, the antlers for chewing, and what remained of the meat.

but dancing fox was close. this flesh might be the difference between life and death. he sat in the entrance of the snow cave and watched the patterns of a heavy storm, the whorls of white as they scudded across the open land.

he sat that way for hours, staring, hardly movable and only sometimes able to be shaken from it.

such was one of those times, the dreamer flying from his body while Wolf whispered on the other side of his ears.

Babies have incubated for 56 days as of midnight tonight so...

The storm came.

Wilwarin held a piece of desiccated elk between her paws and worked at it from time to time as a distraction from her discomfort, although it did not help much.

The scarred man sat in the mouth of their shelter and seemed frozen there, but it was warm inside because of it, and besides that Wilwarin could not complain.

She worked the bone with her molars until her belly gave a rumble. Then there was a pinch. A crawling sensation along her belly, and a dampness which was shockingly warm against the ice and snow interior.

As she shifted and tried to stand, her elbows shaking and hips giving a shudder, she tried to reach for the prone figure of the man—unable to call to him, or even to cry.

!!!

the dreaming went on.

Wolf sneered. 

what have you done with my gift? have you taught of me? have you passed it on?

you have not even taught her The Dream!

and the dreamer, caught, while bone teeth clacked inches from his face, hung with putrid shreds of Wolf's own flesh.

he had met a coyote the days before. unlike many of his kind, wolf dreamer did not hate them or dislike them. he was fascinated by their smaller cousins, and wondered even now if the spirit beast might come back during this hour.

something was happening.

for the first time, wolf dreamer tried to leave his vision, tried to look. it was with great effort that he slowly turned to look at dancing fox with unfocused eyes.

a blink, a breath. she struggled, pain chasing her expression.

worry galloped through his clearing eyes, turning them to chips of obsidian. he opened his arms to her.

instinctively wolf dreamer knew. he comprehended.

but there were no soft pelts here, nor women to help the mother.

he opened his arms to her and when she came close, wrapped them around the straining belly, letting dancing fox lean against him. 

"new souls take pain to be born," the dreamer whispered to her. "it is part of the illusion. when you walk beyond it, you touch the world from which we all came."

breathe in. breathe out.

All at once there was a rushing feeling, a building tension, and then it eased off. Never for long but always too much; like her body was not her own and it was restless.

He was closer, and Wilwarin burrowed her face against him. She had never experienced anything like this—not the hunger they battled together, not the pain of her body acting on its own, not the pure uncertainty for her future.

The young woman was reminded of watching this happen to her mother, and being afraid. Of telling herself she would never. Yet here she was, struggling and hungry in this place, with a stranger and not her sisters, and no village.

Wilwarin felt hopeful when the pain did not sweep through her again—but then it did, only delayed, not stopped. It was like a tide slowly creeping up and fading back, and this birthing tide would only swell through the hours.

She tugged at the man's fur, she groomed at him to self-soothe, she grit her teeth and sometimes pushed him away, and nothing changed.

wolf dreamer watched this day sink its teeth into the slight body of dancing fox. he did not move as she pressed her face against him, or pulled her teeth through his fur, or bid him move aside.

heavy snow gathered again and blew across the mouth of the shelter even as the sun died and the moon burned.

his dark eyes were on her now. the pains seemed rhythmic. he was trying to see if she was still part of its pattern, and saw that she was. 

naturally he understood that children must emerge. his instinct held the lore of how wolves were born. but he had never witnessed the moment, and floating as he was, wolf dreamer had little physical connection to it. he felt only a vague sense of fear for her along with a great, bright anticipation.

his arms went around dancing fox when she allowed it again. it was all he knew to do. 

"the pain is an illusion. walk beyond it by embracing it," wolf dreamer whispered, unsure if he himself even understood what he was saying.

What if she couldn't do it?

He said the pain was an illusion as if he knew; how could he know? He lied to her. His lies were meant for comfort but they were still lies. An illusion could do so much harm if you believed strongly enough in it; and this pressure inside of Wilwarin hurt so much.

Had she been right to be afraid?

The storm eased enough for her to catch a glimpse of moonlight. The day had gone, she had missed the sunset. There was only the struggle of her body now—and she refused the man's help, urged to get up and to walk, maybe run beneath the light.

Wilwarin shoved past the man and in to the snow as the wind began to change again. It would be too dangerous to be outside soon; but she needed to see it, the light of the moon. She needed to move.

When the spasm came again she sagged against the earth and then was urged to the shelter, and by now her thighs were slick but there was still no change to the birth.

What if it never ended?

he did not know what to do for her! the conversation of her body went on, he saw. did children choose the hour of their birth? what if they disagreed in the warm wet darkness they shared? 

she was rising, running from the shelter; he was on his feet, shouting "dancing fox!" in a paroxysm of terror. her small pale form beneath the moon was haunting, a silver ghost with nowhere to go.

the dreaming began then, just for a moment. as he stood in the entryway, watching the woman, wolf dreamer swore he saw tendrils rising from her body. 

threads.

as he glanced around, he saw each stunted tree pouring its own gold filaments into the air, each ice-caked stone. even the sea seemed to shimmer with thousands upon thousands of these threads.

life, Wolf whispered, and the dreamer held up his paw before disbelieving black eyes, and saw that he too that he gave off this gilt flax, and that the threads from him stretched to meet all the others traveling to the center of the sky, as if he were standing on a web.

you spun this dream. now bring her out of it.

when the man's soul returned, he was bending over dancing fox, catching the faintly sweet fragrance of the liquid which soaked her thighs. he could not have said how they got back to the snow cave, only that he lay her down inside and curled close.

"there is no escape, dancing fox. you cannot run from it. go beyond, go beyond," he whispered, glazed eyes round and luminous in the moonglow which now illuminated them both inside the shelter, argent in its halo around her belly.

Mature Content Warning

This thread has been marked as mature. By reading and/or participating in this thread, you acknowledge that you are of age or have permission from your parents to do so.

The participants have indicated the following reason(s) for this warning: Graphic depictions of birth.

She lay in the snow cave, finding no relief except the warmth that built inside, and the voice of the man urging her to try.

Hadn't she been excited once, for this? Had that been a dream?

Wilwarin could not make words but she called to her mother anyway. She called to her sisters, she clawed at the packed ice of the shelter walls, kicking and pawing through the dark. Her eyes squeezed shut and the pain shifted, becoming too intense for description, and the real trial began.

Waves of contractions coursed her body and demanded she accept, she release, she let free those new lives—and yes, she met that pain only to transcend through it. Panting, her face split in to silent screams, gasping, begging.

Something came loose and was free of her; it was small—too small! The caul trapped it, and Wilwarin was too gripped by further pain to look. The child barely moved and then it kicked, and then nothing.

By the time the first was still, a second came; this was more painful as the body was turned, and Wilwarin moved to her feet to squat and be done with it. This second child she looked at and saw it was even smaller than the first! It's face was split in two, but joined. The child's legs were misshapen.

Wilwarin met the pain and melted in to it. She lay upon the floor and felt weakness, and grief, and horror; she felt the pain and was only alive now because of it. Once the pain were to end, she thought, then I will sleep forever.

the first and most notable thing that wolf dreamer saw was the absence of those threads. stark, now, with how many gilded strands filled the sky, the air, the space between he and she.  

could dancing fox see them?

he hoped she was not able to witness how still and tiny and colorless her children were against the auric lights.

too small. misformed.

despair filled the dreamer. he tasted her pain and it was bitter. 

Wolf snorted. 

the dream is not yet finished, boy.

the sharp scent of birth and blood filled the snow cave.

his arm was around her shoulders. 

no threads. silent children. he pushed their small bodies into the shadows of the shelter and willed the silent screams to bring forth life.

his eyes watched her. his lips trembled.

"come through, dancing fox. dance with the dream. see it fall away in illusion."

birth must bring life, yes? birth must. the dreamer would wait for it, cradling her delicate frame as it was racked by an anguish for which he had no word.

One more came sliding from her, but she didn't feel it now, she didn't see it; the sound of the man's voice helped ease her through further turmoil and then she was utterly exhausted.

There were still more to come, she knew it—she could feel them; but with the release of the three previous, Wilwarin felt something ease inside of her body. She did not scratch or kick now. Breath came frantically from her, and her rounded sides undulated with this panting. Otherwise, her body appeared to relent in its forceful ejection of those it carried.

This third child—a girl—looked perfectly formed. She needed cleaning, and Wilwarin did not have the heart to look at her let alone help her. The smallest mewl crept from her mouth before she too was gone.

Wilwarin curled in on herself, rejecting the man's touch while she sank in to the reprieve of her body's exhaustion. The dream—he had spoken of the dream, of dancing—and she was slipping to sleep now, hardly able to keep her eyes open. The shelter reeked of afterbirth and blood; but the trials had not yet ended.

Those that remained unborn refused to move now, and the ordeal had wholly incapacitated Wilwarin.

why do you torture her like this!?

the dreaming took him again, and away, away from the reek of metal and the woman shivering against the churned and bloody floor of their previously alabaster snow shelter.

but wolf dreamer saw no more, his eyes fixed upon the shapes which formed in the flurries of snow.

for what reason is she tormented? he demanded of the skeletal Wolf, back in that cave so lightless it was as if no soul had ever touched it before.

the jawbones clattered in a horrifying parody of laughter, dust rising from the joints.

the empty pits where eyes once stared now seemed to narrow, dragging wolf dreamer close, closer.

she is part of the dream.

but you said to take her out of it!

Wolf shrugged, bare scapula and humerus and clavicle working together in a visible, sickening, impressive show of mechanics.

how can a dreamer leave a dream?

how could he wake them both?

look. Wolf flexed his phalanges in a vague motion.

in pain, she dreams. look at her pain. see its color.

oozing black and sickly green, the purple of blood clots and the ghastly yellow of a dead face — these hues spiraled up in many threads beside the golden ones of her life.

wolf dreamer stared.

is she dying? he almost asked aloud, and outside the dream his body shook beside that of dancing fox, a tremble of terror and rage and agony catching his veins fire.

Wolf rolled his head on loud vertebrae to stare at the woman.

that depends, dreamer. can you cut those threads without breaking the golden ones?

the sunflower hue, which glinted in and out and between the rotted others; that's impossible! he whirled on Wolf. and if i should try, if i should cut one of the golden threads? what then?

she dies, dreamer.

back to himself he came with a gasp — he stared down at dancing fox and then drew her close, gently, pillowing her body against his own. she was so frail. he could feel her weakness, her utter exhaustion; he could see it in her exhales. three times horror; three times no life.

he did not know what to do! he was only a man. he placed his paw upon her distended belly, feeling not for the shape of the children but for their souls; eyes closed as he hunted through the strands for —

"dancing fox, listen. listen. focus on my voice. listen. see in your mind a web, a - a large, white web, like a spider might make. see it? instead of dew beads, it holds stars. it's a web of them, and millions of threads in all directions. do you see it? listen. listen to me. do you see the golden ones? that is — oh, dancing fox, that is life. see it. see it in me and see it in you. there is — gold inside you. i can see it. let go, let go. walk on the web. walk on the strands. you can do it. i - i am watching you do it."

She did not want to do this anymore. They were all so small, frail, and twisted. Something had gone horribly wrong; and yet there were more waiting to be born! Wilwarin wanted to give in to sleep.

The man spoke to her—she tried to ignore it and to focus on the silence, so familiar. The more he spoke the more lucid she felt, and once roused could only listen, and with her eyes closed she envisioned to the best of her ability these threads.

What did he mean, she was full of gold? Did he not see the red that seeped from her? The black of death that had overwhelmed her little womb? But he seemed so focused, and it was like hearing a plea or a prayer.

A spider's web.

Was that why her little ones were twisted?

A shudder pulled down her spine. She tried to focus on what he was saying—dew drops, stars? Was she a forest then, infested by this gold? Life, he said. Life.

Whimpering, whispering; she had to keep going or she would die. They would die. Wilwarin couldn't fathom that! She would try.

Bracing herself, she began to push in earnest.

[***]

It was a long night, with the man coaxing the last of Wilwarin's energy in to the act of birthing first one, then another boy. Both were so large it was no wonder the others of the litter had suffered! They made room for themselves.

One, dark and red-brown; a little bear tucked against Wilwarin's side (Airasea). The other a vibrant red (@Galathilion) made more garish by the blood everywhere. Wilwarin was unaware of them—but she breathed now, slowly, steadily.

Mature Content Warning

This thread has been marked as mature. By reading and/or participating in this thread, you acknowledge that you are of age or have permission from your parents to do so.

The participants have indicated the following reason(s) for this warning: cannibalism

there's so much blood.

Wolf clicked his teeth as if he were an ant with mandibles.

but you brought her through, dreamer.

it was true. dancing fox slept now, a smear of blood high on her cheek. two living children breathed inside the snow shelter.

the rest ... the others.

wolf dreamer could not think of them now. he hated how they had all come into the world, on a packed-drift floor now melted in places by the blood and tears of their mother. it had been hours. he slumped against one wall, trying to press close so that no precious heat was lost from between them as she slept.

two boys, sons.

born in blood.

one by one he had cut the sickened threads from dancing fox's spirit until only gold remained. and then he had helped to untie the glowing strands of the souls inside her, and connect them to the white star web.

a gasp burnt his lungs with cold air.

he was outside, he was — by the sea, so close that a rime of ice had formed upon his eyelids.

and they were with him, the silent, goldless ones he had taken from the snow cave as the woman slept.

did they never have gold inside them, Wolf?

the skeleton inched on bony naked claws.

they never had souls.

wolf dreamer recoiled. but — i felt them! when i was — when i was searching for them.

Wolf waved a dismissive spiny paw.

you felt their life, boy. not their souls. theirs will not come to them for another four days.

four days!

so what are they in the meantime?

vessels. if they are not protected, dreamer, evil will enter them and all their mother's pain will have been in vain.

the empty sockets of the skinless face suddenly leered close. 

what do you remember of my flesh?

the dreamer recoiled. the darkness of the words seemed to press against him. beyond blood, beyond taste, there had been power.

the dome of the night sky was lighted by moon upon snow.

power, wolf dreamer mumbled aloud.

Wolf nodded. yes. why?

because we are all part of one —

of one dream! one illusion! tell me, boy, if you are dreaming, does illusion exist? or is it only a new reality you have created?

the pointing, barren limb; if you believe in Power, then shun the laws of illusion which still bind you, dreamer.

and the wolf upon the shoreline stopped his sluggish excavation of small graves cut in the ice.

he resisted! how could he? no matter what Wolf said, there were laws —

whose laws? yours? did you devise them, dreamer?

but i w —

throw them off! consume and dream what might have been souls back to the stars! do it before you truly comprehend what a vessel of evil might be!

and so it was done, and beside the sea did the dreamer surrender more to his dreaming. droplets of blood were cleaned from the snow. he mounded white over their bones, sensing numbly that the woman would want some epitaph to their having lived.

guilty for the warmth in his belly, guilty for the gold in his veins, wolf dreamer stumbled back to dancing fox.

he showered her awake with falling black cormorant feathers and the down of the underbelly, his face ghastly between their cascading shadows as he covered her blood with the silken offerings of the limp bird.

tucked into the down, her children would be away from the snowfloor.

wolf dreamer sat beside the doorpost, and leant his head there. for as many hours as dancing fox had labored did he sing inside his own mind for the Power of those small souls and their flight back to the stars.