Moonspear bargaining (part 1)

for either @Pie OR @Pauk! (i'll post another for the other one right after.) family is welcome too, of course. <3

Sialuk felt the nausea come on strong, and a fresh pile of vomit laid at her feet just outside the ulaq. She wondered if this was some kind of sign of what was to come. Her pregnancy had not been difficult, but her mental and emotional state were less than to be desired. With Maggak, she had never once felt as though any hope had been lost. This year was different. Talisman was dead. Argent had left them. If @Killdeer or @Chakliux had visited, Sialuk had scarcely acknowledged it.

@Elentari was an ever-present face, but even her light was surely dimmed by their lover's departure. The father to @Acrux without a doubt, and a father to @Maggak in all the ways that mattered.

She both shivered and panted as she retreated to the ulaq, calling nobody to her aid that was not already there. The contractions began, as she knew they would, and there was no force on earth that could stop what had been put in motion.

acrux knew of anaa's suffering, both mentally and emotionally. she was more reclusive than he was familiar with, which he largely blamed his father for. there was frustration, confusion, worry, restlessness, and indifference all bottled up in the boy soon to become a man. his father was not here, but he was, and he would step up to be the man by his mother's side during her labor. 

unfamiliar with the process of pregnancy, acrux was largely unhelpful other than offering encouraging words and running to grab whatever anaa might need. admittedly he was shaking in his boots, the anxiousness written plainly on his face. he did his best to hide it, though the bile near the entrance of the ulaq did little to settle his nerves. vomit meant sickness, and he immediately tethered his mother to some unknown affliction. he blamed his father, he blamed his soon to be arriving siblings, he blamed the world. 

he wanted so badly to be an older brother, but in that moment acrux did not care whether his unborn siblings lived or died. he just wanted his mom to be free of her burdens and pain.

cameo unless addressed <3

it had been too long a time since chakliux had come to the mountain. this year, maggak and acrux would find their twelve months completed. the seal hunter had brought a portion of his kills to moonspear each moon, and today he did not come empty-jawed.
he had followed the messenger some days later, instructing the now grown raiyuk to help tullik and marina. he would be back.
a rabbit hung in his grasp. chakliux did not hesitate in crossing over the borders, and found sialuk snug in her den with vomitus at its edge.
acrux was there. but while the seal hunter recognized the almost-grown boy who potentially shared blood with him, he did not expect acrux to know anything of himself.
dropping the animal, he sniffed toward the denmouth and sat placidly nearby, not too close. "your mother is strong. look, she has already driven the illness from her body before entering the sacred place of birth." he spoke in sunshine words, accented by his own dialect, body solemn and straight.

moonspear was solemn. maggak was not oblivious to the changing energy felt by her village and her anaa. argent had gone. the coyote-boy had died. and there was still no sign of the tupilak who had tried to claim acrux.
more frustrated than anything, maggak spent most of her time trying to console her family and tend to her mother through the blooming pregnancy. she focuses on the pleasantries of it, the hope of being a big sister and the light a new generation would bring to the sunshine people! but that angry, spiky flame of resentment still burns deep in her gut, tarnishing her movements which were once tender.
she and acrux may as well have been interlinked. she felt his ire, his burdens, and he hers, and more than anything she hated the loss of the twinkle in his gaze. anaa is a strong woman, she whispers to him in their sunshine tongue. she will be okay. we will be okay. they had to be.
chakliux, too, had come, and it pleases the starlet to see him here in her anaa's time of need. she regards him with warmth, appreciative of the way he soothes acrux and brings the offering of meat.
anaa's pain is heard by those at the denmouth now, and all maggak can do is bite her tongue and brace herself.

Elentari's season had yet to arrive this year. She still hoped to bear children, to add to the family of Moonspear and villages beyond. To give Maggak and Acrux younger brothers and sisters. To love and teach. To protect and hold close as family. The dark Archer loved motherhood.

But Argent, Acrux's biological father, would not be a part of that picture this year. She understood his choice but she resented his abandonment of their children. Of the pain inflicted on them, herself and Sialuk. Her lover, so close to giving birth.

Clenching her jaw, she snorted through her nose. It was not like he had been there all that often anyways. But Alaric always had. She forced her thoughts of the men to the back of her mind as she gathered with her son and daughter outside Sialuk's ulaq. 

Acrux was fraught with anxiety over the pain Anaa was in. Maggak, steadfast. Blue eyes were grateful landing on Chakliux, an ever present entity of strength and resilience, even when distant in his home village, Moontide. Her heart lurched, filling with thick emotion as she pulled herself close to her children. A gentle dark arm wrapped around Acrux's shoulders while she tenderly nosed Maggak on her cloud silver crown. 

"I am proud of you. So, so proud of you. Your spirts are strong, like your mother's." The pains of laboring she listened to from within. Watchful for anything that sounded out of the ordinary. But she was not worried. Not with Sialuk's strength and the wealth of skill with the healers of the Spear. "We are with you...with her, together. Always."

Pauk gasped; the chill from the winter air was unpleasant, and breathing it forced him to wail in protest. Although everything had gone according to plan, the young child didn't have the comprehension to appreciate this and instead focused on what he felt needed to be fixed. Thankfully, Sialuk and his instincts were there to help him, and he was led to his mother's breast.

After some milk, he was happy as a clam, and he curled around himself and promptly went to sleep, exhausted from everything he'd experienced so far.

A final push brought forth a charcoal-black boy. He was impossibly small, and Sialuk could not believe that Maggak and Acrux had ever been so tiny. He reminded her instantly of braataa, and she kissed his little head as he reached for milk. Pauk, she said, giving him a name. A tiny soot sprite against the silvery-white of her own fur. In a whisper, she gave him his spirit name: Nukik.

She heard voices outside, and quietly, she invited them in. A boy, she said, smiling down on him.

Her body rested now, though not for long.