Redhawk Caldera hold onto your heart.

It was a perfectly logical question for Eljay to ask, and yet Finley felt quite certain the moment she heard it that her son was onto her. She froze in her trembling and looked up at him. Tears pricked in the corners of her eyes. For a moment, she didn't know what to say at all. But then it came clear to her that she couldn't lie to him. Not now. Not when it felt like whatever words she shared with him now would be the last.

"I don't know," Fin told him, giving a shrug and attempting to smile bravely for him. Another contraction took her then and she was up on all fours, unaware that she'd ever tried to lay down again at all. This one was partnered with definite movement that made her gasp with pain. She hadn't though it possible, but her legs trembled even harder now as instincts told her to push. She strained with her body until she was forced to stop so that she could breathe. Fin took two gasping breaths before starting again, and again, and again, while the minutes ticked by in a manner that meant nothing to Fin but was likely unbearably slow to her son and mate who could do nothing but wait beside each agonizing second.

It was perhaps a quarter of an hour before finally, the first pup slipped onto the bedding followed a moment or so later by afterbirth. Fin turned and reached for the child, cleaning away the fluids with repeated strokes of her tongue over damp fur. Her heart was pounding with joy. If nothing else, she had managed to give her mate at least one. A girl, she thought, as she chewed away the umbilical chord and continued grooming her. A sweet little girl. Perfectly quiet. Perfectly.. still...

Panic swelled and Finley whined desparately as she groomed the pup, her tongue washing over its face repeatedly trying to stimulate its blood, encourage its breathing. The pup remained unchanged as tears began to flood her cheeks. Why was her daughter not moving? What had she done? She failed. She failed them both, she failed them all. Elwood. Eljay. Little Caoilfhionn. She was supposed to be named for Tiger. What had she done?

In truth, it was fortunate that the next contraction came, in spite of the pain it caused her when it did. Finley whimpered piteously as she turned away and paced towards the back of the den, leaving the still pup where it lay. Hope flickered only briefly in her as her body told her she still had more chances at giving her family the children they wanted, but it was drowned quickly by the torment of losing her first and the ever approaching end of her own life.