Arrow Lake ❝—by my blood & bone.❞ (lbr.)

Olive was not busy when the call came that Aure was in labor.  She, actually, maintained an abundance of free time due to her pregnancy, giving her babes space to grow and relax within her. She also liked to be available should any of her new mothers need her, where it be for a check-in, a pep-talk, a kind word or the actual event of delivery. These things did not follow a schedule; no, that was the gods’ work.

She was taken by the woman’s scarred twin to the mountains of Diaspora and they made great haste with it — she watched closely for Stigmata, not truly enjoying the experience of being within the man’s domain, but knowing it was necessary to ensure the safe delivery of her friend’s litter. There was a reason they were here now, and not on Drageda’s cliffs as they always were, but the druid did not care for it now. It was a necessary evil; she only hoped that she would not run into the warrior general, who made her experience so many conflicting things at once.

When she reached Aure’s whelping location, the sight she beheld was not the one she wished to see. The woman was hovering in and out of consciousness, with a pup having already been born — and promptly ignored, but not by any fault of the mother. Without a word, and with a distinct lack of panic, the midwife swept forward and took Aure’s side. Gently, with her nose, she tried to nudge her back to wakefulness.

“Aure, you can rest, but now is not the time. You are a mother now — your children need you here.” Olive glanced down at the struggling, mewling infant. She would give Aure the chance to welcome her baby to the world, but in a moment, Olive would take the responsibility of cleaning and coaxing the child upon herself. Certain that Aure could internalize her words some sort of way, she continued.

“Don’t struggle against the pain. Lets it wash you; cleanse you. After experiencing the fires of childbirth, both you and your cubs will be born anew.” Olive reached down and moved the child, ultra-warm from birth, closer to Aure’s belly so that it might prompt one of those incredible motherly endorphin responses. As weak as she was, Aure needed to imbibe the nutrients that the process of cleaning and nurturing her babe would provide. Quietly she murmured, to both mother and child “Here, here, greet your baby…”