Whitebark Stream two, again [birthing thread]

Silence, darkness, warmth, wetness. A feeling of being jostled by a much larger entity. The sudden absence of that entity. Being alone in a vast space, seemingly built for someone much larger than her. 

Cold. Cold air hitting her fur. The sound of her cries caught in her throat. Taking her first breath, but shallowly. A warm, wet something roughly jostling her body. The smell of comfort and safety. If it smelled so comforting, why was it so insistently pushing her around? Was it the same entity that had been with her before?

Left alone. Whatever warm and wet being that had been bothering her was suddenly gone. Cold again. Cold and wet and miserable and… hungry.

What was this new sensation overwhelming everything else? She was starving. She was going to die if she didn’t get something inside her stomach right this second. She—

A loud piercing cry, one she could not hear, though she felt it release from her throat. And suddenly she was being nudged again, pushed, shoved. She would be crushed before she ever got to eat and—what was this? It smelled of food. She latched onto it with toothless mouth and sucked and sucked. Sustenance. 

Sleep.