Neverwinter Forest lxxiii. when my working day is over

all of WG is welcome but notably: @Muttn @Hermes @Wilwarin @Keyni. Also @Kukutux and @Shikoba if they'd like to join the party! <3 @Kjalarr (wasn't sure if he'd be around but we can play it as if Lótë sent for him behind the scenes if you'd like.) Andddd finally @Fjall as the newest member of the family! <3

It was deep in the night, in the dark, when Lótë woke to the pain. It was familiar, as an old friend was, and the cloudberry might've welcomed it if not for the fear that gripped her. (Suppose this time things didn't go well. Suppose all her children were born twisted and deformed, proving the spirit-bear right in his prejudiced assumption that something was amiss with her totem. Suppose it was worse and they were born still and sleeping, never to wake.)

The paintwolf tried to banish such worries from her mind as she paced, flitting about like an agitated bird and ensuring everything was in place while she was still able. Chewing the herbs moonwoman had given her and trying to control the rate of her anxious breaths, the pounding thunder-roll of her heart. 

By the time brother sun breached the horizon and shone light upon the state she was in, such movement was no longer possible. Neither was being quiet, as she'd hoped to be in order to not scare her young daughters. The guttural cries left her of their own accord as she sunk down, down into the primordial haze. 

Thoughts came broken, unfinished. Figures rallied about her, bringing comfort and the bitter scent of herbal remedies. Instructions were given. Lótë obeyed. The pain crested and crashed as brother sun along the horizons. 


At last, a burning. An immense pressure, the seismic shift of moving earth within the mother's body. A wet sensation, the iron of blood. 

The first was a taunt, her worst fears breathed into life. She clipped the girl, the first twin, from her sac only to drop her child with a cry upon realizing she was lifeless. 

"Auk! the word tore from her throat in Kukutux's language, half a sob. "Come back," the doe slipped instinctively into the language of her own mother, of the foresters, as she struggled to nudge and rouse the stillborn girl, to rub life into her tiny body. Eventually, the pain called her away and someone -- Lótë couldn't be sure who -- tactfully removed the lost daughter from the den. 

The second twin gave her cause for bated breath, trembling as she went to remove the child from the membrane that encased it -- safe and unseen from the world. Lótë might've hesitated but instinct begged against fear. 

New sobs, these of relief, escaped as a warble broke the tension -- hugging and lapping at the living child, a boy, almost fervently. 

OOC: If anything needs to be edited, let me know! <3

In the final days of the painter's pregnancy, Keyni kept closer than usual. It was rare to find her far from her side. She kept watch over Lote, assisting her with preparing the den in which her newest children would be born. With Kukutux, she lent aid in gathering herbs, so they would be ready for use when the day finally came.

And come it did. She recognized the signs from many a time before. Symptoms which she was not familiar with on a personal level. She consoled her sister, offering her a steady shoulder to lean on and a calm presence to try and soothe her nerves. She prayed to the stars for a smooth birth, for mother and children.

Outside of the den, Keyni paced until her legs ached. Then rested, evading sleep like a guardian to what was most precious within. Cries reached her ears, labored breaths. The smell of blood. Lote's voice, anguished. Sobbing. Her heart twisted, nearly stopping. Ears fanning back, she uttered but a single, low whine. Delicately, with the touch as gentle as butterfly wings, she wrapped the girl of eternal slumber in the finest pelt of a young rabbit. The silvery white fur resembling purity. Paired with it to represent the same, was a lily flower she placed tenderly on their crown. After her duty was done in silence, she returned to find sounds of life breaking from the den. She sat by, bowing her head in silent thanks.

same! lmk <3

kukutux was close. she had brought a skin of herbs and one of things to give the newborn children.

this was a woman's time. she would not move to chase away the sons that she and the cloudberry sister shared, but her magicks must be for those who brought life.

lótë was filled with trepidation. kukutux walked alongside as the secondwife breathed and moved. she chanted a low song.

anaa, anaa,

the birthing pains are harsh

i see your agony

i see your heart

anaa, anaa, look up,

see the wise face of toteega

she has come to guide her granddaughter

anaa, anaa, know that sedna listens

we will keep the green sea spirit away

we will keep the green sea spirit away

her voice was a steady drum through the hours. she hardly paused save to invite keyni to join her words, slowing them so that the woman might follow along.

lótë's cries grew louder. she entered the darkest water of childbirth. there was firstflood. there was denial. and then there was this, when a mother accepted the pain and used it to grow stronger for what was to come. she hovered as close as her sister would allow. and her song had changed.

she lay out herbs. she offered her sister the sap of pine needles. it would not change her labors, it would only insulate her tongue against the bite of her own teeth.

you walk you walk you walk

do not look back

the time is coming

do not look back

you walk you walk you walk

singulluktuq! she said under the wailing of her sister. keyni was close.

twins. and the qualupilik had come again.

a girl, a daughter to two villages, gone without breath.

kukutux took the girl when the tribulation stole lótë again. a child beautiful and lifeless. she rose and took the babe from the den, heart seared with a misery she knew would fade. sedna would hold this new spirit again until it was time to be reborn.

when she returned, it was to find the second child moving with breath. her sister wept in gratitude. kukutux breathed a great sigh of relief and brought her herbs closer. "i am here. keyni is here." their third sister guarded the door and had taken the still girl child to be buried.

but for now, she would give lótë peace with her son.

the duck departed the den. she sat beside keyni. her smile was low and tired and many things all at once. "lótë will need you as anaa while i am not here," she said gently. she did not know who her sister had chosen for her hearth, but it did not matter. the villages were strong with skilled women.

the duck began to sing once more, a lighter lullaby.

cameo unless interacted with

He did not come close.

He smelled, he heard, he saw. Wispy figures of women at work as the moon hunter undeniably was the one in the den. Laid way with children and screams of childbirth.

He only stole glances from a lingering place in the treeline.

Kukutux, Keyni.

He did not belong in these moments, so he would slip away from the scene. Off to lurk the borders as he brewed with uncertain emotions.

Stirred from her sleep by a sound she could not identify, Wilwarin did not rise or move to suss it out; she had woken from a particularly strange dream, and blinked her sore, sleepy eyes in the direction of mother's den.

She was squinting - but she saw the pale figure of Kukutux drift by like some kind of figment, then another wolf, and finally decided to investigate. It was a time for women to come together after all.

Wil did not get too close. She felt a rising excitement as she watched the wolves enter the den to help her beloved mother, but also a nagging apprehension. There were low voices and then a high crowing, sharp, as if in pain, and that spooked her back.

She found herself hiding in the dark of the woods. Another wolf was there - a shadow - but Wilwarin did not disturb him. She was too overwhelmed by the thought of her mother's struggle. Knowing she should be there, present and helpful, and guilty for choosing otherwise.

Heralded with music and coaxed into acceptance by the low hymn, a celestial seraph chose its mortal coil.

The life of a wolf did not seem so bad -- even though it would be born alone.

And as the essence and body metamorphosed into a singular being, it's perfection remained suspended, like Schrödinger's cat, until the moment stinging air hit their lungs for the first time and fused them together forever. Spirit and vessel. Heart and mind. Survived and complete, without a single flaw.

If just for a moment, grief and anxiety fled the densite when Fjall was born. His gasp a beacon. His shuddering a blessed thing. He cried out, blind and unsure of the unfamiliar sensations, attempting to communicate as he experienced the newfound will of his nervous system.

His body felt an absence where there had always been a twin pressed against him; and where there was once perpetual warmth, there was now shocking, everlasting cold. The vibrations of his mother's heartbeat were gone as well, leaving only utter strangeness in the lack of a ceaseless tempo.

All of this newness, this loneliness, was quite overwhelming. But he discovered a dewy comfort in suckling -- taking to the teat with a healthy vigor -- desperate for relief or distraction. Sleep was pleasant, too, he would soon find, as he fell quickly unconscious, thoroughly vanquished by all the activity.

the calls and cries were enough to stir shikoba from her resting place to go and seek out the cloudberry woman. trusting that mojag could handle himself with inutsuk, the woman threw herself into a quick pace to investigate what was happening.

thankfully, keyni and kukutux have already arrived to provide their comfort and guidance. upon coming closer, shikoba finally realizes that the woman is suffering through the same fate of birth that shikoba had experienced. she grows still, somber, saddened. a light brush of her nose against the other guardians' shoulders, letting her know she is here.

"löté," she whispers as she aims to wiggle herself in, "we are here."

the pain of stillbirth may echo in the chamber of the woman's heart for many moons, but there is relief in knowing that life, despite everything, prevails: someone breaths, suckling on his mother's teat with the comfort of not knowing what is happening.


shikoba, if allowed, would let her tongue trace over the space between löté's ears in a way to offer comfort. there was now a new bond connecting the women of this village together.

Lótë welcomed the comfort of her sisters, a silent thought for them and their presence in her life shared betwixt her and the spirits that moved unseen by all but moonwoman -- and perhaps the mother in that moment, for she felt the presence of something greater in the den where life was brought forth even if she could not witness it with her own jade eyes. The cloudberry croaked quiet thanks to all of them, only then realizing Keyni must have slipped away with her stillborn daughter to perform the necessary burial that the dove could not see to. She reminded herself to thank the birch and stone agouti later and to ask after the tiny girl's grave, when a time had come that such things could be seen to. For now, her living cub held more importance. 

The taste of pine and grief was still heavy on her tongue when she leaned into the matchmaker's embrace, murmuring in the duck's tongue of gratitude and love for her pale sister. Fresh tears, how she still had any when she felt wrung dry and drained empty was a wonder, pricked at her eyes when Shikoba came. It was only a few moons ago that their roles had been reversed -- when it was the Sivullik whose eternally sleeping child the herd-stalker had removed from the den. Lótë could truly appreciate the hunter's pain in that moment. Kukutux's too -- for now the artist also knew what it was like to lose a child. 

Even so, the day was not full of gut wrenching agony. She curled close around the single pale boy at her belly, already beginning to fall into an exhausted sleep as the women's circle trickled out of her den. Her older cubs, though they couldn't be called cubs for much longer, would come soon to meet their new brother -- Lótë could smell their scents close by. Just as she could smell Keyni keeping close vigil over the mother and child, supportive and protective. 

Just before she fell asleep, the three-year realized she had failed to name her son. "Fjall. You shall be Fjall Ekkaiä," she whispered into his downy fur. It was fitting for a son born of both the mountain village and the sea. Only then, did the cloudberry tea woman allow herself to slip into the blissful embrace of blackness.