Magg woke without her heat, and she thought that was likely normal. Even having started late, no one last year had gone into the next month with the symptoms, and so it was expected that hers would end so soon, wasn't it? Finally, a lucky break, a blessedly short window for being led by hormones. She needed to savor it, for next year would likely be different.

Even as she left the den and made her way down to the lake for a drink, she did not realize the change in her own scent, much less the development already occurring within her. Her mother's own pregnancy had been clear within the air for weeks now, it could practically be picked up anywhere at this point, especially in their most communal areas. Then she was at the water's edge, and it started to sink in. This was not the same. She was not the same as before.

Her heart leapt into her throat and she plunged her nose into her own fur, huffing deeply, desperate to discover that no, it wasn't her, she wasn't pregnant she was just paranoid. It wasn't the answer Magg got. Something like a sob broke away from her lips, a wave of adrenaline washing over her body.

Magg wanted to run. The impulse coursed strongly through every inch of her body, and she had to consciously lock her joints to keep herself in place. Her mind rallied against her pounding heart and knotted stomach, using flashes of what happened before to make its case. There was nowhere for her to go. However much trouble she was in now, it was still not as dangerous as subjecting herself to the world beyond the mountain again.

Her father's voice broke through her panic, piercing right into her core. Magg's throat felt like it had completely closed, but it very clearly hadn't. As she turned to face him, brown eyes wet and wide with fear, her lips parted and she vomited everything in her stomach onto the ground between them.

The acid burned all the way up, even to the tip of her tongue. She gagged on it silently, fought back a second bout. Magg's eyes pinched closed and then she felt something heavy against her and she flinched. His voice had changed when it reached her ears again, and the consolation loosened a small amount of the knots in her gut. Emotions roiled through her. She wanted to sink into him and weep, she wanted to thrash and scream, she still wanted to break away and run and never be seen again by anyone. She wanted to suddenly wake up and realize this was all just a nightmare.

Her whole body trembled and her paws jittered with tiny stamps, clues to the barely-contained tantrum lurking underneath. Magg couldn't though, so much was out there now, things she had wanted kept close to her heart instead. She had to mitigate, could not bare to reveal more, to expand on that vulnerability.

She tried to do as he said, though it came out more as short breaths with extended pauses between. If she breathed too deeply, she would break. That was a certainty.

"No it's not," she spoke with a strained, tear-thickened voice and still it was certain. Magg needed to know, she couldn't plan in limbo, it was unbearable. Her breathes quickened, panic creeping up again.

"What are we what are you now what is it?" the words tumbled out in a rush, her anxiety so great she was failing to make a true sentence.

"What now?"

Not regarding the process she had started within her own body. Magg wasn't stupid, she knew. What she hadn't ever thought to ask was, what was the punishment for it?

This was hard for him. Magg knew that, and tried to keep it an active thought, but, well, it still wasn't anything close to what she would now go through, was it? There was a part of her heart that was deeply grateful for her father's temperament in this moment, at the love he conveyed through words and actions both, and yet every hesitation also ate at her like lashes of flame. She needed her answer.

'I am not banishing you.'

Magg blinked. A heartbeat later, her eyes widened with absolute abhorrance. That had been a possibility?! They weren't even allowed outside of the pack's territory because of everything that had happened to her and- her lids lifted even higher, circles of white appearing around those brown irises.

@Galen.

She hadn't thought she could be any more tense, any more scared, but apparently she had somehow managed to underestimate just how seriously this would be taken. Would she have been ousted if she had all four legs, or was it if she wasn't his daughter? Why say it, if that hadn't been part of the original plan? What would that mean for him? Her voice was so forced it barely made it out at all.

"Then what?"

Magg's eyes cast down when he spoke again. She had indeed known it was possible, but the feeling in the moment of everything that little act had meant had been overwhelming. Then it had been, she supposed, worth it. Now, of course, it very much wasn't, because she hadn't gotten away with it. Instead of being just a private, cherished memory, it had changed her life completely and transparently. So, in short, there had been no plan at all for this.

Then, finally, the fog was cleared. There was little that really surprised her. Of course she was going to be a mother to her own children, and obviously that involved providing for them. Still, those words burned in her ears. It was happening now, that reality was settling in, any denial she'd held over the past week thoroughly dissipated. She didn't want it, though. Magg knew deep within her bones that she not only wasn't ready to put others before herself and be responsible for their development, but that she hadn't been meant for a role like this at all. There was nothing about her that would make for a good mom. What was that going to do to the innocent lives she'd started, no matter how well-fed and protected they might be?

'You and the father - if he is a member of the pack - will both be demoted in rank to lowest.'

Embarrassment heated her face, and her eyes pinched with anger, though this ire was mostly for herself. She gritted her jaw, and still had not looked up, doing her best not to show too much. Lowest. It rang repeatedly through her head like a clangorous bell, deafening and enraging. It was bad enough that she could not hide her pregnancy, but there had still been aspects of it all that she could have maintained secrecy about. This gouged the wound open even wider, another brand that seared. They would not have more of her. No longer left hanging in the air, she was finally in a position to make a move of her own, to take back even a fraction of that control she was so desperate for.

Still, this was mortifying for her to even approach speaking about such private things with her father. Her mouth opened and closed with both hesitation and a severe need to pick her words right.

"I didn't want this to affect anybody else," her voice was soft in volume but firm in tone, and her gaze had settled at Nash's paws.

"I just..." she pressed her eyes closed a moment, "I don't want to talk about what I wanted," and she hoped dearly that he would just accept that, "but hurting you and Mom wasn't it.

There's no one else, Dad," her gaze met his then, earnest yet darkened, knowing what she was consigning herself to, "I made sure of that much. I didn't want any of it to be permanent."

Slowly, the rest of the world started coming back into focus. She could smell her own bile, still splattered upon the frozen shore right there with them. She could hear the wind past the blood pounding in her ears. She could take a deep breath without falling apart.

"I didn't even ask his name..." the words came out as a defeated whisper. There was no sense in Nash holding onto that hope, especially given the story she was choosing to spin. The details would help, but she needed to play the part convincingly as well. There was an annoyed flick of her ears then, before she spoke again.

"I don't need him to be a part of this. If he was worth anything, he'd be here, wouldn't he?"

In this fiction, it was as she had said: her choice had been made pointedly well, the imaginary donor the kind who would have no plans of taking any type of responsibility onto himself. In actuality, the edge to her voice came from the freshest realization settling over her. She had made a very big decision on @Galen's behalf just now. One he might very well resent her deeply for, especially when...

Magg's eyes closed, and she took another steadying breath. One crisis at a time.

"... can we find Mom now, please? I... She'll want to know all this too, I'm sure."