Sex: Female
May 28th; Before dawn; Partly Cloudy — Current Temperature: 60° F/15° C
It had been a struggle - staying away from everyone in Maksim’s pack, keeping on the outskirts, and keeping her belly full. The day she had fully realized that something was “off” about her scent had her utterly afraid. What made it even all the more fascinating and terrifying were the small movements in her abdomen, a sign of new life...
In the days leading up to this very morning, Taima had felt as though she were feeling everything at once. She was excited, anxious, nervous, happy, relieved, hungry, listless, and antsy. Her instincts, something that she now heavily relied on since she had become an expectant mother, had brought her to travel further and further away from the Cut Rock River borders. She had made it far enough – even with enduring her contractions as they became more frequent – to reach a familiar part of what was once Grizzly Hollow, and once she had laid eyes upon an old rotting stump and the moss-covered trunk of the tree it had once been just a few meters or so from it, she knew she had found her way home; and, this, was the very place she had been born, where Jaysyek had first welcomed her into the world.
Now, Taima would do the same for her children, whose near-constant squirming-induced pangs against her right side confirmed that it was nearly time for them make their way into Relic Lore.
Just as the evening had come with the setting sun, she retreated into the narrow den, smelling nothing but the usual scent of old pine needles and other lesser creatures who had once used her now-claimed birthing den as a resting place before moving on to their next destination.
Hours had passed since the first side-splitting contraction and all that she could show from her time within her burrow were two cubs, just visible within the first rays of the new day. Two sons. The first and larger of the two, who must have easily weighed a little more than an average cub normally would, she bestowed the name of Octavius (whose name by human terms came to define the eighth child in a family; and, in truth, after Jaysyek's seven Relic Lore-born children, little "Gus" was the eighth cub to continue family's legacy), a name she hoped Datura would find as princely and attractive as she did: Octavius Lyall Aquila. The second boy, however, even after all her hard work of carrying him to term and cleaning him, had left her distraught. Though she was comforted by the fact that her first-born suckled at her middle, very much content and oblivious to everything else, Taima stifled the several whines that dared to lift from her muzzle. She had even had a name for him, Borden, after her father, whose dark, almost-black mask was a prominent marking on the youth’s mousy face. Borden Prosper Lyall (without the addition of the Aquila name if she could have gotten away with it by Datura's standards... because she had every intention to remind the inhabitants of Relic Lore that her father and the empire he had established would not be so long forgotten). If anything, it was quite possibly the only piece of him that she had left aside from the memories they had shared while she was growing up. But, Borden wasn’t breathing. She had licked the slime and gunk from his face but to no avail; he still rested on the bed of dried grass and crinkly leaves, motionless and unmoving as Octavius' small hind legs unintentionally pushed the den debris in his brother's face. There was little else the new mother could do, and her inexperience only made the doubt she felt much more upsetting.
Her mother had been able to do all this on her own - twice - so, why had she, Jaysyek's daughter, been subject to such loss? Was this the price she had paid for all her misdeeds and insolence? Was this what she had deserved after disobeying her father time and time again?
She hoped @Datura would be nearby to console her, but at the same time she hoped that he would keep at bay. Something, since her delivery had come to an end, made her absolutely dread what he might do or say should he lay eyes upon the son that did not survive. Just in case she pushed herself up (much to Octavius' dismay by the sounds of his disgruntled whimpers) and nudged the stillborn towards the back of the den, concealing him with her tail and a stretched out hind leg once she settled back down and reassured her first-born with a lick to his copper-furred forehead. She would make use of him later, either burying him with her grief of missing her family and all that had come to pass, or finding ‘better use’ for him in regards to keeping his brother healthy and strong. She might have lost the son she had had other hopes for, but for Octavius to have to shoulder the world alone, as an only child, could only signal to Taima that perhaps her first-born was meant to do great things... single-handedly.
