She woke in the early hours of morn before the sun had even thought about rising with a gripping pain clenching in her belly. A quiet, and yet sharp, intake of breath was the only indication of her shock, the only sound that could pass as a cry. The night before had left her restless and anxious and she’d lost count of how many times she’d vomited yesterday. Each pile had been carefully buried and hidden; she didn’t want to worry anyone with the others close to term. Pip saw no reason to draw the attention of the pack when it was likely the same bellyaches that usually greeted her each morning. Except those bellyaches had lasted throughout the day and only subsided after the sun had set.
But this pain was not an uncomfortable ache. It crashed over her in angry waves, stealing her breath with each one as if her paws had carried her too far out into the tide and water was crashing over her head. The little mute panted, nervous and hurting, as she stood to pace. No matter how she situated herself, comfort was nowhere to be found.
Russet ears lay flat against her head while orange eyes wheeled in panic. Was this it? Her sunset eyes cast around in the darkness for @”Kjell”’s familiar form only to find he was missing. Her mate had only just come back to the territory days before. Where could he possibly be at this time of morning? Already out on patrol? Hunting? She wanted to whine. To howl for him and summon him back to her side. Had he been out so soon before dawn all of these past few days so as not to disturb her rest?
Was this how it was to truly go down? With no one else here? Pip took one halting step from the birthing den she’d dug with the help of Rook and Amaryllis only to crumble onto the ground. There was no way she could go for help now. Stupid. Stupid, stupid. She should have let them all know yesterday and not hidden away her illness and discomfort.
Clean. Pups should be born in at least a somewhat clean atmosphere. She’d taken great pains to make sure every time she felt ill that she lost her meal outside the den, so it was as clean as it could get. So she turned to herself, licking in a frenzy as if a puppy could pop out any minute. By the pain currently racking her small body, she felt it would be ages before that could happen.
Push. It was the one thing she remembered. She was supposed to push. When? Should she already have been doing it? Why did it hurt so much? Tearfully, she thought of horror stories of pregnancies gone wrong. Of puppies caught in the canal or born too early or too late. Was she too late? The little mute lay on her side as she tried to focus solely on breathing. Had Oula been in this much pain last year?
When she felt the barest bit of relief with her efforts, Pip turned and spotted a monstrous head peeking from her and soundlessly yelped in surprise as she jumped up. Spinning once in an effort to get a better look, the sea wolf’s back legs stumbled and she fell back onto her side. Anxiously, she licked and licked at the pup’s face and felt no response. How long had he or she been there?
She was supposed to stimulate. Veho had warned her of that. She had to make them live.
Another few minutes of pushing and the pup was expelled with serosanguinous fluid, its umbilical cord still attached. Pip licked and licked, swallowing anything that got between her and her pup. Had to stay clean. There should be a heartbeat, right? She should feel it under her tongue. There should be little raspy breaths and some sign of life, right?? So why was there nothing? Refusing to give up, the mute kept at it with steadfast determination to make it – her – live. A girl. Her first born was a girl. And she wasn’t breathing. She didn't have a heartbeat. Had Pip the voice for it, she would have been wailing with anguish and confusion and panic. Nothing was working. Not the cleaning, not the nuzzling, not anything!
Pip plucked up her pup and carried her to a new spot within the den and lay there with her for too long between her forelegs without response. Her little one was stillborn.
No one prepared her for this. For the grief. For even the possibility.
The interval between the first and the second was too long. Any hopes she’d had were dashed when her efforts garnered no more reward than the first. The second – a boy – was also stillborn.
Her own heart thundered against her chest. She had to get the others out. Now. Now! But what if they were gone, too? What if she didn’t have any? It would serve her right. That’s what happens when you break pack law, she thought as she wept. It didn’t matter that she’d worked so hard and tried all she could to be a good packmate. This was her punishment. This grief was her burden.
The third pup brought her dashed hopes sailing high as it gave a weak wail of distress upon its birthing and was smeared with fetid material. But its gasping little breaths gave a new meaning to the word panic. She couldn’t breathe! She couldn’t breathe and Veho wasn’t here and Pip didn’t know what to do!! What was she supposed to do?! She licked and licked and nudged the pup towards her belly to help her find food there, but the little girl’s plaintive movements grew slower as time passed until she, too, no longer had a heartbeat.
The fourth, the last, followed shortly after. He was dark and his lungs had not been hampered in development as his siblings had been, for he raged against his arrival into the world with squealing protests and paddled with a strength the third had not shown. As before, hope surged again. Tears of grief and pain had morphed to those of pitiful relief.
It wasn’t until he was suckling steadily at her teats that Pip felt herself take a shaky breath of relief. One. The sea gods had showed her mercy after all and granted her one. And a fearsome one at that. She could not have loved a life more than the one left at her side. Within the den, three other lifeless pups were strewn in disarray while her little warrior lived on and thrived.
Only once her little miracle had succumbed to quiet slumber did Pip unfold herself from around him and carefully gather up the lost ones. Shame and sorrow hung over her shoulders like a heavy mantle. Should she wait for Kjell to return and find them? That seemed too cruel after all he had done to rejoin her. The least she could have done was provide him with strong, healthy children. She failed. Was it something she’d done? Had it been too stressful, that time with the fish that had nearly overtaken her? She should have been more careful. Maybe she’d worked too hard to prove she could remain useful to the pack.
With the help of no one, the first-time mother lay three of her children to rest in shallow graves away from the den so as not to lead predators to the last precious treasure she had left before returning quickly to her son’s side.