I.. couldn't believe it. Myrria had returned home - my firstborn and beloved child. It brought back many memories of a time before. I couldn't say that it was as smooth or beautiful as my relationship with Exodus, though. He loved me unconditionally. The fervent look in his eyes often reminded me that love was a powerful thing and if wielded, a deadly weapon. Not that I had any intentions of wielding him in such a manner. It was unlike anything I had experienced before. With Carnifex it had been violent lust that drove us together, not counting the fact that he had threatened to kill me and I had used my considerable skills in seduction and manipulation to cast a net of safety, ensuring my own as well.

It had taken many struggles, lots of fights, before my beast and I had come to a certain understanding of our need for each other. I daresay that I loved him, then, but Aranck had poisoned my love so that it was untrustworthy. Yet with Exodus I felt a healing. Each time I woke and looked at him and was met with love and kisses, well, it birthed something new in me. I felt beloved and belonged to, and that I cherished.

I had been troubled when I left her, my heart screaming at me to not allow her to leave, and yet I must give her time I think. Whatever horrors she had endured she was independent now and I was a taken woman, about to bear more children to this wretched world. So I told her about Exodus and where my den was located and that if she did not visit me, that was fine, but I would come see her after the birth of my children. When I returned to the den now it was with a heavy heart and I felt unsettled. It wasn't distinctly that I had left her behind but more intuition. The knowledge of oncoming pain.

"Exodus?" I breath the words around a sudden whine as my body begins to slowly warm up to what I knew was about to occur. I assume the shock of Myrria had been the onset of my contractions but I had failed to notice them and now they were becoming regular and painful. Each time my side tucked in felt as if a knife was driving through me. It was the same as my last litter and I bared my teeth on a pant, turning from side to side, unwilling to enter our cave-den. I felt suffocated, as if my breath was not enough, and my whines became regular.

When he appears my eyes are frightened as I look upon him and he can no doubt tell what I am thinking.. the curse. I was fearful still that Aranck had cursed me and what should be precious and new. I go to him and press my face into his scruff until I cannot bear touch any longer and then I pace away. Back and forth. For entirely too long. The pup inside of me is huge, I can tell as it tries to breach, and my eyes roll back in my head as slobber foams around my mouth from the sheer exhaustion and pain that beats at me. "I can't, I can't do it," I sob suddenly, because I am most certain I am about to die. That me and his pup will die right there before ever having anymore moments as family.

Yet I wasn't without foreknowledge. I had learned a long time ago about herbs from Solitaire, one of my only friends, and I had stashed some herbs near our den lest something bad happen. It is to them I now stumble, the world a black dot, a pinpoint, as I push to find them, knowing Exodus is there with me. I smell them, pungent, and without further adieu I snap them up into my mouth, swallowing the rancid taste because I know it will ease my pain.

And it does, not too long after as I fall down, my legs entirely too weak to hold me anymore, and with one final heave I feel the pup slide out. The world is a daze as I lay there, my body aching from the loss of our daughter, but I am alive. We are alive. "I'm alive," I say stupidly into the air, my voice ridiculously relieved.