ooc: set right before puppy thread.
Firefly sat up tall and proud upon the edge of the old fountain in the park. She could barely feel the puppies moving now, if the slight twinge in her belly wasn't just an upset stomach. The thought made her flick her ears back uncertain, she knew that Haku would be thrilled if she lost the puppies but after the last month of living with Svara she wasn't so certain if she felt the same. She had carried the young for two moons and in the process of attempting to save Svara she might have granted Haku's wish without meaning to. She bared her fangs as she grumbled to the silence of the wintery snow.
The woman crouched down on the ledge and pawed away the snow that was covering the frozen water benieth. Her face stared back at her from the slight reflective surface as she just blinked in return to the stranger that greeted her. So long since she'd looked at her own reflection, the world told her she was beautiful but the woman had never taken the time to really look to see what they saw when their eyes gazed upon her. What had Haku saw before she'd started to balloon up like a pumpkin. She just sighed and placed her paw back over the ice to hide the view of that dark beauty that stared back so knowing of all her sins and even the good deeds she'd done.
[html]
Cercelee had not intentionally sought the girl out, but when during an aimless stroll through the town park she had come across the swollen Acer she saw no reason to avoid the girl. They had not been on the best of terms, Firefly did not always agree with Cercelee’s laid back methods and Cercelee’s did not always agree with Firefly’s fiery spirit. Still, the memory of them chasing each other through the pack lands and ending up in the harbor had not faded, their had been a time when both had enjoyed the company of the other. It was with this memory playing in her head she approached the woman with the bloated belly, her head held erect and her eyes critical.
Dahlia de Mai was teeming with life and so was Firefly’s womb, the creature looked as if she was ready to pop at any moment. Still she was beautiful, and Cercelee remembered how sometimes she felt plain besides Firefly’s richly colored coat. Yet Cercelee was a different kind of beauty, more subtle, more cool. Navy eyes swept the girl’s abdomen and Cercelee smiled at Haku’s mate. “I bet they are ready to come out any moment.” Cer spoke softly as she knew it was a sore subject for the women, but Firefly couldn’t deny it forever. Soon she would have some sprawling, naked, blind and deaf creatures to deal with and she would have to deal with them the best she could. Easier to accept one’s fate than try to fight it.
[/html]
Firefly had heard the soft pawsteps of the other in the snow as she approached, the scent of the woman covered the whole of the packlands in one way or another so she didn't even need to introduce herself. The golden bronze lady flicked her ears slightly to show that she knew the woman was there before the words graced her black tipped ears. Normally Firefly would have growled and become excessively moody over the whole idea of another brining up her current condition, today she wasn't so sure about everything and she didn't really know what to say.
Pawing at the frozen water once more she glanced up at the Rosea as she replied doubtfully. "I bet they won't make it.." Who would have thought that the dark spiteful woman would have cared if the children lived or died, but it seemed when everyone she knew and surrounded herself with were off on their own and there had never been anyone she could tell her secrets to who was readily available some awkward young woman the world never got to see actually did exist beneith her tough exterior. She turned those emerald orbs back down to the mirrorlike surface of the fountain as her ears drooped, the fear of what she'd done sinking deeper and deeper the closer she got to the moment of truth.
[html]
Cercelee watched as Firefly seemed to sink into her doubts, her face falling as her words ended. Weeks before Firefly would have welcomed the premature expulsion of the contents of her womb, Haku too would have been ecstatic. Now she sung a different tune and Cercelee was both pleased and worried at this change of mind frame. If they pups did make it, and many pups did not, than Cer would have to worry less about the children knowing Firefly did care for their well being. If they did not make it, then Cercelee would have to worry for Firefly’s well being. No doubt Firefly’s mate had not changed his mind about the whole situation just yet.
Cercelee had heard bits and pieces about the bear attack and while thankful that Slay and Hanna had been present, she had not sought out details. Did not know the extent of the damage besides what was present in the forms of scars and scrapes on the skins of Svara and Firefly. Cercelee had just been grateful no true damage had been done to any member of her pack and in that moment of relief she had failed to spare a thought for the unborn members. “Do you feel them move within you?” Or perhaps they moved and Firefly still feared for their fates based on other reasoning. Cercelee knew Firefly had reason to be wary of her own partner.
[/html]
Firefly tried to ignore the feelings that were eating at her mind and soul but the time spent in her current form had changed her mentally as well as physically. She had begun to grow into something more than a spoil little brat that got everything she wanted with the bidding of one bent finger. Now it seemed the young lady was growing into a woman in more ways than one and she was discovering new things about her world and herself than she thought she ever would. The golden bronze lady had spent hours sitting quietly waiting for the energetic kicks and movements of the puppies. She'd grown to know their ways and motions and yet with one choice she'd made everything seemed to have changed.
Granted the woman was still the spitfire sharp tongued vixen she'd always been who loved the darker side of the world and all the dangers that came with it.. she knew the lighter side as well now and had grown to cautiously embrace that change. Her ears pinned back as Cercelee asked of the puppies. She felt shamed in admitting that she knew she'd changed the course of something she actually hadn't wanted changed in the end. "Not like they use to.." she whispered bitterly. Not like the little fierce kicks and rolls that played over and over again like they were fighting for space and attention from the inside. She knew something had happened but she was unsure of just what she'd done.. if she'd just hurt them or if the fight had caused more than shaking their world a little. Firefly didn't know that the motions of puppies tended to slow when the time drew near.. but to her there was a weight on her soul that she'd taken an innocent life she actually might have cared about.
[html]
“But they still move a little?” Cer had no experience with pregnancies, did not know how much movement was normal or what was to be expected, but she could guess that if there was some movement, they certainly something was alive in there. Shifting uncomfortably, Cercelee let her gaze fall on the rounded belly of the female once more. There was no way to tell just by looking if Firefly’s pups were alive or dead, but she looked more swollen than she had before, the pups must be getting bigger within her. Yet all she could do was offer words of encouragement, words Firefly probably wouldn’t believe. Words Cer wasn’t sure were true.
“They will be fine, you’ll see.” Her words were cheery, calm. Even if her thoughts were neither, Cer still had perfect control over her emotions and tone, though she had let her true feelings and frustrations show in the past few weeks. Over the course of the past months Cer had come to realize that hiding everything, all time was not necessary. She could be expressive with Slay, Mew and any of the others and still have a flawless poker face when it suited her. “And Haku will come around.” She spoke as if it were fact, common sense, as if her words weren’t just words being said to raise Firefly’s spirits, yet she knew that was in fact all they were.
[/html]
Firefly nodded briskly and left that as her answer. She could feel something was wrong but she knew atleast that the small form or forms within her still did move. Her ears flattened slightly as the Rosea tried to cheer her up yet all Firefly could offer in return was a soft sigh as she agreed, there was no use in even attempting to continue the debate on something they'd never know til they were born. "I'm sure you're right.. Alexey tried to tell me the same." She was just unsure of her actions and she wished that there hadn't been a risk involved that day. "I just.." She turned her eyes away as she bared a little bit of a real being to the leader. "..wish I hadn't have had to make the choice.." she couldn't even begin to tell Cercelee why the hell she'd even saved the smart mouthed brat, she really hadn't thought that she'd even liked the kid.. but now it seemed that she saw a bit of herself somewhere inside the kid.
At the mention of Haku she seemed to fall even further as she shook her head. "Haku will live with it because he has to.. I doubt he'll ever really accept the whole of everything." Had she even begun to accept it all. She was lonely, out of place in her own security. Haku no longer stood beside her side and she'd gone so long pretending not to care for what the world thought that it was hard for the spoiled fierce woman to admit that times were tough and she might actually need a real friend instead of just the once lover and now astranged mate.
[html]
Cercelee titled her head, giving Firefly a sad smile. “You didn’t have a choice.” None of them would of had a choice had they come across the bear and Svara that day, even Cer would have put her life on the line for that sassy, selfish she-devil. It was expecting living within Dahlia de Mai, and had anyone who saw the incident not jumped in, they would no longer be a member of the pack, unable to prove that they were loyal to each and every life that the pack encompassed. But it hadn’t been anyone else, it had been Firefly, and she out of all of them had the least amount of thinking to do. Svara trusted her in a way she did not trust or care for any other member of the pack, and Firefly was beginning to be filled with motherly instinct, some of which would be passed on to children not biologically her own. “You did the right thing.”
Cer nodded at Firefly’s words of Haku. How he would really accept the whole situation Cercelee did not know, only pretended. The possibilities were endless. For all they knew he might even abandoned Firefly and the pups, not going so far as to leave the pack but to simply deny any tie to the small family. It was not unthinkable when one imagined all the puppies Haku might have spawned during his seed sowing days, and how few of them he officially accepted responsibilities for. “He may surprise you.” He might. Haku had a good side to him, and a bad side. Everyone was expecting the worse of the Lilium, but no one really knew when he would listen to the angel perched on his right shoulder or the devil to his left.
[/html]
Firefly's eyed moved away from the Rosea as she spoke softly, "I know that now.." she admitted with a sigh. She had no real clue what was going on inside her but it seemed her ways were a bit torn and now she was beginning to realize the changes and accept them. She wasn't normally a creature that took change quickly but when it was something she couldn't control she just let it go. Her eyes turned towards Cercelee for a second again as she studied the woman for a moment. "Am I really like my mother?" she asked. She'd never wanted to be like her mother, which was part of the reason she'd turned so hard away from the path her mother had travelled but so often the world seemed to be able to see her mother's ways shining through. She wondered now with the birth coming closer into sight if she would begin to turn more and more into a miniture replica of the Sadira Matriarch.
She turned her gaze back down to the ice on the fountain she'd been pawing at, the almost glass like reflection of her face staring back at her once more as she thought of what Cercelee had said of her own mate. Her ears drooped slightly as she was filled with doubt at the words of her leader but still she was unsure if Haku would ever want to change. "I hope so..." she murmurred, more to herself than Cercelee as she slid snow across the reflection of her face, tired of seeing the beauty everyone else seemed to drawn to.
[html]
“Who am I to be the judge of that?” Cercelee titled her head at Firefly, knowing that the girl’s question was probably more for herself than one she expected Cer to know the answer to. Of course she had met Iskata, but she had only ever analyzed her as a leader, not a mother. Cer knew Iskata’s feelings on family but Cercelee hadn’t counted the elder wolf to be ranked among her own personal family, therefore she gave little thought to the Phoenix Valley elder. Firefly and Iskata were worlds apart in most other areas, but if maternally they would share similarities, Cercelee could not say. Whether saving Svara was any type of indication, again Cer was at a loss.
“Don’t worry about it, or him... or them... or anything, just relax.” All the stress the female carried about with her probably wasn’t good for the pups. The poor creatures had no idea the weight their mother carried on her shoulders, perhaps it bore down on them, suffocating them within the very womb that sustained them. “Just take it as it comes, this whole thing will be over with soon. You’ll have a litter of pups to watch over and you won’t have time to look back and think on all this, how hard it all was. It will be worth it in the end, you’ll see.” And perhaps it would only get harder, but Cer’s words were sugarcoated, and Firefly probably knew it, but the candy words were the right thing to feed the female right now and they both knew it.
[/html]
Firefly glanced down at her reflection a moment as Cercelee spoke, she turned her eyes back to the Rosea as she smiled bitterly. "Atleast I'm not in the same boat as you.." she said. Her eyes searching out those sapphire ones that she knew had once been mirrored in her own grandmother whom she'd never known, but like many Sadira's even Firefly had heard of the lady. She smirked a second before shaking her head and letting it all go. While Firefly in some ways might walk in her mother's pawprints atleast she wasn't doomed to be the shadow of another whom she'd never met and would never. She sighed as the snows started to flitter from the sky, lifting her muzzle to the air as one little flake found it's way to her nose.
Licking at the bitter cold bite a second Firefly was quiet as Cercelee's words began to sink in. She wasn't going to argue with the ivory leader when she knew she was right. There was no use in worrying about something that had already happened and things that were out of her reach. She sighed softly and nodded to Cercelee. The lady was right about one thing even if Firefly hadn't come to realize it just yet. She wasn't about to have time to worry about anything but the small forms that were getting ready to come into this world and they would take up more time than she could ever imagine. She didn't think she'd agree that it would all be worth it, but it wasn't something she could change so she would just accept it as it was.
The stubborn Sadira woman wouldn't admit that she was itching for the day the small ones would arrive but she wanted to see how the world would change. She knew that the puppies would be new members of their pack but they would be her blood and her children. She wasn't sure how she felt about these emotions and devotion to creatures that weren't even here yet but she knew that they were right.. even though she really would like to know where the hell they came from.
One of the small forms inside gave her a swift kcik as she growled softly and nudged her own girth with her nose and muttered. "If you make it into this world you better watch it.. I just might nip that tail off.." Her ears were pinned back playfully as she gazed sheepishly at the leader next to her.
[html]
Cer did not comment on Firefly’s assessment of her situation. More and more she was forgetting about the ghost that had overshadowed her for so long. Cercelee was had made a place for herself in these lands, lands Ceres Sadira had never set foot on. Her personality had emerged and she had disappointed those who thought the small pup would turned out to be similar to the matriarch of the Sadiras. Those who had known Ceres personally were dying and disappearing, Cercelee was a far more commonly spoken name. Perhaps Haku or Mew could remember their grandmother and see the physically similarities in their cousin, but it stopped there. And Cercelee was content to have it so.
Firefly’s playful words at the unborn children squirming in her womb comforted the Rosea. She wouldn’t have to worry for their initial well-being. Firefly would take care of them, for better or worse. It was when they got older and they were being shaped into the adults they would become Cer would have to worry. Would they stay in Dahlia? Would they take after their parents? Would they prove to be as difficult to handle as Svara? There were many questions and Cercelee was surprised at how eager she was to see them born, grown and the questions answered. “It’ll be fine. You’ll see.” And with that Cercelee lazily rose, nudged Firefly amicably and turned to leave Firefly back to whatever it was she had been engaged in before the leader had stumbled across her.
[/html]
|
