the moons spear

BABY TIME! Welcome to the world. Baby beasts first, please! RAIDEN IS AN NPC ATM AS WE HAVE NOT YET SELECTED A PLAYER so can be skipped! No posting order enforced, but order of birth: @Cygnus @Scorpius @Ara @Nysa Raiden @"Draco2"

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It was strange, the in-between. The waiting. But it was not unfamiliar, and that in of itself was a small comfort for all that had become foreign this past year. With the den prepared for what would soon come, Hydra waited...

And waited some more.

She was not idle entirely, even until the last. She lurked only the perimeter of this sight she had chosen, ensuring it was perfect and snarling at shadows to warn anything beyond that away. Nothing, and no one, came... which she supposed was to be expected, the way in which she had gone about exterminating any vermin that lurked too close to her liking. Nature seemed to be aware of it, and this place she had sequestered herself to entirely was void of such things by now.

Even her family knew to keep away at this time. The time was nigh. The only being permitted near was that of her mirror image, who Hydra looked to with a pang of envy. Pregnancy was romanticized, she felt. Proud though she was of the future she carried, she longed for the before to start... and now, all she wanted was the after. These beasts within her were ferocious, and she was eager to see them. Know them. Shape them.

Indeed, an age old feeling possessed her when the moon was at its highest, as bloated and full as she herself was and appearing closer than it truly was. Hydra felt the telltale ripples, not at all gentle—her only warning. Hydra's gaze turned to the horizon, seeing none near but sensing the sentinels that would make certain none would interfere or come close. Only then did she make way into the spacious whelping den she had dug for days on end... larger than her previous ones, having kept the size of her stomach in mind.

It was not a quick affair.

She paced for several hours until the night moved into the next day, though the sky was still dark and the moon still bright. A spear of its light was the only thing illuminating the mouth of the otherwise dark space, Hydra pacing in its corner. Her breathing had become labored as the space between the ripples grew shorter, and shorter. At last, a great contraction overtook her to where she knew she must cease in her pacing and lay.

Still, things did not go quickly. But the matriarch grit her teeth and bore it all, snarls breaking the quiet now and then as she pushed, and pushed, and pushed—

It yielded one large cub, and Hydra was quick to use her tongue and teeth to remove the sac it lingered in, grooming away the blood and residue and devouring the afterbirth even as she maneuvered the babe—black as pitch, she noted—to her belly. Her cleaning of it had revealed to her that this was her newest son, and she breathed in the scent of him.

But there was hardly any time to admire the work of herself and Dirge before the pains of labor seized her again. The next to come came quickly enough, and Hydra repeated all that she had done for her firstborn. Healthy, and not quite so large as his brother (yet) but by no means small, there was the second born son of Empyrean; again she licked away the smattering of blood that came with his birth, but this time noted he was beige, and brown—taking after his father, there.

That was all she could note as she drew him to her belly before there was more pain; she stretched out and breathed, this next cub taking their time about it. Hydra willed them to go faster, and it seemed as though they responded to such—with a snarl and a great push it came, and as the matriarch lapped at them she noted that this one was a daughter, as dark as her brother. Empyrean's first Princess, she considered, just as she and her mirror images had been for Moonspear.

She had time enough to also move her daughter against her stomach, placing her alongside her two brothers—three healthy cubs, thus far, and by the feel of it there was another to come...

And there it was; minutes later, she felt her body respond as it would to their coming. It never felt easier, or less painful—but she knew what to expect as she labored, and also knew that in times past, this would be the end of it. And so Hydra bore down again, breathing heavily and pushing. Like their sister before them, they were in no rush up until she willed it. More likely than not both were coincidences, coinciding with the fact that she had spent time enough pushing for them to arrive as she thought, come out, now. For they did, and Hydra was all too quick to do what she must before she cleaned them—another girl, she saw, her coat indistinct as her other elder brother of near the same shades... but Hydra knew that in time, they would grow to become like their fathers.

She looked down at her work, pleased with the results. She lowered her head some to better look at the four—

Pain. Not the unfamiliar sort, but rather, the same as she had endured for hours on end. But it was strange to her, in that she had thought it... over. Even if instinctively, she sensed she was not yet quite finished—but... there had always been four, but she could feel within her the rallying of those that had every intention of coming.

Four soon became five. She was young enough, even still, to be in good shape even with this unexpected development, but she was certainly more tired after the fifth came. Labor was an exhausting task, and four was by no means easy. She ached as she fell into her routine of cleansing, inspecting—boy, not so portly as the first... but like the rest of his siblings, he could hardly be called meager.

And five, to her shock (while she drew the boy she scarcely had a moment to explore further), would soon become six.

Beasts indeed. What a surprise, and while she pushed, and pushed—the sixth came, and Hydra noted he was as rotund as the firstborn boy. Even more surprising; the last could sometimes be the smallest, but that was quite visibly not the case here. Hydra lapped at the last to be born, another boy, and once he was clean Hydra placed him right alongside the rest of his siblings.

And she fought her exhaustion as her gaze scrutinized each of them, looking for any faults. She remembered something, distant and faraway now, and sought any signs of malformation. But as she did, there was none that could be found; the work of she and her husband was perfect, as ever. Each limb intact, each toe accounted for—an exhale of relief, as she continued to groom the first generation of Empyrean, pride welling in her chest. The fourth, it turned out, had similar, paler furs to the fourth and second born; the sixth, too. Several took after their father this year in this way, she observed.

Hydra paused long enough to be certain they each were breathing, but also waited before calling to any in case her own body planned to reveal yet another surprise. Or two.

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^^Stars are not born gently.

They are often born of violence, two great bodies colliding, the cast offs of those collisions swirling and blending to form something new.

The celestials who had come before him were not new to these facts. They had whelped a number of litters before him. He had brothers and sisters both, but, this time it all happened a bit differently. A new place to orbit, new territories to glide through. That would all come later, though.

Draco was horrified when he was expelled and his sun no longer surrounded him and warmed him. Cold was a new and rather bitter sensation, as was the wash of a tongue and the prodding and poking about until he was lifted and that felt like some great disorienting event. He hadn't even managed to get his bearings from finding the floor. When he was settled again he felt a bit more at ease. He could not see them. He could barely smell them. He couldn't hear them. But he felt them - his siblings, placed haphazardly against the warm sun again.

He was quick to catch on - he found his way to a teat with little grace as his stumpy limbs moved his pudgy little body. His mother had served them well, fattening then up so that none of them were wanting before they had been brought into existence. He wouldn't remember it but he would need to thank her later. For now, life was a bit more satisfying, gorging himself and unaware of anything else.

^^

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Life. Death. None of it mattered to him. All that mattered was the burn of his lungs as he gulped that first breath of air, the instinctual drive to turn and crawl and climb to where he could find food. Sustenance. In this moment and the ones to follow, it was all he cared about. Instinct. Drive. Sleep. From his waking breath to his last drop of milk, the boy dubbed Cygnus was entirely silent.

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Nysa was born, and everything within her small scope of awareness changed. Yet, nothing out of the ordinary followed her birth. Nysa's first minutes alive were much like those who had come before her. She fed until she was full, burped, and then settled into the warmth of the nest Hydra had made. She fell asleep quickly, soothed by the nearness of her siblings and soft bedding.

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To darkness, to light, though closed eyed she could feel the oddity that was the cold, cold air, and immediately so, cried to go back. When she could feel the gunk release from her mouth, from her throat, a coughing and a messy burp, and just the desire to return to the warm embrace. Though feeling the nustle of others who came before herself, she was quick to bash and push her away between them all ; claim a place where the origin came and the teat that was oh so comforting. 

Move aside bitches.

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Skippable

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Upon her labour, the eagle had quickly found a place within the trees that sheltered the denning site. At first, excitably, he moved to and fro, gripping and ungripping the branch with thick talons, waiting for the weak one.

But a long while passed, and eventually, he slept through much of the evening where she lay. Through the entire ordeal, in fact, he slept. It was the distant cries from the newborns that awoke him. They sounded as mice do within tunnels. The bird ruffled his feathers, waiting.

None were about. He stayed, preening his feathers, waiting. Though the sounds were tantalizing, he had little indication otherwise — his sense of smell, like all eagles, was terrible.

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Where once he found comfort now drove him restless as the boy had to deal with his cramped enclosure. He wished for it to stop, though no matter how he squirmed the space would not grow. It was fortunate that favored him as one by one his siblings were forced from the womb they had shared, thrown into the cold of the world while he savored the growing space that expanded by the hour.

Such blessings could only last so long though, and soon it would be his turn. Raiden was forced quickly into the world, coughs racking his small frame as his lungs shifted from fluid to bitter air. Right away he knew he did not like this new place. It was cold and there was a pain that only seemed to grow in his stomach. Though before he had the chance to even consider crawling back to his comfort he had been moved to the pile of bodies that now suckled against their mother's belly.

Hesitance was outweighed by hunger as the scent of milk hit him in the face. Never having the liquid, he craved its nutrients as he found his own way to feed. He was greedy to take his fill, already at a disadvantage in size, even if it had not been all that much. As he suckled he would quickly settle down as weariness soon seeped into his bones. Perhaps things were not all that bad here.

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He was born as he would die, with the light of stars as a crown upon him.

Scorpius slid into the world like any other child. Blind, deaf, and slick with afterbirth. Love and justice would come in time, as would his knowledge of his heritage and the lofty name he bore. In time, he would prove himself worthy. But tonight he was a child. Tonight he thought no loftier than where he might find his mother's milk, and with whom he might tuck in beside to find the greatest warmth.
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