Work Text:
You wake first to the slow, rumbling sound of Mi’ytiar’s breathing. Your back was warm where he was curled around you from behind, one arm wrapped around your belly to hold you close. His exhales softly blew your hair and you felt its warmth hitting the nape of your neck where he had buried his face. His presence here in your nest was the gravity you needed even before you started your day and dove into your duties.
Opening your eyes, dim golden light streaming into the room blinded you a little. You blinked a few times until the lines of your surroundings turned from blurry to sharp.
You didn’t even try to move. His grip around you made it nearly impossible to shift and he only left enough room for you to breathe. Today, there seemed to be more space to turn your head, at least, so you could see the light brush over his sculpted upper arm and broad shoulder. Your eyes drifted over the ridges of his dreads and to the parts of his face that weren't hidden, which were only relaxed when he was dead asleep. He looked completely at peace, serene, and absolutely beautiful.
Mi’ytiar seemed to feel that you were watching him, a low purr emitting from the depth of his chest, still rough from sleep, before he tilted his head up and opened his eyes to meet your gaze.
“Morning.” You greeted him with a slow smile and scooted around in his arms to face him once you felt them loosen a little.
You watched his mandibles extend and stretch before they retreated back to his face.
“You awake.” He murmured lowly.
“Mhm.”
Mi’ytiar studied your face, eyes tracing your features almost like a gentle caress, before he rolled onto his back and pulled you with him, so you were right on top of him. Your head was on his chest, and you listened to his slow and steady heartbeat beneath your ear. It was grounding in a way nothing else ever was.
For a moment, no one said anything and just enjoyed the silence.
Mi’ytiar shifted underneath you to adjust before he spoke, “You train with Akail today. You need movement after pregnancy.”
You hummed in agreement.
You had been a little lazy in the past few days after giving birth to your youngest son. The little pup was just so distractingly adorable and needy that you had extended your bedrest a little to indulge the newest addition of the family. Who could blame you, truly? Mi’ytiar certainly didn’t, as he shouldered half your duties while Akail took care of the other half.
Mi’ytiar wanted to add something, but yelled complaints beat him to it. It came from a small room just outside your bedroom and down the hall.
Your mate’s chest rumbled with an amused huff. “Our son is awake, too.”
You chuckled, not even bothering to move. “Oh no. Now he is your son.”
Almost like fate wanted to wipe the smug smile from your lips, a second voice sounded to join the first. This one was much louder and much closer. In fact, it came from right next to you.
You lifted your head to look at the crib standing by your nestside. The little bundle inside wiggled with its little fists curling as his face scrunched in protest.
“I take Toyah.” Mi’ytiar said while you pushed yourself up and moved from your nest.
He disappeared through the door that slid open for him just as you scooped the newborn pup into your arms, instantly rocking him. His cries slowly softened into hiccupping breaths. He was warm and so very small, fitting perfectly when you held him to your chest and tugged his head underneath your chin. His scent — milk, soothing herbs, and something uniquely him — filled your senses and you inhaled it deeply.
“Mama’s right here.” You cooed and pressed a kiss to his crown.
From down the hall came the sound of Toyah’s sleepy protests and Mi’ytiar’s responding grumbles.
Your attention returned to the weight in your arms.
A faint, needy noise worked its way out of the pup’s throat. He didn’t know why he was upset, only that something he needed wasn’t there yet.
“It’s alright.” You whispered. “I know.”
You adjusted him carefully, pulling his body to your chest until his warmth pressed fully against you. One tiny hand — clawed but blunt, not yet lethally sharp — grasped at the skin of your collarbone and his mandibles, still short and soft at the edges where tusks would soon grow sharp, opened, reflexive and searching.
Breastfeeding had been an uncertainty when Akail was just a newborn. Yautja pups needed a Yautja mother’s physiology for nursing, but Cahrein had helped you adapt. He had explained it quite clinically, but reality was much more instinctive. The pup’s mouth didn’t latch on as a human baby’s mouth would. Instead of lips, his gums closed around your nipple while his mandibles spread wide and framed your breast.
You always helped him latch on, gently spreading his tusks and moving his head to find the source of nourishment. He trusted his nose alone, following the scent of milk. The moment he did, the tension left his tiny body and he eagerly began to suckle. His breathing evened out and his tusks flexed gently with each greedy suck.
Feeling the vibrations of his satisfied purr, you relaxed and hummed as your thumb stroked the back of his head where you were holding him. The sensation had hurt at the beginning with all of your boys, but with time, you got used to it. Once they started teething, though, you fed them by hand. Those teeth were no joke, even at such a young age.
You heard the heavy footsteps of your mate coming closer and then the swish of the doors. He returned with Toyah in his arms, draped against his chest, one small arm hooked around his father’s neck, the hand of his other arm holding onto one of Mi’ytiar’s dreads. His earlier distress had melted into contentment for successfully stealing the attention of his parents.
“There.” Mi’ytiar grunted softly, pointing to where you were sitting on your nestside. “Mama.”
Toyah lifted his head just enough for his gaze to find you and once he did, his face brightened as much as his inhuman features allowed. An excited sound bubbled from his chest before he let go of his father and made grabby hands towards you.
Mi’ytiar moved over to you and sat down beside you, looking down at your pup nursing. His fingers brushed over the small back when he placed his hand on yours.
Toyah stared at his little brother, curiosity replacing his want to be held by you. A tiny clicking sound left his mouth, soft and questioning.
“Yes. That your brother.” Mi’ytiar grunted, pulling his hand away from his youngest to hold Toyah with it, who wiggled closer to the pup. “Vay’nai.”
“VayVay.” Toyah gurgled, pointing a finger at his brother.
You chuckled, looking at him. “Yes. VayVay.”
You felt the pup in your arms shift, so you looked down with a chuckle, curious what the little one was up to.
Grey.
Your breath caught in your throat as your eyes flitted all over the body you were holding. The healthy, earthy colors of green and beige had faded into an ashen grey, leaving it waxen. The warmth against your chest had gone ice cold. The head lacked a face or dreads, only a hole where a mouth was supposed to be.
“Oh…” You whimpered. “Oh no, no, no…”
You shook the pup a little and waited for something, a sound, a movement, maybe just a twitch.
In your panic, your fingers dug so hard into his back that they formed deep dents in his flesh, the skin stretching unnaturally.
The room that been full of life and warm light just seconds ago had darkened, the walls dissolving into nothing but shadows. When you looked up, Mi’ytiar was gone. Toyah was gone.
Your arms tightened around Vay’nai as if you tried to force some life into his body by sheer will. “Please.” You sobbed, rocking with him side to side. “Please, don’t do this. Don’t do this to me again.”
His head lolled to the side before it fell back, no bones or muscles there to hold it up.
The scream that exploded from your lungs bled from nightmare into reality, where your body surged upright, sitting upright in your nest while clutching your blanket. Your lungs burned as air tore from them. Your hand trembled as they grasped at the blanket, feeling the difference between warm wool and cold skin.
Mi’ytiar was up in an instant, his body shielding yours with a vibro-blade in his hand as his eyes flashed through the darkness in search of a threat to your life. When he found none, he turned back to you just as you started chanting, “No, no, no…”
“Yawne.” He purred to calm you down as his strong arms enveloped your trembling form. “All alright. You are home.”
Despite his words, his body heat and his heavy body weighing down on you, you still shook violently and tears streamed down your cheeks.
“He was-” You choked. “I was holding our pup. He was right here…”
Your mate pulled you closer to his torso and his hand came up to cradle the back of your head, so you could find solace by sobbing into his shoulder.
“You were dreaming.” He rumbled, voice low and steady despite the distress he felt by seeing you in such a state. “Not real.” He added and stroked your hair. “Just breathe.”
And you tried, but each breath stuttered in your chest, hitching painfully in your throat.
“It felt so real.” You cried out. “He was warm and he was nursing and Toyah said his name and…”
Mi’ytiar’s arms tightened.
He said nothing for a moment.
His mandibles flexed against your hair before he finally muttered, “Dreams can be cruel.”
You shook your head against his chest. “I could feel him.”
With the way he was holding you, his front to yours and cheek pressed against his pec, you were facing the wall of your nestside. Instead of a crib standing right next to you, how it should have been, the first thing your eyes fell on was the long console table. After Mi’ytiar had destroyed the old one in his fit of rage, he had built you a new one. You had been able to salvage the candles, plants, and pictures — of you as a child with your brother and parents, which your children have been fascinated by, of you and your mate, and of you, him, and your sons once you had introduced cameras to them.
Now, instead of one of Mi’ytiar’s courting gifts gracing the center of it all, an urn was standing right there, staring back at you. It was small, maybe the size of a bigger ring box. The black stony surface on the top was engraved with only one word: Vay’nai.
Usually, the ash of a fallen warrior after their funeral would be carried on with the wind, but you, being the human that you were, gathered the ashes you could distinctly make out. The shawl had surprisingly survived most of the fire, but the body inside was no more. Said shawl was now draped around the box, still keeping your pup warm.
Mi’ytiar, ever the perfectly attentive mate, noticed your stillness. He didn’t need to look to know what you were staring at. He just turned, switching sides, so his back was now to his son’s final resting place before guiding you back to lie down. He pressed his forehead against yours, emitting soft, growly purrs to lure you back to sleep, no matter how haunting it might seem to you at the moment.
“Sleep.” He said, mandible stroking your cheek. “I watch over you.”
“I can't.” You shook your head with gulping breaths.
“You can.”
You met his eye to make him understand that you couldn’t possibly just go back to sleep after...
But Mi’ytiar looked determined.
With a huff, you scooted closer to him and buried your face in his chest, forehead against his collarbone, and closed your eyes.
He listened to your erratic breathing and felt your hectic heartbeat, both slowing down, until he was sure you were asleep again. You must have been too exhausted to fight, not matter your stubbornness, especially with how rarely you slept these days. For the past thirty-nine days, you had been a shell of a person, neglecting your duties, your mate, your sons, your clan. Humans were complex with their emotions, so most of them, especially the mothers, took no offence at your absence.
Mi’ytiar, on the other hand, had been as commanding and demanding as always. The clan needed a strong hand. That didn’t mean that his son’s death hadn’t left its marks on him as well. He just knew how to hide it well, despite it being a gaping hole that barely seemed to shrink in the passing days.
But it wasn’t only grief he felt. He felt guilt.
His pup had been alive when he had abandoned him.
He had been alive.
And Mi’ytiar hadn’t been there to see him, to feel him, to hear him. He hadn’t been there when Cahrein saw you enter his den all alone for your monthly check-up. He hadn’t been there when Cahrein showed you your pup of the size of an egg, then an apple, then a papaya. He hadn’t been there when you and Cahrein listened to the flutter of a heartbeat. He hadn’t even been there to feel the first kick. Or the last.
It had turned out that the pup had been dead only days after Mi’ytiar had returned home.
Not weeks, not months.
Days.
Cahrein had told him so on the day after the birth. You had stayed home, staring out of the window and down into the abyss, but he needed to go back. He needed to be there in whatever time he had left to spend with his pup. He had demanded that the healer examined the body, eager to know what had caused such a tragedy, but the answer he got back only brought up more questions. In the end, Cahrein’s diagnosis was the following: your body had not been able to provide the needed energy to develop the fetus, caused by negative outer influence, which in turn had caused stress or sadness; and despite that, the pup had been so strong to carry on for months.
The healer could have just said that it was his own fault, instead of hiding it behind fancy words. After all, Mi’ytiar had been the reason for it all. He was the one who killed his son, with his words and his absence. He had caused you such distress that you lost the pup without even meeting it.
And that was the worst thing about it all. This pup, this astounding mix of both him and his mate, had been denied the chance to truly, actually live. He hadn’t been able to slip from his mother’s womb and draw his first breath. He would never be able to open his eyes for the very first time and see the first thing that mattered more than anything else: his gentle, kind and perfect mother. He would never talk or cry or laugh. He would never walk or grab or hunt. He would never love, never like, never admire.
And it was all because of Mi’ytiar.
Not even the pain of stabbing himself could repent for the guilt he felt because he knew he could never mimic the pain you had endured ans were still enduring.
Cahrein had let out a yell and immediately tended to the self-inflicted wound. The healer had talked to him, had tried to offer some sort of comfort, and it would have been the perfect time to let go of the prideful image of a leader and let it all out. But he didn’t. He felt he had no right to, so he simply didn’t.
You had been given three days before the pup would be burnt and, in those days, he was torn between going home to grieve with his mate and mourning at the embalming table where his son was waiting to join other great warriors in dhi’ki-de. The bundle was heartbreakingly small on the huge stone surface, underlining even more that something so fragile and innocent did not belong in a place this early.
You stirred in his arms, a strangled sound leaving your lips, and he tightened his arms around you. He began to purr until he felt you relaxing again and nuzzled his face into your hair, trying to find some rest as well.
He knew that only time would tell how the family would deal with the gap among them that had been so ready to be filled with someone new.
Akail had seemed to be in a state of distraught, to Mi’ytiar’s surprise. With how hostile he had been with Toyah and him still warming up to the toddler, he had expected that his son would, at very least, feel sad for you simply out of empathy, but Akail actually seemed lost, seemed to be drifting off into his mind whenever no one paid attention to him. In the time of his father’s absence, he had been more of a mate to you and father to the pup than Mi’ytiar had been. He took care of his mother and was completely devoted to making you feel content and comfortable. He held your hand, both at check-ups and when you threw up from morning sickness. He fed you freshly hunted meat and plucked fruits. He managed the role as leader while also helping you manage yours.
Mi’ytiar couldn’t be any prouder of his son.
Toyah, meanwhile, had done his part in distracting you, of course. He was young, needy and attention-loving enough to occupy every breathing second. The little one’s awareness was despite his age and, naturally, he had noticed that the pup in your belly was gone now and nowhere in sight, no matter where he looked. He even had asked the Hellhounds outside if they had seen VayVay.
One day, Mi’ytiar had found you with Toyah in your lap while you explained that his little brother had decided he wanted to become a star in the night sky and that Toyah would be able to see him every time he visited when it got dark outside. The little one only ever mentioned his brother after that, whenever he was still awake at night, pointing and waving to the sky, cooing, “VayVay.”
The clan had come with well-wishings and condolences, bringing offerings to your doorstep. The from bone carved talisman gifted to you by an Elder hung around your neck, the bundles of dried meat were stocked in a respective chamber, and new furs lined your nest. They were respectful enough to leave their gifts at the door, understanding when no one opened. They knew only you were inside as your mate followed his tasks, just like his oldest, while the youngest was with other pups his age in the playing dens.
You and the rest of the family had all the support you needed, and normality would come soon enough once the time of sorrow had passed. The loss was still rooted deep and would take time to heal, though never fully disappear.
For now, Mi’ytiar would do his very best to keep you from drowning.