Chapter 88

The minute that Natalie woke up, she turned her senses inwards to the Soulscape. This day was the reason that they took the extended time off, the main delivery day for all off the canines who weren't nocturnal. And for Tin and Copper's pups, if her math was correct, today was the day when they would open their eyes for the first time. However, given that the pups had been waking and sleeping closer to her schedule, it was more likely for it to happen some point tonight than it was during the day. The tiny little fur balls were already asleep, still curled up beside their mother. The grass in the Soulscape beside them had an indent, where Copper would probably go to sleep in when he finished lookout duty with Edwin and Lucille. Out of everyone so far, he probably had the least sleep, bouncing between lookout duty and his own want to help look after his pups. Lucille had already given up trying to talk him into taking a break from lookout duty, as he still wanted to maintain his promise to help them, and was quite adamant about it.

Checking each of the female canines, who all slept with their mates, Nat was relieved to see that none of them had their water break during the night. Generally, as soon as it does with a canine, the first pup of the litter is usually coming out within minutes. Natalie wanted to be available to each couple, should any complications pop up. Seeing everything was still going fine for the moment, she returned her view back outwards. Seeing light start to creep up in the sky outside her tent's door, she attempted to get up and out of bed. This time however, the two wolves using her as a hugging pillow had laid directly on top of her, pinning her to the mattress. Maia and Kali had started slowly sleeping closer and closer together, ever since the whole confession incident over a week prior. Nat did not think much of it, except for the fact that they usually slept on either side of her. Instead of moving to another spot to sleep, they just slowly slept more and more on top of Natalie. Realizing she was not going to move until these two late risers got up, she just laid there, and continued practicing with her energy circulation internally.

Natalie made some decent headway before anything changed for her situation, and even then, barely. Scout, Seeka, and Shannon all walked past the door entrance to her tent, paused and back tracked slightly. All of them took a few seconds to take in the sight of her current predicament. After asking for help, the three just started laughing their asses off and walked away, Leaving Nat alone to deal with the two still on top of her. Not really needing to move today, she just shrugged as much as she could and continued her practice. This time though, things changed far sooner. Within minutes, the smell of meat cooking over a fire flooded into the tent, tingling the nostrils of everyone inside. As soon as the smell hit them, Maia and Kali were already on their way out of the tent as if they had been awake for hours. Proving once more that the old wife's tale was true, the shortest way to anyone's heart was through their stomach. Shaking her head, Natalie went out and joined them for breakfast.

Thus, signaled the start of a long and stressful day for Natalie. As soon as she finished off one plate of food, Sol popped his head out and let her know that Luna's water had broken, only to be followed immediately by Bryden and Shadow. Not only had one gone off, but they all did almost in unison. Thankfully, Nat had some experienced helpers. Maia and Kali each went to a different pair of wolves, doing their best to help guide them through and make it go as smoothly as possible. Given that no one knew what to expect for Luna's birth or the process for a canine of such size, Natalie oversaw it personally. That was the one thing that she was confused by with the Soulscape. When it was injuries or aging, it was all sped up to take a quarter of the time. Why did births take the same amount of time as they did outside? Was it purely because it involved another life? More questions she would probably never know the answer to.

Twelve hours later, the final pup came out and was taken care of. All in all, it was pretty successful, as Nat only had to get Sol to step in to help once. One of them did not quite have the sac it come out in break, so he had to just get in and tear it open. Otherwise, a total of twenty-seven new pups had entered the Soulscape, and were now either sleeping or eating. Ash had given birth to seven, Emily had eight pups, and Luna had a whopping twelve. All of the mothers were exhausted, but were being cared for by their mates. Now that the entire stressful session was over, Nat finally left the view of her Soulscape, she was exhausted and hungry. As she exited, Maia and Kali came out with her, and all of their stomachs rumbled at the lack of food they had received. Thankfully, Shannon was still cooking, and had Seeka and Scout help bring her over some food to ease her wife and her trusty helper's empty stomachs. A decently large shepherds pot pie was placed in front of the spent team, steam still coming off the top. Thanking Shannon for the grub, the three of them dug in.

As she ate, Nat checked her energy amount just to make sure that she was not imaging the growth she thought she had noticed a couple days prior. And sure enough, there was a much larger growth this time, easily corresponded to the over four times as many new bonds. Knowing it would take two to three days for them to be able to open their eyes, and another 2 after that until they were able to walk around or hear anything. With them unable to hear, or have a personality of their own develop, Natalie decided to hold off on giving them names quite yet. Letting Shannon know of what the schedule for puppy development was, they agreed to take another four days off, just so the group could get back into a more stable rhythm without half of them being distracted by the little balls of fluff that were inside the Soulscape.

Huge thanks to my Elder Wolves Jake, Viktor, Nikolas, Saganatsu, Eeleater, Eric, Corgi, Lachlan, Adam, John, Nicholas, Jacob, Onean, Erudual, Hades, Neal, Juuso, Sebastian, Sir Hellington, and Kevin for supporting me and my writing! Remember that I keep Patreon ten chapters ahead at all times. Our next goal on Patreon will be getting up to 50 patrons, which I will then spend more time each month writing some side stories and shorts that show other perspectives throughout my stories!

Feel free to join us all on my Discord! https://discord.gg/b8gRkD4