Bessa

Family

Nature rages.

Flash flood splits us from the pack. The torrent is too much for the Savage to cross.

Rushing whitecaps pound into the trees toppling them over, dragging them into the current as if they are branches - not trees still attached by their roots.

Nothing can be heard over the wind, the surging water, the rain that's pelting us sideways.

"We need to move," Luki is looking at the trees that are bending their will to something more powerful.

Soaking wet, the Silk sticks heavily to my skin.

"Can you walk?" Luki looks with eyes that are scanning the surroundings - the lightning.

The wind howls unnaturally.

"I need help," Luki bends down, picking me up, shifting his pack on his shoulders. A grunt that gets carried away with the wind.

The tree to our right cracks grotesquely, falling on top of the healer. Crushing her underneath its trunk that starts to slide down the bank carrying her screaming into the rising tide.

...horrified.

Terror starts to crack through my constitution. A scream comes out when the lightning scorches the ground to our left - to our right.

Holding my breath, the wind is too much to breathe against. Clinging to Luki's chest, burying my nose into his skin, another contraction bears itself down on me.

Grueling pain sticks itself into the base of my spine. The contraction hardening the flesh of my stomach.

"We can't stay out here," Luki screams over my first real moans of true pain. My first actual taste of what it means to birth your pup from between your legs.

Vision is singular. Pointed. Without movement until the contraction eases itself. Tailbone pressure without relief after the contraction has my hand trying to relieve it. Shifting my position in Luki's arms. He nearly drops me.

"Luki, I need to be put down." Clinging to him, trying to arch my back. Oh by the moon another contraction is on its way.

Heavy cramping intensifies. Fast. Pain eats my breath.

...I can't breathe.

"Not yet, Bessa. We need to get higher, past the ridge." He's screaming out loud but the wind takes his voice away.

The water is rising.

Luki climbs up the trail, digging his feet into the soft soil, slipping down at times.

...we fall. Hard.

"Take off the pack Luki." Mud clings to Silk, weighing down my limbs, my body. I feel trapped in by the Silk.

"Never drop your pack, Luna," he says through gritted teeth. A grunt with each footstep away from the water that is drowning the land.

Trees are snapping easily, rolling down the path, sinking into the debris-filled water that is overwhelming the ground.

Monstrous, it's current, the enemy to the living.

...we slip again.

Luki screams out, flashing his War of Teeth to the storm.

Digging his feet deeper into the sliding away soil, pulling us upward by one hand, the other securely wrapped around me. Uncovering his deep strength we climb until another contraction takes over to the point all else fades away.