Page 3 of Black Dog

"Great Paddy, Ram," she said softly. "If I live through this, I swear I'm going to be more careful. I bet you're worried out of your mind. I'm so sorry."

Blackie raised his head to see if she was talking to him, sighed, and went back to dozing.

The contractions were five minutes apart. Some of them were excruciating enough to bring back memories of the journey that delivered her to the dimension where she now found herself in the dark, birthing her baby alone, well, alone except for seven wolves and a dog.

Sometimes she shouted obscenities aimed at her husband and only wished she could grab him by the hair and mock him in person saying, "So! There's no danger of pregnancy, my girl. Humans can't get pregnant by elves, Elora.

"Too manly to wear a hot pink condom, are you? From now on you'll wear condoms with hot pink lace if I say so!"

When the labor pain began to subside, she would regret her tirades.

"Helm, I'm ashamed for filling your little ears with such things. Please don't tell your father I said those things and especially don't tell him the bad names I called him. He doesn't act like it, but he has tender feelings. One time I called him a dickhead and thought he was going to cry.

"He also hyperventilates if he gets scared that something is going to happen to me. He's probably having trouble breathing right now."

She thought it must be getting even colder outside because she had reached the point when she couldn't make her teeth stop chattering. Either it was getting colder or she had lost so much blood her body temperature was diving.

Let it be the cold. Let me live to see this little boy.

"Don't worry, Helm. Your daddy will come for us.

"Have I told you he's a hero? The very best kind?

"He goes about quietly saving the world while acting like it's no big deal. One time I saw him put his body between a knife and a woman he didn't even know. She probably wasn't worth one of his nail clippings, but he doesn't think like that. He doesn't stop to evaluate who most deserves a place on the planet. He just does the epic thing instinctively.

"And you've got some of that in you."

She was so exhausted she drifted into unconsciousness. There, in her half-dream sleep state she heard someone moaning from pain. Having a lot of experience with physical ordeal, her empathy kicked in. She was thinking, "Who is that? Why doesn't someone help them? Someone should help them.Ishould help them." She struggled to wake so that she could go to the aid of the person in distress. She was climbing, climbing, fighting the desire to cocoon and sleep forever, almost reaching the surface of consciousness. And then she was awake, to find she was the one moaning.

Oh, gods, it's me. I'm the one who needs help. Ram. Where are you?

The pressure built until she couldn't suppress a scream. It wasn't a choice. It tore from her voice in a primal fury that exposed the illusion of control. Civilization - thumbs and language - just a light coating of veneer over the truth of our bestial natures.

The wolves lying next to her moved away. There wasn't light for her to see what they were doing, but every time Elora screamed they stood together in a tight pack, facing the entrance to the lair, and howled in harmonies that were both discordant and beautiful. When the contraction ended and her scream trailed off, the howls ceased. It was as if they were disguising the sound of her scream to keep from alerting other predators that someone was in distress.

She didn't have the energy to think about the fact that this was odd wolf behavior, at least it was behavior that had never been recorded.

When it grew quiet, she resumed her conversation with Helm, though she was so tired she couldn't be sure what she was saying.

"He's gonna be mad when he finds out that you're not two weeks away after all. He's gonna say we scared him. A lot.

"But then he's gonna wrap us up in his arms and give us big hugs." She could picture it in her mind and thought she could almost feel it. "And lots of kisses."

When it got quiet again, she thought she heard a whistle of air, like wind trying to make its way down the ramp into the lair. That was followed by a larger whoosh that could easily have been the sound of many trees surrendering fall leaves to a gust.

The wind was blowing hard.

The contractions were so close together they were just letting up long enough to give Elora a chance to breathe. When her body began pushing involuntarily she was amazed, but let instinct take over. She had the passing thought that she wouldn't know if something was wrong, not that she'd be able to do anything about it. When her uterus pushed, trying to expel the baby, Elora worked with it. When the muscles relaxed slightly, she stopped pushing and sat panting, waiting for the next wave.

One of the strangest phenomena of reproduction is the surprise of a first baby. For many long months the intellect pretends to understand that a baby is coming. Preparations are made. Names are chosen. And yet, when a tiny human being arrives, it's a shock. The chasm between 'knowing' there's a fetus in gestation and greeting the miraculous result of that for the first time is an experience so transformative that no one is ever the same afterward. That is how Elora felt when she realized Helm was emerging from her womb.

She reached down and felt the top of his head. When the next wave came, she waited for it to crest and then pushed as hard as she could. The baby's head slipped out and she held it in her hands. The next push was almost immediate. With that contraction she slowly pulled him from her body and then held him in her hands.

Elora could tell by the movement on her left side that Blackie had come to his feet and was growling at the wolves. He had perceived some threat from them. It was then she realized just how completely vulnerable she was, blinded by darkness, reeking of blood and other fluids, wounded and holding a newborn infant in her hands. When Blackie grew quiet, she took that to mean that she and Helm weren't in immediate danger.

Her uterus continued to contract while it expelled the placenta, but it no longer hurt. She remembered something from the hospital movie that she had seen before she had to remove Ram from the room; something about clearing the newborn's air passage of mucus. She put her finger in his mouth and swished it around the baby's gums to make sure there was no blockage. She took his slippery ankles, making sure she had a good hold, and held him upside down. The action made her wince because she disturbed the torn shoulder and caused it to start bleeding again.

When she heard his little cry, so angry, so indignant, for the first time since the ordeal began she gave herself permission to cry along with him.

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