It wasn't that bad, Taydren told himself angrily, embracing his knees with his left arm and with his right hand wiping away the tears that had collected during the hour long spell. Not bad enough to tell anyone. And it won't be, either, he thought firmly. You'll hold on. You've done it before, and if you tell them, you'll just ruin everything...
"Taydren!" a high, cheerful voice sing-songed light-heartedly through the bushes. "C'mon, Tay, I've been looking for you for hours now, and I know you're in there, so let me in too!"
Kelper. "Cirsfathè," he spat without thinking. Damn it all, of all the times to want to play...
A delighted giggle was the only response from behind the screen of tall shrubs that Taydren had taken as his recognized spot for privacy. That was one thing you could say for Kindred cubs-they knew the rules of territory, and followed them strictly. Once declared as such, no cub or youngling would dare come into a private place without permission from the owner, not even the notoriously despicable Kelper or his sidekick twin siblings, Kinlin and Kiplin. Of course, that didn't stop them from listening through the leaves.
Please don't let the twins be there too. I'll die if they heard that-
"We heard that!" the twins chorused blithely.
"What do you want?" Taydren asked tiredly, suddenly too weary to be angry with them. After all, they didn't know anything was wrong.
"You didn't say hello when you got home." There was a pout in Kelper's voice. "So we came to find you and make you say it."
"That was yesterday!" Taydren blurted, surprised. "It took you that long?"
"We couldn't look last night. Kiplin fell in the mudhole by mistake, and Kinlin fell in on purpose to help him, and I had to pull them out and I fell in too, so Mam said we were dirty and he made us take a bath." Kelper spit the word out with such scorn that Taydren had to smile and strangle a laugh despite himself. "So we didn't then, and we came looking for you now instead. We looked all morning, and we couldn't find you. Where were you?"
Throwing up in the farthest corner of the woods I could possibly find, he thought miserably, trying not to make noise so no one would find me. "I was just wandering," he lied. "Walking."
"Well, you're not walking now. So?"
Taydren sighed. "Hello. There. Is that all?"
"You said hello nicely to Cour last night," Kelper said, sounding hurt.
Taydren did laugh then, wincing slightly at the nausea still hidden under his ribs. "But Cour wasn't in the mudhole." Then he sighed again. "Okay. You and your minions can come in. Just don't attack me or try to hug!"
"We won't." Kelper sounded confident that they wouldn't. The bushes parted and the three crawled through the resulting gap with care, trying not to crush the branches. Taydren knew the process well. First the curly brown head of Kelper (mousy was the only other thing you could call it, so Taydren called it brown), then the whole body, sliding like a fish; next the twins' straw-coloured curls, both heads at once as usual, followed by a quick pulling out because they were too big now to get in together; then Kinlin's eel-wriggling entrance, and last, Kiplin's. Taydren laughed again when the twins got stuck, then turned to find Kelper peering at him through eyes narrowed with scrutiny.
"What?" Taydren demanded, more sharply than he had meant to, but Kelper didn't seem to mind.
"You look green, " he replied, peering harder than ever. Then he nodded determinedly to himself. "You're gonna have a cub."
Kiplin stopped halfway through the bush, eyes wide with excitement. Kinlin, already through, looked similarly pleased.
"A what!! I-how can you-I am not!" Taydren's mind reeled with this unexpected information.
"Are too!" Kelper looked insulted. He crossed his arms and lifted his chin defiantly as Kinlin stepped forward and Kiplin scrambled out of the bush, both repeating in an indignant cry, "Are too!"
"But-I-" Taydren's head was still spinning. He gulped. "How-how do you know?"
Appeased, Kelper shrugged. "Mam said I would make a good corolaith," he said simply.
Taydren nodded weakly. The corolaitè were chosen for their abilities to feel such things in others. The twins took this opportunity to begin dancing in circles around him and chanting, "A cub, a cub!"
Quite suddenly Kelper was all competent healer. "Telet!" he commanded his brothers, glaring at them and obviously in his element. "You're acting like corelè. Taydren's sick." He knelt in front of the older boy, eyes innocent as he asked, "Didn't you know?"
Taydren shook his head, still dazed.
Then the moment was past and he was Kelper again, the ruffian of the forest. His big brown eyes sparkled wickedly. "Who's the sire?"
Taydren was shocked out of his stupor. "Kelper!"
Kelper laughed. "Thought that would do it. Well? Who is it?" Before Taydren could think of a reply to stammer out, Kelper gasped, drawing back far enough to point with a slim forefinger. "It's Cour, isn't it? You like Cour!"
Taydren did like Cour, and quickly began to defend him. "No, it isn't. I haven't-" He flushed. "You know." It felt too strange telling the childish and seemingly innocent Kelper these things.
"Haven't been with him," Kelper finished blithely, grinning at the fine shade of red Taydren's ears were turning. Then he became impatient. "Who then?"
"I can't-I can't tell you. And we shouldn't be discussing this with them here," gesturing to the twins, who had been carrying on their dance in the required silence. Now they stopped, looking once more indignant.
"Oh, them. They know about cubs already-learned last year." Kelper waved it off as though it were the most natural thing in the world for nine year olds to know everything about sex.
"We learned last year," Kinlin and Kiplin repeated defiantly in chorus, "and we want to know too," Kinlin added firmly.
"I-can't," Tay said awkwardly, looking almost apologetic. "Maybe-maybe later."
Kelper sighed. "Alright. Have you told Vayrsila yet?"
Taydren gasped, eyes going huge. "No! I can't. You can't." He reached out and took Kelper by the shoulders. "Kelper, promise me, promise you won't say a word about this, not to anyone, do you hear me? Kinlin, Kiplin, you too. Please."
Kelper snorted. "Why?"
"Why?" the twins echoed, looking dismayed.
"I-I just-" Taydren was getting humiliatingly close to tears. Seeing this, Kelper quickly agreed.
"Okay. But Cour prob'ly already knows."
"Danya! He probably does," Taydren gritted out, forgetting to watch his language in front of the younger ones until the twins snickered; then he blushed. Cour was a corolaith too, and he had likely felt the cub when Taydren greeted him the day before.
"Maybe it's better that he knows," Kelper soothed, again sounding strangely grown up. "Then he can help with the birthing and all, and no one else will have to know. I certainly can't bring a cub. Well, not yet, anyway."
"A cub," Taydren mused wearily, completing the transition from total disbelief to dreary acceptance. "What am I going to do with a cub?"
"Do you know how many months you've got left?" Kelper questioned.
Taydren flushed again, but answered just the same. "I think...about...six or seven months?" There was a note of great uncertainty in his voice that made Kelper smirk.
"Just how many possible sires are there, Tay?"
Taydren's eyes lowered. "Just one," he said softly and truthfully. "But our tribes' times are different, and I've forgot how many months."
The wistful tone the words were uttered in caused Kelper to become very serious again. "It doesn't matter. If you ask Cour, he'll tell you how old it is: I'm just not trained enough yet. And besides, it might come early or late anyway."
Tay cringed at the thought of having to confront Cour about the fact that he was carrying a cub, but he nodded. Then a question came into his mind, and he said it without thinking.
"How did I get a cub in the first place?"
Kelper looked highly amused. "Well, if you don't know-"
Taydren scowled. "That's not what I meant, and you know it. I mean, how did I keep it? I went out on a hunt, Kelper. That's not exactly stress-free work, is it?"
Kelper pondered this a moment and then looked bewildered. "I don't know."
The Kindred, the race that both Kelper's pack and the Southern packs that were Taydren's kin originated from, were notoriously bad at concieving offspring, when their birth rate was considered alongside their lifespan. Nor was it common that the cubs, once concieved, would survive to birth, and therefore it was much easier to have a cub if you wanted it enough to work for it. Thus the saying among the corolaité, "If you want an heir, pamper your mate."
Kelper thought a minute more. Then he made a little gesture of defeat.
"Ask Cour."
Up until this time, the twins had remained quiet as their brother had told them, but now Kiplin piped up, wriggling with the need to make some sort of noise, "Maybe it's an orsetù!" Immediately afterwards he grimaced, knowing he had just stepped into forbidden ground.
Kinlin and Kelper's eyes widened. "Kiplin!" Kinlin pinched his twin hard. Kiplin glared and rubbed the pinched spot with a pout, but he didn't dare retaliate, knowing full well that such things shouldn't be discussed with pregnant persons. But Taydren laughed, and suddenly couldn't stop laughing. He buried his face in his hands and rocked until the fit was past, then looked up, gasping breathlessly with mirth, to see Kelper and Kinlin staring at him as though he had gone mad, and Kiplin smiling uncertainly.
"I'm sorry," he choked, trying not to start giggling again. "It's not an orsetù, Kiplin. I think I would know if it were."
Kiplin nodded gravely. Perfectly understandable.
Taydren groaned. "Are you sure you can keep those little mouths of yours shut that long? Seems to me you're not that good at 'quiet'..."
"We can," Kinlin said with an air of determination, glowering at his little brother.
"Oh, well. I suppose I can't steal your the memory, so I'll just have to trust your mouths not to flap too much. But if you do tell, I'll never play with you again, and I'm not taking you hunting next season." Taydren hugged himself tightly and raised his nose in mock disdain.
The twins bounced together in mingled unhappiness at the very thought of the possible deprivation and excitement at the thought of having an important secret to keep. "We won't tell, we swear!"
"Good."
Kelper grunted disappointedly. "Won't be able to play with us anyhow, 'til the cub comes."
The twins stopped bouncing and moaned.
Taydren grinned, closing his eyes and leaning back into the bush. "But I'll tell you how it's doing every day, and you'll have the fun of waiting. Besides, when the cub gets here, you'll make up for lost time, I don't doubt."
Kinlin and Kiplin began bouncing all over again. "Then we can play with the cub!"
Tay peeked an eye open. "Don't count on it, at least not 'til it's big enough to stand playing with you two fiends." He yawned. "I think we'd better get home, or they'll have dinner without you." Among this pack it was customary for cubs, younglings, and those with cub to eat three meals a day, while the rest of the pack ate two. Kelper glanced at him sidewise.
"You've got to eat now, too."
Taydren shook his head. "They'll catch on if I start eating at midday. I can get something after, when nobody's looking." He rose somewhat unsteadily. "Come on. I'll ask Cour while you're eating."
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