(Leia or better known as Snowflake might just a wee babeh in this RP but she's still a major character so I'm sticking her here)
Organa wasn't someone who was built or even raised to be comfortable with the concept of sitting still for long periods of time. In her pride there had always been some battlefront that could have used a extra paw, wounded to be tended to, our war criminals to track down. Because they were so few and far between her pride coveted moments of peace and silence, perfect for inner reflection like their beliefs heavily relied on. So much so they actually had made a holiday just for an excuse to make sure one could have some time to themselves at least once out of the year!
She had gotten more than enough time of reflection and relaxation in the Bahari. Over half of year of it now, and it was visibly getting to her these past few weeks. The mixture of slow-paced living in the warm beaches combined with her not even being able to expel any of her pent-up energy due to her humongous belly had set the gray lioness on edge, pushing herself to get up and move around as much as bodily possible in hopes of flipping the trigger on her labor. It certainly had gained her a mixed reaction, some looking at her like she was crazy why others looking down on her with sympathy. She could finally understand the stories of many women praying for any sign of contractions so they could be be finally free of this cruel and unusual punishment.
In the middle of a stormy night whatever pregnancy/childbirth god or goddess was listening had finally taken pity on the lioness and sent her into labor.
Now she was expecting a good size litter judging by how large she was. Three, perhaps an unheard of four live at birth. She had been fully anticipating the rest to be stillborn like the good portion of all births that had been recorded in her homeland.
Alas, the gods apparently had a sense of humor. For it wasn't three, four, or even five - but seven. She had managed to expel six huge, healthy, screaming newborns and one much smaller and quieter runt.
To say she was surprised would have been an vast understatement, in honesty a heart attack inducing shock would have been a wee bit more accurate to her feelings when she finally was all finished and could breath and count her new bundle.
It wasn't only the fact that she had managed to carry this many offspring to term that left her bewildered, but she had something of a color shock seeing what hues bright and dull they had turned out. Sure, there were a few who looked normal for her, dark colors, grays, dull muted colors.. One who must have been some sort of weird genetic throwback to a long-forgotten rogue ancestor of hers. (She hoped. Gods help her if she actually slept with a hot-pink male) But there were two twins that bore the grim omen of a light coat, thankfully lessened by some of her natural grays to balance things out. In her cultures eyes the two were destined to have back luck, but nothing that was earth shattering horrible.
But there was one...the tiny, quiet runt of the litter. Beyond a few whimpers of protest whenever one of her larger siblings pushed her too hard or when she was cold she just laid there. Asleep? Dying? Listening in? Plotting the doom of the world? Organa honestly couldn't say. If her sickly appearance wasn't enough of a bad omen her coat was pure white. There wasn't a speck or flaw to break up the blinding color throughout her whole hide, and trust that Organa had checked thoroughly!
All her life she had thought that she had all of the answers. After all she was trained from the best, she had a black-and-white religion to follow that held no room for mistake, and few to answer any orders to.
But as a continuing theme that had been repeating itself ever since she had left her homeland to go hunt down her former partner - especially once she had landed herself in the Bahari - she was learning that she didn't know d**k about the world and in many regards was like a newborn child testing and trying to play catch-up to all the things she had never been exposed to before.
Motherhood just happened to be one of those things.
She could honestly say she was pleasantly surprised that her materinal instincts had kicked in enough to make sure that the little hellspawn were properly feed, bathed, warmed, and well...didn't die. Though it might have seemed like such a basic skill if she could have she would have given herself quite the gold star for it.
There was still the elephant standing in the room however on what she was meant to do with these fuzzy meat rolls now? As she already accepted she couldn't take them with her. Originally she had that lovely lioness Tala in mind but with her now MIA and no possible way she'd be given the OK to go searching for her in her condition and risk screwing up their progress by Peregrine she was stuck with them for now.
She did take Tala's suggestion into consideration that she simply could try to find a family here to take the little hellons. She had tested the waters before shortly after their little conversation and much to her surprise she did get back some relatively positive feedback. There was the matter however that most of those families had now managed to conceive on their own and with given just how many were unexpectedly dumped out of her...yeeeaaeah she wasn't sure any sane family would be willing to take on that amount of kids unless they wanted to slowly build themselves a small army.
As soon as she was strong enough to walk again and free to leave her little crew behind for a few minutes she could start her hunt back up for a family for them in full swing. For now though she was stuck, once again, whether she liked it or not.
With a heavily sigh lowered her head back down to the sand, flopping it over to one side as she closed her eyes, hoping to get some rest herself now that her bouncing bunch of demons were full and settling in for naps themselves. However the small tinkling of another wet nose wriggling against hers prompted one of her eyes to open as she lazily peered down to greet whichever one of her children wanted her attention now.
Ah, it was the harbinger of doom this time. "Did you get enough to eat? Or did you get pushed away again?" Organa murmured softly, least she woke the others up.
The white cub's shaky head lifted almost as if she was trying to stare back at her mother. Cocking an eyebrow Organa stared back at the currently blind but still defiant little thing with amusement. "I'll take that as a yes then." She replied with a chuckle. Scooping up the tiny white ball she slid her closer to her, beginning to lazily groom her.
"You know I've seen something like your fur once when I was first leaving home." She began. Gan had noticed in the days since the litter's birth that talking, singing, or doing anything at all with her voice seemed to soothe the tiny one currently in her arms at the very least. It kept her from having more of her tantrums, and thankfully would give Organa a chance for some actual sleep!
Pausing to yawn she turned the pale cub over in her hands. Continuing on with both her cleaning and story without missing a beat. "I asked someone finally what that weird white stuff covering some of the mountains was and you know what they told me?" Stopping for just a second to mock waiting for a response all she got from the wee newborn was another slurr of bubbles being drooled out.
Well, that was the best response she had gotten from her all week.
"That's right! Snow. I actually stopped and climbed one of those mountains to see 'snow' for myself. To be honest? It wasn't worth the trip. It's wet, cold, and sticks everywhere. But it is beautiful in it's own way, I've never seen a landscape be that serene before." Pursing her lips she lifted bubble blowing champion up to her nose to be eye-level with her. "Sort of like you. Maybe that's what I'll call you; Snow. That's something that parents do, right? Name their kids after s**t that moved them in some way?" With a short frown she shook her head at herself. "Hm, no Snow won't do. You're one little piece of a much bigger issue so...oh! Snowflake, yeah that's much better. A tiny shitty thing that makes up a even bigger, shittier thing. Don't you agree?" She inquired genuinely to the newborn in her paws.
To which all Snowflake could do was give a hearty sneeze at her new name.
With a tired grin Organa finally nestled Snowflake between her front legs, her head lowering once again next to her child. "Glad we agree then. Goodnight then, my little Snowflake. You can raise hell after mom gets some sleep."
Total word count: 1,564
