The next morning she woke up with a beam of light falling on her face. She sighed tiredly. Just as well; she needed to get up and moving.

The cats had returned, and grumbled a bit as she moved herself out of Numair's arms and sat up on the side of the small bed. He reached for her again, pulling her down and back to his warm chest. She laughed and pushed away.

"I have to go, love. I didn't even tell anyone I was leaving."

"But I just got you back," he whispered, voice rough with sleep. She loved his morning voice, a voice only for her to hear. It made her want to curl up and close her eyes again so badly.

"I will see you again in a few weeks, I promise. Perhaps even next week. But if you want me to go home as soon as I can, I need to get to work on some things."

He sighed loudly and let her go. She kissed his nose and rolled from the bed, going to his pack to dig for something to eat before she left. She found some dried meat and started to chew it as she poured a glass of water from the pitcher in the room.

"Are you nauseous at all?" he asked, sitting up on the side of the bed and rubbing sleep from his eyes.

"Not really. Just…no appetite." She shrugged. "I really should have known, shouldn't I've?"

He smiled. "You've been busy, as you said."

Numair dressed as she dug her spare toothbrush out of his packs and cleaned her teeth. Then she found his comb and tried to sort out her tangled mess of curls, but quickly gave up. He came to sit on the bed again as she prepared to leave, pulling her into his arms and laying his head on her chest. She brushed her hands through his messy mass of black hair.

"Our child has no hope of having easy to manage hair, do they?" she mused, and he chuckled.

"No hope at all." He pulled away, then got down on his knees and took his hands over her belly, making her shiver. He kissed the small bump gently. "Now I have two of you to worry about," he whispered morosely.

"We will be good."

He gave her a wry look and stood with a little groan to kiss her. "You had better be, or I will be taking you home a lot sooner than six weeks."

"We will. I promise."

It was nearly a month before they saw each other again. Daine was still at Steadfast, working hard to arrange a network of birds, rodents, and other small animals to relay their spying back to her in Corus. She had spent hours communicating with them, selecting animals who could bring her news to the capital, teaching other animals signs and commands that the two-leggers could use to get information quickly if needed. She hardly noticed her growing middle most days, only realized that she had to forgo her belt and tie her breeches loosely to get them to stay up. She wore her shirts untucked, hiding her growing secret, and everyone seemed to be too busy in their own messes to notice.

She was sitting in the observation tower with Kitten one evening, wrapped in a cloak against the chill, which thankfully wasn't that brisk at the moment. She leaned against the wall, a thick journal and a pen and ink with her, carefully writing down notes as birds came to land on the railings around the deck. They were telling her their scouting reports about the Scanran forts, and she was trying to keep up with their quick chatter.

The door opened behind her but she ignored it, fully focused on a cardinal in front of her. Kitten let out a happy chirp as someone sat beside her. She broke off with the cardinal to see Numair settling in. He scooted close and she smiled at him, instantly warmed. Kitten came around their legs and scurried into his lap.

"Don't let me interrupt," he said, and kissed her cheek, then gave Kitten a small kiss on the top of the head as well.

"Actually, if you want to write, I can tell you what they are saying. That may save me some trouble."

"I would be happy to."

She gave him the writing tools and the journal and he arranged them around the dragon in his lap. She then called the cardinal to rest on her fingers and translated its reports.

After another hour of translating and note taking, they were finished. Daine sent the last of the birds on their way as Numair set the journal and pen aside and pulled her more firmly against him. Kitten let out a screech and crawled out of his lap to go look over the observation tower's rail at something happening below. Numair used the opportunity to take a hand and feel her belly.

"It's getting bigger," he commented with a smile.

"That's the thing about being pregnant, it keeps growing."

He winced at his earlier words repeated. "I'm sorry if I was harsh, then. It was a lot to process in the moment."

She nodded. "It was. I forgive you, this time."

He kissed her gently. "Then I am very lucky, indeed."

She kissed him back until they heard the door open behind them. Numair pulled away reluctantly to look at the red-faced runner who approached.

"My lord would like to invite both of you to dinner, in an hour."

Numair nodded as Daine snuggled her head against his shoulder. "We will be there, thank you." The runner left and Daine noticed a flicker of his magic.

"What did you just do?" she asked.

"Sealed the door shut."

She giggled.

"How goes your spy network, then?"

"Good, I think. I need to travel to Mastiff soon, to contact some animals there. I was going to leave by the end of the week. Could you come, too?"

He shook his head. "I have to return to Giantkiller to help Harailt with something. I'm sorry, dear. I don't think I will be able to stay with you much more than a few days." He hugged her closer. "Which is exactly why we can't get home quickly enough. Do you think you can have things finished in a few weeks?"

She nodded. "I do. I am actually planning to tell the king the next time I see him."

"Good." Numair put a hand under her chin and tilted her head back to look into his eyes. "Then we can go home, and sleep in our bed, and eat a good meal, and have a bath in a proper tub." He kissed her forehead.

"Do you think we could go to the tower, before the baby comes? I should be able to travel until the very end. I miss the tower sorely."

He nodded. "Perhaps we could for Midwinter."

Numair spent three days with her before he had to return to Giantkiller. Once he left, she took off to Mastiff, riding Cloud and taking her packs instead of shifting. She hoped desperately this would be their last stop before Corus.

She arrived and spent the first day contacting her usual spies, explaining her plans to them. They, in turn, brought her new animals to speak with, and she poured a bit of her magic into each of them. The second day, she imparted the routes to Corus she wanted her messengers to take, then set up a chain of command for the animals to communicate their findings with the messengers. She mostly used birds as spies, but other animals worked best to relay messages to people still on the ground. She spent two more days training other animals and a few select people to be able to communicate once she was gone. By the time the week was out, she had set up her system and felt proud of herself for how smoothly it was running. She had decided to send a message to the king the next week about her pregnancy, and request to return home before the snows locked them into the north.

Exhausted from a long week, Daine left the courtyard she had been sitting in and decided to take a nap before dinner. Her belly had continued to grow over the weeks, and tying her breeches was harder everyday. She had gotten some longer laces for them and was able to get a bit more room, but she had a feeling she was going to be relegated to dresses once she returned home. Thankfully, her other symptoms remained mild, except for overwhelming exhaustion. Daine had never been a morning person, but could usually force herself from the bed by the time the sun was up to start work. These days, that was nearly impossible. She usually had to grab something for breakfast just as the mess halls were finishing serving morning porridge. She had also found if she didn't get an afternoon nap in she would be too tired to eat dinner. It was an exhausting cycle of…well, exhaustion.

She had been headed up the stairs, Kitten scrambling ahead, when she saw Alanna come to the landing above her. She smiled as they made eye contact and hurried up the flight to embrace her friend, breathing a bit too heavily. Kitten chirped happily at their feet.

"I was wondering if I was going to run into you soon," Alanna was saying, when all the sudden she pulled away with wide eyes and put her hands firmly on Daine's belly. Daine felt her heart jump as she realized what the Lioness had realized. Of course she was able to tell - she was a healer, but also a female and a mother. Being around mostly men for the past few months, Daine had taken for granted how easy it was to hide her secret.

"Are you—"

"Shhhh!" Daine cut her off, and looked around to make sure they were alone. Once she was sure they were, she looked to her friend and smiled shyly. "Yes, I am, but not many people know yet."

"Daine! You weren't going to tell me!" Alanna looked hurt.

"Actually, I wanted you to be one of the first to know, but Numair desperately wanted to be the one to tell you. He's going to be so cross when he finds out." She giggled at the idea. "In fact, I'm rather glad you are here. I've been dying to talk to someone who's gone through this before. I have a fair many questions I don't feel comfortable asking the healer I have been seeing."

Alanna laughed. "Why don't you come to my room, then? I have some time now."

They talked for a while, Daine's nap forgotten. She asked her friend dozens of questions about all the changes in her body, the strange things she hadn't wanted to tell anyone, and was relieved to hear that they all were normal occurrences.

That evening, after Daine had grabbed a quick dinner and was getting ready for an early sleep, she felt something lurch in her belly. Her mind instantly told her body to shift - or maybe it was the other way around? She instinctually knew she needed to become an eagle, and so she did.

She landed to perch on the small chair in her room, her empty clothes settling onto the floor. Kitten cheeped at her in question. That was odd, she thought. She shifted back to human form. In the next breath, it happened again. She shifted to a wolf.

Shaking her canine head, she tried to work out what exactly was going on as Kitten came over to fuss at her in whistles. She shifted back human again. This time, when the urge to shift came over her, she resisted - and felt a stabbing pain in her lower belly, as sharp as a monthly cramp but far, far more terrifying. She shifted into a tiger as quickly as she could.

The baby! she realized. The baby was shifting inside her, and she was going to have to shift to keep it alive.

She figured out, after a few moments, that she could just shift her lower half with the baby. It was uncomfortable, and required a lot of thought on her part at first. She had to think about only changing everything below her ribs, and thankfully her womb shifted with it. After a few changes, she was able to do it with less thought.

Daine took a deep, steadying breath as she watched the bottom half of her body shift from one animal to the next. Stay calm, she told herself. She was alright. They baby was, hopefully, alright as well, though she definitely wanted someone to check after the awful cramping she had felt. She went to dig through her packs and found the one dress she had brought with her months ago from Corus. It was old and not fancy at all, and she had packed it in case she needed to wear it for some reason or another. Slipping it on, it almost fully covered her shifting half.

One problem solved, she told herself. Next, check the baby.

She trudged through the roughly built halls and stairs of the fort to Alanna's room, Kitten following. She knocked gently, and her friend opened the door. She still wore her clothes from eariler and had a polishing cloth and sword in her hand.

"I thought you were going to sleep," Alanna said, looking her dress over.

"I thought I was too," Daine said. She pushed into the room and shut the door. "Then this started happening." She pulled back her skirt to show her friend her legs, currently the thick hide and shape of an elephant's. In the next moment, it shifted to a brown bear.

"What are you doing?" Alanna asked, bewildered.

"It's not me! It's the baby!"

Alanna set her sword down. "The…baby is shifting?"

Daine nodded. "And I don't know how to make it stop."