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After handing the babies to Nyan, who has appeared to help, I stride toward the goats, eyeing the ones with the biggest udders. They do have milk. It’s just about getting the milk out of them. Azlan accompanies me, his expression curious.
“Do you have a head stall of any kind?”
“I can hold them.”
“Alright. They probably won’t appreciate it. We need some grain or other feed if you have it. A nice distraction as to what’s happening at their udders.”
Talking about goats is distracting me from the horrors of the situation, and the fact that if I can’t get milk out of these does there’s a very real chance I won’t be able to help the cubs, and I really want to help the cubs.
I pick the doe with the biggest udder. It only takes a few minutes to bribe her into being caught with food, and then Azlan holds the doe for me while I get down beside her and start working her teats with a gentle hand.
“Bleheheheh!” She makes a sound of complaint, but is actually relatively good to milk, all things considered. I keep working through the herd, though it makes my hands and forearms ache. Not all the goats are as good as the first one. They are not used to being handled, and their way of communicating that to me is to kick aggressively. They are also not natural dairy animals, which means they are not producing great amounts, but there is a good number of them, and I manage to get a gallon or so out by bribery, begging, and sheer desperation.
Of course there are no proper teats, but we make do with bottles and adapted sippers. They have technology and they are adept craftsmen, so when I explain that I need something rubbery and soft for a cub to suckle on, I have something within the hour.
In the meantime, the pride has been set into new order. The dead have been moved for burial, the sick have been moved into interior caves, and most of the youngsters have found male family, fathers, uncles, and others to look after them. There are just two babies whose mothers were taken by Leonidas and whose fathers were killed in the raid. They are too young to be weaned and must have milk.
I am watched carefully by a ring of curious and concerned Leonids who do not know who I am, besides the fact that Azlan declares me to be his mate, as I take the smaller and weaker of the two infant cubs and set him in my lap. He is whimpering softly, and I feel a welling of emotion in me as I imagine how awful it must have been for their mothers to have to make the decision to leave him and the others behind, not knowing what would become of them.
“It’s going to be alright,” I tell the cub, who is very fuzzy and absolutely adorable, with golden fur and bright blue eyes. He might be one of the cutest things I have ever seen in my entire existence. His little tail twitches when I bring the bottle of swiftly pasteurized milk to his mouth.
I fed Buttface when he was a baby. His mother was killed by a Growler, and if I had not taken him in he would have died of starvation and exposure. That experience has led me to know that an infant animal will not always take milk, even when hungry, if it is not from their mother.
“What’s his name? Does anybody know it?”
“Tonka,” someone says.
“Okay, Tonka,” I murmur. “This isn’t going to taste like you’re used to, but I promise it’s as good as I can do right now.”
His little flat nose flares a little as he scents the milk, and the claws on his paws extend with an instinctual response as he makes what looks like a reach for the bottle, but is actually an attempt to knead what his instincts are telling him is the teat.
Tonka latches almost immediately, which is excellent, because I can hand him over to Azlan and start with the next cub, Rex. Fortunately, neither one of the baby cubs is stubborn. They are both more than hungry enough to take their bottles. The whole process takes quite a while because their feeding is less efficient than it would be if their mothers were feeding them, but soon enough the babies are fed and dozing. I have the two in my arms, pleasant, hefty weights that fill me with tenderness.
Most of the crowd has drifted off toward a larger fire, where food is being prepared. They need to eat. Everybody here is absolutely starving from the effort of battle. Their reserves have been seriously depleted, physically, mentally, and emotionally.
Azlan and his brothers have adjourned nearby to further strategize. I haven’t dared move, so I sit by the small fire that was built in front of us while I fed the babies, and I hold them, and I hope for better days for us all.
I can hear them speaking, just faintly at the edge of my hearing. They’ve been talking about how formidable Leonidas is, and how the females will not be permitted to leave. According to Azlan and his brothers, there is no doubt in their minds that their father will kill the females he has taken rather than let them go.
After going around in circles on that topic for quite some time, Azlan comes to check on me.
“You look good with babies in your arms,” he says. “How are they doing?”
“They’re asleep,” I say, stating the obvious, because it feels like a miracle. Happy, fed cubs are all I could hope for. More than I could hope for. “Is everything okay?” I ask the question while knowing it is absolutely not okay.
“I am so proud of you,” Azlan says, not answering at all. “What you did today was…”
He is interrupted by Kain barging toward us, because Kain has absolutely no sense of timing, and because Kain has no boundaries at all.
“Shh!” I chastise him before he has the chance to boom something loudly and wake the babies. While they’re sleeping they don’t know anything is wrong. They can dream of their mothers, as I am sure their mothers dream of them.
Kain crouches slightly, indicating that he is going to be quiet by taking a sneaky position. “Thank you,” he whispers, looking me in the eye for the first time without any smirking, predatory intent. “We are fortunate to have a mother in our midst.”
“I’m not a mother yet.”
“You’re a mother to all those cubs who will now have life.”
“More like a milkmaid,” I say with a self-deprecating smile. I am glad that I have managed to help the babies. It will be work to keep them fed until their mothers can be freed, but it will be work of the satisfying, meaningful kind.
