There must be something I can do! The screams are driving me mad, and the terrible pain and pressure will not relent. Not to mention the anxiety, which I think is coming from both Giraffe, who has been increasingly worried all afternoon, and now from Meerkat as well.

The screams are growing weaker.

Meerkat is shouting, “Push! Push!”

I’m going into the hut, no matter what Meerkat says!

Later

I didn’t quite make it to the hut when there was a feeling of breaking through, followed by a new sound, a high squall. Songbird’s screaming ceased. Heart pounding, I pushed my way into the hut.

The smell of blood filled my nostrils, and Songbird looked very small in the corner of the hut. But I saw her chest rise and fall, and a smile lit her face as she bent over a tiny, red creature scarcely recognizable as human, the cord connecting mother and baby still pulsing. Meerkat was bent over the two, doing something with the cord, and I backed out before she saw me. Songbird’s pain was still there, but overlain with joy, and Meerkat’s anxiety had changed to satisfaction.

I think we will all live.