Mothering instinct

Obviously, at first, Wei Wuxian assumed it was another batch of kittens. “They need to be fed through the night, Wei Gongzi,” Wen Ning had explained earnestly, “and I don’t need to sleep.”

As if the unfortunate necessity of sleep was what kept most people from making themselves responsible for every abandoned litter of kittens in the world.

Wen Ning, somehow, always seemed to be tending to a goat with a disgustingly infected eye, or a lame cow.

“Well, I’m not a real doctor, but I know some things,” he would say, and then somehow he’d have two ducks underfoot for a winter. “She won’t migrate without him,” he’d said, like that was an explanation.

Anyway, he had heard the small sounds, and Wen Ning’s, “Ah, who-” before he pushed the door open, and then registered Wen Ning’s sudden alarmed hunch over his lap. It was such a bizarre look of panic that for a moment he thought he had caught Wen Ning–

On the floor? Kittens?? he thought, confused. The sounds were definitely continuing, although Wen Ning was frozen.

His curiosity was now irreversibly engaged, and besides, Wen Ning with a secret was too much to resist. “Wen Ning?” he said, bounding up, before Wen Ning could hide the evidence.

At first he thought, kittens? again, confused, and then, because that wasn’t quite right, rabbit kits? But no, he realized, that wasn’t right either.

Their ears were little tags, not long or pointed, and their noses didn’t have fur. Their eyes were closed, and they were hard to distinguish apart from a squirming bundle, but he thought there were four or five.

Also, they were getting louder, the longer Wen Ning was frozen.

“Is it okay?” asked Wen Ning, a little hesitantly, partially uncurling.

Wen Ning was uncertain, he realized, because they were dogs.

Well, they obviously weren’t dogs, really. They would be, eventually, but for now–

It was odd, he thought, a bit distantly. He could feel the place where his fear should be. Some part of him was alarmed at its absence. He felt a little dizzy, but–

He didn’t feel–

He sat down suddenly, thumping Wen Ning with his knee by accident on the way down.

“Those,” he said. “They’re–”

“Is it okay?” Wen Ning asked, again.

Wei Wuxian reached out a finger, slowly, toward the squirming mass. He could feel his pulse thundering, but it didn’t– It felt like something unrelated to him, not something that meant anything here and now. It felt–

He touched one of the noses. It was wet. The nose half split open into a tiny mouth, and started trying to suck on his finger.

“That one’s the best sucker,” said Wen Ning. “She’s the loudest, too.”

Wei Wuxian stared at his finger. It was inside a dog’s mouth. It wasn’t that he wasn’t panicking, there was something very like panic ringing in his ears and pounding through his veins, it was just that somehow it wasn’t–

“Do you want to feed her?” asked Wen Ning, after it became very apparent that Wei Wuxian, for once in his life, had nothing to say. “Luckily the ewe is still in milk, but she won’t let them latch, so if you’d give her the wool to suck, I can work on the rest.”

Somehow Wei Wuxian had a small warm… thing. A small scrap of life, that might someday be a dog, in his lap, with a rag soaked in milk dripping up his sleeve. The puppy nursed like it was her only goal in life.

Her eyes were squeezed shut, and somehow the action of nursing caused her ears to flex against her tiny skull. She was so warm. She didn’t stop nursing if he gently stroked up a fingertip up her nose, barely touching, up between her closed eyes. She didn’t mind that his finger shook.

Before Wei Wuxian had to worry about what to do if she sucked the rag dry, she fell over in his hand, as if the very action of nursing had exhausted her. She waved her tiny legs lazily, like she might be dreaming of swimming.

“Ah,” said Wen Ning, juggling his puppies. He pointed with his chin at another pile of rags over by a basin. “You’ll need that to help her with the after.”

“The…?” said Wei Wuxian, since that didn’t seem like a real sentence.

“After they nurse, their mother licks their bottoms, to help them pass the nurse before from their guts and make room for the one in the their stomachs.” Wen Ning looked a little embarrassed as he said it, but not horrified, the way he really should, Wei Wuxian thought.

“You can use a rag, though,” he said. “You don’t have to lick.”