Bearly Names

They'd called in Gilean to help, but Mirin was too focused on the  sheer strain her body was enduring to realize her dad was peeking at her undercarriage.  Though she'd been calmed and had a great deal of the raw pain taken away, Mirin still had to focus when the contractions came.  She had no time to talk, no time to think.  Her body was on autopilot and she a mere slave to its whims.

In less than thirty minutes, Mirin and Orn were staring dumbfounded ino two scrunched, red, and disgruntled little faces - a boy and a girl - while Gilean looked on with pride.  A newly arrived Sanria flew about the room like a twittering bird, perching first on Orn, then Mirin to look at the tiny works of art.

Only when the babies opened their mouths to cry in unison did the full weight of the situation finally hit Mirin.  No one was going to come carry the babies away - these were hers.  She was to feed them, tend them, care for them, protect them, and love them... she and Orn.

Sanria and Gilean gone, the twins sleeping between them, Mirin looked at Orn and saw on his face absolute love.  She felt a warmth in her heart as she realized this family was her own.  They were the new Stones.  'We still need to name them,' she telepathed. "Well... I was hoping we could name the boy Reggie..."

Mirin thought back to all the time spent with Orn's bear, all the times Reggie the bear had teased about Orn and Mirin making cubs. He'd never see the perfection of that truth.  'Reggie and Regina,' she telepathed.
"Both Reggie?" Orn asked with a grin.
'I think Reggie would like knowing he had two cubs with his name.'
"Yeah... he would."

New Arrivals

The day the twins came into the world had been, up to their arrival, fairly normal for Mirin.  She slept in the inn room she and Orn called home, lost in a fog of tired exhaustion.  The pair of tiny magical bodies in her belly pulled the energy from her and the more they grew, the more rest she needed.  From all appearances, she wasn't pregnant with twins.  Mirin looked like any other pregnant lady, which spoke to the small size of the infants within.  Though she'd anticipated being huge, she had been fortunate to get the esper-sized infants; small and magical.

Even though the twin's arrival was inevitable, Mirin still did not  believe it would happen to her.  She hadn't been ready to become a mother before and she still wasn't.  There was nothing in the room to suggest babies were on their way - no clothes, no cribs, no discussion of names.  So it was when the cramping began, then the slow spread of stomach muscles tightening until they felt like stone and Mirin burned with an unfamiliar pain.  She knew but she didn't - all the signs were alight, she wasn't positive she wanted to see them.

'Orn,' Mirin called.  'I need your help.'  Her husband showed up  looking her over with the same untrained birthing eyes as every first time father.  Oblivious.
"You look like you're about to puke, do you need a bucket?"
'I think they're coming...'
"Who's coming?"
'The babies.'
"The..."  And Mirin watched Orn's face pale.