Moons ago, when Eve had become pregnant, Sable had made sure to be there every step of her journey: they’d made sure she ate her fair share, rested enough, didn’t herself as she started to show and tried to keep her from stressing excessively when Chico turned traitor. Being alone, with only each other, meant Eve was at a high risk of not just losing the litter but her own life – Sable had thought they’d done well, even when Eve uprooted them abruptly and brought them both to the Kingdom… Yet, despite all their best intentions and attentiveness, Zinnia’s sibling had still been stillborn.

And now there were not only new cats in the Kingdom to worry about keeping healthy, one of them was pregnant too. Paranoia was not something that Sable was used to, nor something they enjoyed feeling — still, it's what drove them to seek someone out for once, because if they’re best was not enough to keep kits from being born dead…

They might need to find a new place for their family to live (because surely the former clan cats would be happier to blame the former outsiders than just call it coincidence?).

“Ottersplash.” A clan name, one that sits oddly and heavily on the smoke tabby’s tongue – the towering Medic does their best not to be openly disdainful in saying it though; if your former life kept you from being with your mate and eventually drove you to drastic measures, such as abandoning everything to be together, Sable didn’t understand why a cat would keep any reminders of it… Like a name.

But, they tried to placate themself, it had to mean something, that a clan cat would choose to leave their comfy life behind and come up here with her mate to have kits…

Sable literally bit their tongue, tasting blood while trying to ignore their glowering anti-clan bias for the moment; they couldn’t do their newfound job if they left their distrust cloud their judgment.

“You need a check-up.” Their yellow gaze rolled over her body, scanning with a practiced eye for any signs of injury or stress before settling pointedly on her belly – at less than a moon due (from what she told the Medic) she wasn’t showing just yet, but the gesture communicated enough.