Chaos Born

June 23rd

June 22nd...23rd.

Jules' soft paw on her brow was a welcome relief in Aleena's hot state as she concentrated on breathing and witholding the urge to kick the covers off her and cool off her damp furred body.

She had given birth an hour ago and yet she still felt as though it had all happened in the past five minutes.

The residents of Christmas Isle, people who had never lain eyes on a baby hedgehog, had heard the news that Aleena Bernadette Hedgehog, wife of Julius the Hedgehog, had gone into labour in the late hours in the evening of June 22nd, nestled away in their private cottage with only the doctor and the nurse to attend to them.

The first hoglet had arrived smoothly and the second had come shortly after at a quarter to midnight.

But there had been a wait for the third which eventually arrived at 7 minutes after midnight which meant, techincally speaking, it had been born the following day after its siblings, on June 23rd.

All in all, it had taken a toll on the new mother and she was utterly exhausted, wondering why her adrenaline hadn't kicked in.

"How are you, sweetheart?" Jules asked in a low voice, moving his mouth close to his wife's ears.

"Tired," Aleena breathed, her tan chest rising and falling as a smile appeared on her face, "But happy. What of the children?" Her eyes opened, already fixated on her husband where she had sought his voice behind her closed lids.

"They said they would bring them along soon," Jules told her comfortingly, stroking her quills and gazing at her adoringly, still unable to comprehend that such a beauty had agreed to marry him and bear his children.

"They all made it?" she asked.

Her husband nodded. "All three."

"Have you seen them?"

"I briefly saw the first. Looked just like you."

The sound of the bedroom door opening commanded their attention.

"Mr and Mrs Hedgehog?" the squirrel nurse said softly, "Your hoglets are here."

Swaddled in cloth, one in the crook of each elbow, were two bundles. Closer inspection, once they were delivered into the waiting arms of their parents, revealed two newborn hoglets, soft-spined and squeaking, blind eyes pressed shut. The nurse had cleaned them up and checked them over thoroughly but showed no signs of having any worrying conditions or problems. 

As many other new parent before them, Jules and Aleena fell in love.

Jules had been right about their daughter, the first of the litter; she was a miniature Aleena and already promised her mother's gifted beauty.

The son, a small scrap of a character with blazing green fur, looked more like his father's side of the family though he, like his sister, was the latest in a long line of pedigree, Purebred Hedgehogs.

Other distant branches of the Hedgehog Family Tree had interbred with other species, as was common among most Mobians, resulting in descendents that may have carried the genes of other animal races.

The First Line of Hedgehogs, however, back in the past, only ever married within their own distant families to ensure that their geneology was 100% hedgehog.

Seeing as Aleena and Jules, and now their children, were the only ones left of that line, it was safe to say that the Purebred Hedgehog trait would come to a close. Even if one of their litter ended up marrying another hedgehog one day, their mate would not have been from the First Line and would therefore have other species in their genealogical history.