sick!”                                                                                 Still watching her pups intently, Leaf replied, “Oh, Oak. You male wolves will never understand! You get so worried about us! From the moment her pups begin to arrive, a mother knows just what to do. We don’t need any help”. Leaf looked up and smiled at him, amusement in her tired amber eyes.                                                                                                  Trying hard to think of what to say, Oak lowered his voice and said, “Well, there are plenty of females that have died giving birth, Leaf. What if something had happened to you? You know that I would have wanted to be there! And besides, they are my pups, too! I wanted to get to see them take their first breaths.”                                                                                                      Leaf shook her head. “They are only pups, Oak, and newborn ones at that. There are still plenty of firsts for you to witness yet—first steps, first sight, first howl…”                                                                                                      Leaf continued to ramble on about all the “firsts” in a wolf pup’s life, but Oak wasn’t listening. He was still recovering from his long wait for Leaf to respond.                                                                                                     “They are also our first litter. We have been alphas for only four years. There is more time yet…”                                                                                       Personally, Oak thought that four years was a very long time to be alpha.                                                                                                                  Suddenly, Leaf was interrupted from her rambling as look of intense pain crossed over her eyes, and she cried out, “Oh, Oak! I…I think there’s another one coming!”                                                                                   The worry he had felt before entering the den suddenly came flooding back to Oak as he placed a paw on Leaf’s side, trying to stay calm.               “It’s okay, Leaf! Just do what you did earlier, and you’ll be fine!”                                                                                                                               But the she-wolf needed no help. Just as she had said, she knew what to do.                                                                                                                            Though she would cry out in pain every once in a while, she seemed to have no trouble at all delivering the last pup.                                                          In no time at all, the birth was finished. After taking a deep breath, she looked down at the new arrival. Still wet, slightly bloody, and shivering with cold, the little pup yelped, gasping for breath.                                                                 “Well, dear,” Leaf said, “It seems as if you were able to witness your pup’s first breaths after all.”                                                                                                                          Finally satisfied, Oak stared at his new daughter. “She’s beautiful,” he