I needed a distraction from the rancid smell of blood and bear intestines, so I answered, despite the squirm of my gut tightening.
"I did. They all died."
His knife, gently peeling the skin off the back legs, flinched.
"I, I'm so sorry. I shouldn't've..."
"It's fine," I said as lightly as I could to put him at ease. "They all died before they were born, either as miscarriages or stillbirths. I had four." I yanked a little too hard on a bone and got the oh-so-fun sensation of wet tendon and fat squeezing past my knuckles. "Uck."
After a few more quiet minutes of fur peeling, watched on by Mama Puff and her nearly grown Pufflets, Dulcet shifted around so we were working shoulder to shoulder in order to show me how to cut through the slipper connective tissue right.
"So...you had a husb
