Noctisardor Bypass kids are sad, the sky is blue, there are monsters in the spare bedroom

As Druid walked along a dappled path through Nightwatch Point, a realization struck her like lightning, despite the cloudless blue sky: she hadn’t seen @Etienne in days. She stopped in her tracks, trying to think of the last time she’d crossed paths with him. Her stomach curdled. She hadn’t seen him since before @Glaukos’s visit.

Had the bearish man done something to him? Maybe it was mere coincidence, though Druid began to run, cutting through The Pharmacy. She squinted against the bright glare when the trees thinned, quickly ducking into the shaded relief of Dawnleaf. She raced toward the den, eager to talk to @Heda and pick her brain.

When she arrived, she paused by the door and realized she probably should’ve called for @Anselm. If anyone knew the man’s whereabouts, it would be him. Heck, maybe she should’ve called out to the pack in general. Somebody must know something.

Hoping Etienne himself might answer from some hidden corner of the bypass, Druid raised her voice. She queried after him and, for good measure, invited all the members of Rivenwood to respond to her role call.

"he left a while ago. let us know he'd be back. needed to get away, i imagine." who could blame him after all this?
she had tried not to think about glaukos at all, but it was so hard. seeing him forced heda to realize how much of his markings, his eyes, his bearing were among the four kids he'd sired for druid. kikimora almost especially, or perhaps it was because the girl was often among ezra and gideon.
finishing up with a cache where she had placed a new squirrel, heda stretched and tried again, not to think of the giant man or wonder if he'd be back.

Oh, Druid said, head turning sharply at her sister’s voice, thank goodness. A forepaw came up to her chest, settling over her thundering heart. Do we know why he went? she asked, brow furrowing now.

He’d needed to get away, Heda said. Druid supposed she could understand that, though she wondered if anything in particular had prompted the Oak’s departure. She pondered this as her heart settled and her paw drifted back down to the ground.

She padded over to join Heda, taking a seat. Druid wondered if anyone might yet reply to her call. It might draw some of their pack mates from the woods. Her lips pursed as she gazed off into the trees, thinking.

Looking back to Heda, she said, Hey, I keep meaning to tell you that if you want to talk about the other day, we can. If you’d rather not, we don’t have to. Druid paused. Maybe some of the others will show up and we can hire a sitter, go scope out Sequoia’s Site and start making preparations?

heda shook her head, feeling as though it were obvious why etienne had left but not wanting to say that for fear of coming off more aggressively than she meant.
dinah was still gone.
druid mentioned the other day, couching it in a need for heda, but her sister assumed that was only a ruse. druid needed to talk about it, and so the red-nape turned an open face to her sibling. "how are you feeling about him just showing up?" heda asked softly. "and yes, i'd love to start there. the kids should know it's safe to go as far as they want in the bypass now."

Was it safe? What if Glaukos turned up again without warning? He’d gone willingly both times, though Druid felt a foreign feeling pulse through her: paranoia. She suddenly wanted to renege on her very own suggestion, though instead she took a deep breath and considered Heda’s question.

It freaked me out, Druid said candidly after a moment. I still don’t understand why he came back. He said he wanted to meet them, she recounted, but why didn’t he want to meet them the day they were born? You were always so much more of a partner to me than he was. I know he took care of us and I don’t mean to discount that. But he was never there for us in the ways we—or at least I—really needed more than anything.

Her feelings were still complicated and convoluted to this day. Druid hadn’t made sense of many of them until after the fact, in part because the weeks before and after the pups’ arrival had been so fraught for her. She’d suffered greatly, barely survived. She knew Glaukos had helped her with that, as far as bringing her meat and guarding the bypass. But he’d only done the bare minimum, without seeming to notice her incredible struggle.

And then he went after Etienne, she concluded on a breathy note, and Anselm. I guess that was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

She shook her head, sighed. Her eyes then found Heda’s, silently inviting her to share her thoughts on the matter.

met at once with druid's admission of fear, heda was captured by the fact that she did not share this terror of glaukos, and never had. she refused to let the lid jump off the proverbial chamber pot of resentful thoughts around the bearwolf, and only listened to her sister as objectively as she could.
she said nothing as druid commented on her own contributions, only reaching to clasp their paws together in a familiar way. it had been her role, heda felt; leaving druid to deal with pups alone went against every instinct of wolf and woman that she possessed, not to mention her sense of familial kinship with those puppies themselves. she was their auntie and second mother; she wanted to be that.
"i didn't expect his violence, druid," heda said at last, and honestly. "and i don't think he did either. maybe that's why he came back. he clearly — doesn't know how to apologize. but he lost something when he did that to anselm and etienne and you. he's just seeing it now, maybe, when it's too late. i know you just had an arrangement? but — things change."

Druid squeezed Heda’s paw right back, grateful for this person who’d been there this whole time. She might have survived without Glaukos’s support but she knew she wouldn’t be here if not for Heda.

That’s what makes it even more complicated, she said on a sigh. I don’t think Glaukos has evil intentions. She let that hang between them a moment, a reassurance unto herself to dispel that feeling of disquiet. I just can’t trust him anymore. And once trust is broken, I don’t know that there’s any coming back from that.

“Things change,” Heda advised, earning a speculative look from Druid.

Maybe he—maybe even you—didn’t know just how much I struggled with everything. I didn’t mean to keep it from either one of you… Wait, that was a lie. I mean, I didn’t tell either one of you how badly I felt after they were born. I kept waiting for it to get better. And it did, eventually. After I made Glaukos leave, actually. But my mind was in a very, very bleak place there for a while, Druid finally confessed.

"i sensed it, i think," heda admitted. "i didn't really understand. i think it's because i had so many more but i didn't feel that way. but i know now it was because caracal was so devoted to them too, i never felt alone with him."
well — she faltered — until the end.
refusing to crumble in front of druid, she cleared her throat and invited her sister in for a hug. "thanks for telling me. i know it was hard to feel that and harder to say anything about it."
and that was true, and she felt good to provide a safe place for her sibling to express herself. "i don't think glaukos will be back. but i'm not sure what to do if he does."

Don’t worry, I didn’t understand it either, Druid assured, and I really only realized just how bad it got after the fact. I didn’t realize how detrimental it was for Glaukos to be so hands off. Just because I didn’t want romance didn’t mean I didn’t want love, especially for the children.

When Heda pulled her into a hug, Druid’s breath hitched in her chest. Tears sprang to her eyes, though they weren’t necessarily the sad sort. Did her sister realize just how much she meant to her? She liked to think she told her all the time, though such a thing could never be overstated.

I hope you’re right. Let’s not worry about that right now, though. Let’s focus on how lucky we are to be here with one another. I’m so glad we both found our way back here. I know things haven’t been easy. Boy, do I know. But at the risk of sounding incredibly cheesy, I know everything will be okay, as long as we have each other.

as long as we have each other.
heda supposed that there was nothing that could stand against such a sentiment, and she tried to embrace it with all of her.
it meant trusting druid to watch over the parts of heda she could not see herself, a role that she had assumed that caracal would always have; she found it hard to reconcile the two.
"you can find love again," she ventured. "when they're older, when you feel more ready. and love doesn't have to mean kids," heda even volunteered, despite the fact that it had always been that way for her.

Oh, Druid replied, shaking her head as she gently pulled free from the embrace to sit back, I don’t really want that. I mean, I want love in my life, of course, but it doesn’t have to be romantic or come from a man. I enjoy the little family we’ve built and I’m not looking for anything else, she assured.

She paused to consider her own words. For so long, she hadn’t needed anybody’s company save her own. Would she find herself totally alone again one day? The kids would surely grow up and go their own ways. Druid couldn’t imagine parting ways with her sister now, though it occurred to her that Heda might find a more traditional partnership. That’s what she wanted, so she should have it, along with more kids.

Let’s not worry about that right now, though, she said to herself this time.

I was out patrolling when I worked myself up over Etienne. I should probably get back to it, she mentioned after a moment, peering out the doorway.