Sea Lion Shores 1957

Doe simply listened as the woman spoke, paw still resting over the flower-gift. Her eyes seemed darker in this overcast weather, no longer motlen gold, but pale, shadowy citrine - and they laid upon Olive as she gave her name and rank, and revealed from whence she came. A flicker of ears betrayed the Akhlut's indifference. Olive was all that she heard. The rank was gibberish to her, and her pack was already known to the red woman. But she asked, then - are you in pain? - and her voice was so soft and low that Doe's own spirit seemed to mellow, and she no longer appeared as a savage queen, but as a mother lain waste to the ravages of loss.

Yes, I am in pain, she thought, eyes eyes faraway and glassy as she tried to hold in a sob.

But it was not the pain of burned, tender flesh - not the pain that Olive thought that she perceived. The woman's wound-riddled body was the least of her pains, falling to the background in the turmoil of her emotions. Her heart had been ripped in so many directions in such a short period of time, and it was agony to think of her fallen friends, her absent leader, her missing daughter, and of the child that she'd murdered by entrusting it to the sea.

"Yes," she said quietly, the words harsh and gritty as her tongue and teeth tried to keep it to themselves. Yes, I am in pain.