Ravensblood Forest look how long this love can hold its breath

Lotte is in this position.

The scent of fresh meat no longer turned Lotte’s stomach, so when Chusi arrived with a plump rabbit dangling from her jaws, the soot-stockinged rogue greeted her eagerly. “Chusi,” she breathed, her glorious alto reduced to a thready whisper, “what a — fine hunter — you are!” She remained in lateral recumbency, deciding that having a conversation was more important than attempting to sit upright. These days the songbird had to pick her battles, and she made do with stretching out her neck and pillowing her chin on the earth to look at the ocher-eyed girl she loved so much. She parceled out her oxygen intake in slow, rasping breaths to keep from coughing and offered the snow-dappled Oidhre her proudest smile.

“I am — glad — you were in — Teaghlaigh — ” Lotte eked out with painful slowness, “ — when the — fire came.” It would have killed Arturo to lose his daughter and heir. “You are — so very loved — perhonen.” Moonbright eyes beamed happily at the little superhero with her cape of frost and snow. A thought occurred to the singed nightingale then — one that ought to have been addressed before now, but nobody could have suspected that her hand would be forced before spring. “You have been — my pikkusisko, Chusi,” she hedged, “but your — isä — has asked to — court me.”

A mischievous smile tipped up the corners of Lotte’s mouth, but they quivered with a new uncertainty. Would Chusi approve of the match? “You spoke of — your mother — and I would — ” The girl paused for breath, throat working as she curled in on herself and coughed heavily; when she could, she resumed her former pose, lapped at the snow to cool the burn, and continued. “I would not — seek to — replace anyone but — someday I — will have children — and they will — call me äiskä. I hope they — will call you — isosisko, Chusi.” Slightly embarrassed, and wholeheartedly wishing she wasn’t having this conversation in gasping fits and starts, Lotte popped the question: “If you wish — you can call me — äiskä too — but only if — you wish it.” Would it be uncomfortable for the swiftly growing warrior? Lotte hoped that the different language would make things a little less weird; after all, she was reasonably sure that Chusi had either had a mama, mommy, mother, or mom before — but never an äiskä.