Ravensblood Forest look how long this love can hold its breath

Set after Lotte’s joining thread but before Chaska and Evelyn’s. @Arturo and @Chusi, maybe? ♥

The burnt and bedraggled songbird lay listlessly on her side in the shadows of her new home, grimly clinging to life. As expected, the pads of her paws blistered and eventually sloughed, leaving raw, red flesh in their wake. Standing was agony. Walking was largely impossible. Thanks to Dakarai’s quick thinking, the burns along Lotte’s flanks, shoulders, and hips were all but healed — but the Ansbjørn girl wouldn’t be scouting or singing in the foreseeable future. Every day was an active fight. The first few days had been the worst: she had drifted in and out of consciousness, coughing and vomiting by turns, and every breath had been a struggle. Even now, approximately two weeks after the fire, her concave flanks forcibly pushed and pulled air with an unnatural amount of effort and a grisly rattling could be heard with each breath.

Although Lotte would never admit it to Dagfinn or Arturo, she’d briefly entertained the worry that she would die this way — but some of her natural pluck had returned to her as breathing got easier and she regained the ability to relieve herself with dignity. Her pelage, dusty and ragged with lost muscle mass, was threadbare and patchy where the fire had burnt it away — but her eyes glimmered with renewed brightness as a light snow began to fall, settling upon her dirty fur like stardust. She didn’t feel like wasting energy by lifting her head, but her coal-colored tail began a rhythmic thwpp-thwpp-thwpp! as the flakes tangled in her lashes and tickled her nose. Swallowing the mirthful laughter that curved her lips in a smile, wary lest it send her into a fit of coughing, she thought of Arturo and Chusi — they were a united force and a constant presence in her life now, though her memories of the past few weeks were spotty and blotted out with indelible ink. She wanted Dagfinn, but he was with her — he was the Laughter that waited patiently for its time and swelled her heart. I will come find you soon, my twin, she vowed, and we will climb mountains.