Hideaway Strath where secrets lie in the border fires

Claiming howl thread! Awwwrrroooooo! This takes place the evening of March 31, 2017. Let’s flex them vocal cords.

THIS THREAD IS MANDATORY.

C’mere, @Arturo, @Chusi, @Rollo, @Olive, @Dakarai, @Lia, @Conan, @August, @Hemlock, @Cassiopeia, @Sirius, @Aries!

Not sure if we are close enough to Golden Glade to have a wild @Dagfinn appear, but it would be lovely if so. ♥

Home.

Lotte Ansbjørn Fearghal walked the northern perimeter of Teaghlaigh’s new home with a suspicious air, her coal-capped tail cricked in eloquent, if unspoken, discontent. Despite the intermittent rippling of her thin-stretched flanks and the cramps that doubled her over every few strides, she dug wide swaths in the soft earth with her talons and copiously scent-marked the bottlenecked stretch of neutral territory that sequestered the strath from the rest of the hinterlands. She was possessive — not only of the idyllic valley but of its largely uninhabitable neighboring territories. In her painfully gravid state, navigating the morass was difficult, but she cut into it with her border marking nonetheless until her soot-stockinged legs were damp with mire. The young mother-to-be moved like a woman possessed, her argent eyes glittering with a fierceness typically seen only on the battlefield, and she kicked her weary body into a trot as she moved east. This, too, she would take. She wanted the painted rocks and its gold-veined walls, and she made her wanting plain with rubbings of fur and smatterings of urine. She would encourage the Family to defend these territories as ardently as the vale itself. Teaghlaigh would build not merely a kingdom, but an empire.

A hiss tore from her lips; she curled in on herself as another gut-wrenching pain ripped through her. There was a small, fearful voice inside her that niggled and prodded at the wrongness she felt; dimly she knew that she should not be experiencing pains of this intensity, and she wondered in an endless tumble of paranoia and bitterness whether she was going to survive the birth of her children. Whether they would survive. Lotte licked her lips, saliva dripping in unattractive strings from her jaws as she panted harshly.

Typerää tyttö! Olet Banríon — käyttäytyvät kuin kuningatarta!

In triumph, in travail, Lotte set aside her fears and threw back her head. She had begged Arturo for this chance before they’d ever departed Ravensblood Forest, and he had granted it without blinking an eye. He waited now, she knew, for Lotte to lead the pack in victorious song as they proclaimed their ownership of this place. Scraping the bottom of her vocal register, the silver-tongued bard allowed her voice to soar in pitch and volume as she explored her extensive vocal range. Her warm, rich timbre leapt and dove, and when all the air in her lungs was spent, she hauled in another deep breath and started again. Sure, Lotte was showboating — but her motives weren’t entirely selfish. Just about 99.9% or so.