Hideaway Strath when we arrive, sons and daughters

His head lifts towards his mother when she teases him for eating grass though her words are mostly little more than adult gibberish to him; though his understanding is developing. He knows when he hears the sounds that combined make up his name: roar—ick that they mean him; but this is simply because it’s the most important word he knows (because it’s his word). Roarke’s attention is abruptly divided as his mother upheaves regurgitated meat and his siblings flock to it — Molly pushing aside his snowdrop twin but a lift of his lip is all he can manage because Ceallach is quick to step in and encourage Eiri that she, too, can eat. Simultaneously, the winter’s bane notices the new child. He is slightly older than them and though he recognizes him in the vague way Roarke recognizes everyone that isn’t immediate family he feels a violent flare of envy and protectiveness — though he has no words for these things — rocket through him when the older boy rushes over to Lotte and paws at her. He forgets about the food, instead pulls himself up to his full height, puffing out his chest with raised tail and barks sharply at the older boy, low growls emitting from his throat. Back off my mum, his bristled hackles and curled lip command of Sirius, pudgy muscles tense beneath his frosty pelage, prepared to rush at the older boy if he does not cease and desist bothering (in Roarke’s mind) Lotte. For that instant, he does not realize he is smol. Roar thinks he is tol, as big and as strong as Lotte and as fearless as the mobster he will be artfully grow to be.