Hideaway Strath here for evermore

Breezing through Lotte posts. I am sorry for the lackluster quality!

New idea to give each child a song. Molly’s is “In Country Sleep” by Dylan Thomas.

Lotte watched with rapt amusement as her firstborn daughter drifted seamlessly into slumber, and the first notes of a song came to the smoke and shadow bard. It would be forever memorialized as Mallaidh’s song. She hummed a few bars, sussing out lyrics, and meandered through them on a test run.

“Sleep, good, for ever, slow and deep, spelled rare and wise,
my girl ranging the night in the rose and shire
of the hobnail tales: no gooseherd or swine will turn
into a homestall king or hamlet of fire
and prince of ice
to court the honeyed heart from your side before sunrise
in a spinney of ringed boys and ganders, spike and burn — ”

Her thoughts were pulled toward Ceallach as he latched on and began to nurse, and a fond smile crossed her lips as she bent to press them to the boy’s fragile crown. “Ceallach,” she murmured, crooning to him in a loving growl. As often as possible, she used the cubs’ names in association with tactile displays of affection. Eventually they’d come to know her voice, her touch, and their names in one fell swoop — at least, that’s what Lotte assumed. At this stage of the game, although she chattered to them in the language of the tundra as often as the common speech of the Teekons, she was careful to speak their first names clearly and slowly, with as much significance as they could muster. They could learn about their middle names later.