Hideaway Strath the sweet escape is always laced with a familiar taste of poison

What are timelines, probably bringing this a little more up to date. This is vague. Set after this.

The next thing Mallaidh remembers is standing within the safety of her home’s borders. In the dark, she can’t tell how far in she is but she knows she’s in and that’s all that matters in the moment. Slowly, she turns her head to the left and glances over her shoulder but the memory is nothing more than a fog. The fur at the base of her neck feels heavier than anywhere else and her limbs are sore. Tired, heavy-lidded eyes fall lax from her former wide eyed and dead stare she’d had for the last… well, however long it had been.
 
The uncertainty weighs heavy in her stomach, remembering the monster that crushed her to the ground. Her mouth pools with saliva, licking it back and setting her jaw. She sets her tired paws into motion to try and navigate through the thick brush of the forest. Tracking in the dark hasn’t yet come up in any of her lessons and so she does her best to focus her weary mind but she never finds her way to the rendezvous site.
 
Exhaustion hangs to the back of her eyes and eventually she gives up on her hunt, finding a tree with high roots that create a nook at the base. She gives a few weak digs at the ground to try and soften the spot but the half-hearted attempts are put to rest as she drops her body like a sack of potatoes.

*stealz ur threads*

Ever since Roarke’s disappearance, Astik has been on a personal high alert for any signs of the missing child but there is something in the pit of the rook’s stomach that tells him the boy isn’t just going to wander back to Teaghlaigh by mere happenstance. He has been gone for so long now that it is very likely he will never be coming back; but the rook is dutiful and keeps his negativity to himself. If he was a father would he want some punk ass teenager telling him to “abandon all hope” even if it was realistic? No. No, he wouldn’t. It was likely he’d pummel said punk teenager into the dirt. The titan moves forth, catching the scent of one of the three remaining Lotturos and follows it, wondering why the girl is alone and not with her parents or a sibling. Amber eyes fall upon her where she is collapsed against the roots of a tree and Astik lets out a low, crooning rumble. “Hey, are you ok?” He does not know her name. He does not mingle with the Ceannasach’s children despite that he very much desires to be a pup-sitter. Tapat and his short term memory loss is a full time job besides. He steps forward slowly, unsure if she is even awake. He gently extends his muzzle to nudge her if she allows the contact. “It's not safe for you out here.” She was safe in the Strath but there were plenty of predators of other species lurking about that would greedily snatch a wolf pup if given the opportunity.

Mallaidh struggles to find comfort in her spot. The roots are protruding beneath her but the two surround her little form and act as much of a barrier as she can manage. All she wants to do is find her parents and her siblings and curl up somewhere in the middle but even that idea feels wrong. What will they think of her? What did she think of herself? She can barely entertain the thoughts as she squirms and eventually settles in a position that is the best she can manage, even if it is not enough. The exhaustion keeps her still though the anxiety keeps her far from sleep but she doesn’t have the focus to note the change around her as another wolf approaches.
 
Her eyes fly open and she jerks to attention the moment she hears the words, even if she does not understand them right away. None of the other’s words have filtered into her ears and she growls, flashing her teeth. The size difference between herself and the other is the last thing on her mind and she certainly doesn’t have the energy in her weary bones to fight him off, but his demeanor doesn’t show he’s going to attack. Still, his unfamiliarity is not welcome, even in her home.
 
“Go the fuckin’ away!” she shouts, stumbling over tired and inexperienced words.

Arturo had been patrolling the borders when he’d came across Malliadh’s scent. He gives a pause to inhale at it, the myriad of unfamiliar scents that mingle ( perhaps faintly ) and he is struck with an equal measure of relief and quieted fury as he turns abruptly and abandons his patrol to follow her scent trail. It does little to soothe the worry, fury and relief — each emotion waging a war with each other within him until Arturo is a miasma of conflicting emotions and is left unsure which is the strongest — as he scents Astik’s trail mingling with his youngest daughter’s own. He arrives on the scene as Molly screams at Astik to go away ( alas using an explicit that he wishes she wouldn’t have despite that it is one of his favorite words ) and the large, lumbering young man, seemingly unsure of what to do with her, catches sight of her, lowers his tail in submission and departs leaving Ceannasach and Molly alone. Gaze of burning twin suns focuses upon her, an image of her mother, and as he grapples with which emotion he wants to display his lips are terse and his gaze is intense expecting her to stop at the sight of him now that Astik has departed. “Language, Mallaidh.” Arturo reprimands her, ready to follow should she continue scrambling away.

Something like madness has taken hold of the former queen’s psyche, for not one, not two, but three missing children weigh heavily upon her. Sirius’ departure is taken as something more like betrayal, but Hemlock and Arturo will never know why. The fact remains that he is gone now even after her attempt to blackmail him to remain, and this time if he returns Lotte will not be so forgiving, child or no. Roarke, her shapechanger son, has been missing so long she finds little choice but to accept what seems unacceptable: he must be dead. To add injury to injury, while grappling with this, she somehow managed to lose track of Mallaidh, her mirror daughter, so much closer and dearer to her than the snowdrop — despite her maternal instinct to quell such favoritism. The little smoke-and-silver’s absence has struck a telling blow. What a spectacular, singular failure she is, to have lost her daughter, her son, and her sister-mate’s ward in one fell swoop. She could almost laugh.

“Go the fuckin’ away!”

“Malladih?” she breathes, thinks she maybe screams it. She doesn’t mind the language — it isn’t a curse in her native tongue, so she finds it more endearing than she probably should. Mallaidh speaks like her father, and Lotte remembers with a start that she has a husband who she loves and his name is Arturo. The soturi’s paws are bloodied and bruised as she careens into the territory from another trip far and away to look for any of the lost three. She doesn’t remember leaving the strath and isn’t honestly sure how long she’s been away. She’s away more often than not now, always searching, and she blinks at her daughter — who has grown even in the short time she’s been gone — and her husband as if she’s waking up from some deep, deep slumber and isn’t quite sure where she is or who they are.

It’s not a permanent mental shift but something closer to exhaustion that clouds her silver eyes until they sharpen with recognition and their usual glint of intensity. “Rakas,” she says with incredulity lacing her tone. She feels guilty. She has failed him in so many ways. “Oh, my little ember, my daughter,” she croons to the fierce little warrior in the language of the tundra, alternately switching to the common tongue without rhyme or reason.

“Where did you go? Why did you go away?”

The wolf, almost immediately, turns and leaves her alone but it is barely seconds that her father’s force gives her warning. Her ears, if possible, pressed more against her head as she withdraws. She can’t find it in herself to look at him and so she focuses on something in front of her, the way the root hooks out of the soil and back down, but it is temporary as Lotte suddenly overwhelms her. The girl’s tail tip swishes back and forth and she whines, leaning in to her comfort. It is not the rendezvous site and her siblings are not present, but it is close enough.
 
“I did not go far,” she says, quietly in a fashion not suitable for Mallaidh. She closes her paling eyes and leans into the chest of the angry lion and stays there until she’s moved.

Arturo’s attention briefly slides from his daughter to his wife as she arrives on the scene and greets him and then inquires the words that had next been lingering upon the gangster’s lips for Molly. The girl responds that she did not go far and Arturo’s lips tugged down in a disapproving frown. “Far or not, Mallaidh, you know better than to wander outside of Teaghlaigh’s borders.” It is on the tip of his tongue to ( sharply ) remind her of what had happened to Roarke because he does not wish to lose another child and be stuck in the limbo of wanting to believe they are alive but needing to believe they are dead in order to move on. For the sake of his girls, he doesn’t bring up Roarke but it hangs unsaid and is obvious that the rebellious lotturo was the reason for the tightening of the children’s restrictions. “What were you thinking?” He asks, a sudden frustration rising in his chest and displaying in the furrow of his brow.

Mallaidh mutters something underneath her breath when Arturo speaks to her. It is not necessarily intentional to shy away from him so much as Lotte’s fur blocks her words. The girl closes her eyes and tucks herself further into her mother’s chest. She simply wants to go back home and go to sleep, shedding the memories of the day and leaving them behind. Slowly, she uncurls her narrow form and, keeping closer to her mother than her father, the three of them make their way back to the rendezvous site.