The Sunspire i heard that you were in town

Then, Forrest did the most spectacular thing: she didn’t judge. Not that Olive believed her friend would judge her, no, it was more that Olive questioned who wouldn’t be able to abstain from passing judgment upon her? A single mother of, what did Dakarai call it again — a bastard litter? Oh, yeah, that. The worst part of it was that Dakarai hadn’t even been wrong about it, because she was alone, to either raise these puppies or watch them die at her feet. Though Olive loved motherhood and babies and everything about it, the stigma and the unspoken assumptions that came along with her solitude was almost unbearable. 

— or, it would be, when her packmates eventually came to their full understanding. Until that time, it was only she who made herself feel this way, Olive realized with despair.

The elder midwife gave the younger no reason to be untruthful. “I— I don’t know his name…” she said sheepishly, wondering what Forrest would make of this. “I don’t know where I’d even find him.” The man, though she had met him thrice, remained as anonymous to her as would be a stranger. She knew nothing about him, not his name or his allegiances, where his family was from or his favorite food. He had a way of engaging in conversation that challenged her splendidly and encouraged her to think, but did so without revealing an iota of information about himself. It had been a fantastic act, and Olive had no problem succumbing to it, at the time. “He doesn’t need my trouble, anyways. I’m bad news.” That, however, was another story entirely.

The shrouded sylph wanted to get out in front of it, to tell her packmates before they started to smell it upon her, but there was such a risk in doing so… and she always wanted to keep the sanctity of her bliss with Sunspire for just one more day. In the three weeks since their conception, Olive nearly convinced herself that the only possible outcome to this fiasco was her banishment from the beautiful, springtide mountaintop. This, however, she considered a survivable offense — the real pain came from her once more unavoidable separation from Cassiopeia. It seemed that the two were never able to remain in the other’s life for more than a month or two at a time, and it was truly sorrowful for she loved her daughter so. Certainly it was all part of the gods’ bigger plan, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t going to hurt like hell.

Then, an idea Olive hadn’t yet considered creeped into the back of her mind. “Forrest, you don’t think they’ll be… k— killed…”  she took a deep breath. “or banished…” It was the same fate, swung from a different axe. The thought was almost too tragic to bear. It didn’t seem as though Rannoch or Liffey or Terance were capable of committing infanticide, but hadn’t she thought the same thing of Arturo — and hadn’t she been wrong? “Do you?” Here, the lamb drew her lip between her teeth, appearing to be truly disconcerted.