Wolf RPG

The meat did her wonders. Even though the Dreamer had to masticate for her at first, feeding her as if she were one more child within this shelter, Wilwarin accepted the help and slowly, slowly, achingly slowly, her energy levels increased. The boys drank from her and she lay prone there.

The snow piled outside. It was warmer in the shelter than before; Dreamer was there, she recognized now. He was watching the storm, and she was watching him.

When she mouthed something, he would not see—and so Wilwarin tried to sit up, dislodging one of the boys from a teat, and listened as they squalled for her.

She had to sit there while he tended to the children, positioning them, having them latch. She felt slow, and so heavy, and wondered if this was how her body would be like from now on. The thought of never dancing in the grass again made her eyes shine with emotion; her lips pressed in to a frown as she looked at the two large children, who seemed to only grow.

When she glanced back to the Dreamer, it took another moment to compose herself and she breathed deeply, tasting the milky musk of her sons in the air and not much else.

I had a dream. Wilwarin mouthed.

I saw—I saw stars. I was. . . stars. My girls... spoke to me, sang—I, don't know. . . It didn't make any sense! She would go on to lean away from her babies and towards the man, for the comfort of his shoulder.

The star web? So he knew what this meant?

The explanation only brought to mind more questions, and she was too tired to ask them. What he spoke of, she trusted immediately. He had been there in some of the dreams—he had told her of the thread, once, in a time that felt like another life.

The girls. They said it was right. They were home.

Those tears threatened, again.

They were somewhere without her, and it was alright. It hurt to think home was not with her, though.

She dabbed her eyes against him, idly adjusting while the two boys ate away at her.

What about us? Wilwarin wasn't looking at him when she said this, and wasn't sure if he was looking; but she was too tired to reiterate the question. There was a deeper meaning there—not just the lack of a home, but the lack of anything resembling life.

Had she come back fully from the web?

What if all of this was dream too?

snow blew into the den. 

the dreamer felt the tangle of its cold in his fur.

"not yet." he looked at the shimmering gold lines which connected she and her sons, and him, and the web above.

"what is home to you, dancing fox? and, now that you can — well. i never asked. what is your name?"

Not yet.

She sighed against him, seemingly relieved.

Her eyes fluttered, the gold alighting on the far wall a moment, then the bundles at her belly, and then finally upon his face where it was bent over her. Wilwarin, of. . . Moonglow, I suppose. . .

And you?

He tested it aloud, and she gave a subtle nod of her chin; yes, that was it, that was right.

As for who he was, there appeared now a conundrum. Someone had called him Dreamer, and that was fine, but Wilwarin did not know who Wolf was, and caught the way he spoke of this person, in the present as if this naming was recent, somehow.

Had they a visitor?

Oh—yes, there had been one, that is where the meat had come from!

The hunter? She had not known of the husband-and-wife who visited, the one time. Only that someone had to have helped Dreamer; whoever they were, Wilwarin was grateful. They must have been pure of spirit.

It felt like he wanted her to understand, but she couldn't quite get there. They had been visited but that was a different man; still, Wilwarin accepted this name and would pocket it in her mind, and one day repay the debt to Cen.

Dreamer spoke then of his dreaming, which was less confusing now than it might've been prior to the birth of her sons, because Wilwarin had experienced the dream. Except in her dream she had been alone. Even when her daughters came to her, they were only voices.

She is quiet, contemplative; tired and perhaps fading a bit, until Galathilion pinched her too hard and she sucked in a quick breath, and had to adjust.

After, Wilwarin murmurs to the Dreamer, You were a mess. I was afraid for you.

He was full of life, then! Laughing, filling their shelter with his voice. It was a sharp departure from the quiet and although brief, Wilwarin found it comforting, like the stoking of a fire.

The question of the boys drew some of the joy away, although Wilwarin couldn't pinpoint why. She looked at them as they nursed or slept, whatever it was they were doing, and she knew she loved them, it was just not as simple as loving her own mother or her siblings.

A dart of her eyes to Dreamer, and she motions to the first one—the nearest, and darkest.
@Airasëa,
then the other, with his red and cream furs, @Galathilion.

It struck her as she said these names, that while she knew how they would sound, perhaps mouthing them would not work. They were complicated and beautiful to her, but she worried Dreamer would struggle.

What would you call them? It felt only right—without him, who would know if the little family would survive. He was a part of them, now.

He took his time, and Wilwarin was glad to wait and to listen. She nested there and dozed a little while he thought and when he offered names, she smiled and accepted them. They were easier names for Dreamer to speak and would add another layer of protection to them, Wilwarin felt, because the bad spirits would be confused.

Thank you. For staying with me. For... being. She would not have survived without him, and perhaps they both knew that. How odd that Wilwarin had gone through her life before this without any desire for leaving home, or for having children, or any of it; yet she was mother now, and this man had become such an important part of her life.

Throughout the ordeal of the birth, she had thought of the women who meant so much to her; she thought of her mother, her sisters; of Moonglow and Neverwinter, of Tultalle. How badly she had wished that someone could have been here! And now that the boys had been born, Wilwarin thought only of Moonglow as a dreamer might. But the man was curious, and Wilwarin ruminates over what to do.

She knows her sons are growing but they do it slowly, and they do it with some struggle. They are fortunate enough for the elk meat, even if they cannot eat it themselves. Wilwarin has slowly regained energy and with that, the boys have feasted through her. It would be easier among those she knows—and truly, she does not know what it is that makes her shake her head as she answers the Dreamer.

It was. Something... Something calls me away from it, now. There had been a promise to Easy, once, or maybe not a promise but an invitation granted and accepted; but where was the elder woman now? Where was Wilwarin now? The world's edge was a cold and empty place. Her attention lingers on her sons.

I think I will know home when I find it.

When he suggested sleep, Wilwarin felt the immensity of her body and the great weight of her bones, and wanted only to lay her head down. Was it magic that drew her eyes shut? Her babies nested at her belly, and she drifted where she lay against the Dreamer.