she'd learned of her mother's plans, and yet found the thought of leaving the mountain twisted a dagger in her chest.  should you betray of leave sunspire, I will not protect you anymore. do you understand? the words echoed, not for the fact that @Rannoch would no longer protect the secret she no longer cared for. but rather, that'd he offered and done so in the first place, after all she'd done. to leave now would be to spit in the face of all that had been offered to her, and she felt a fierce loyalty to the mountain, the first place she'd made her home willingly.

she paused in her place as a flock of birds moved noisily overhead, patrol momentarily forgotten. there was a chill in her chest, foreboding mixed with excitement that meant that soon the seasons would change. already did autumn cut a shallow path into the dog days of summer; a chilled breeze, overcast day complete with spitting rain. gaze tracked the birds, wondering silently at the future. she found her thoughts slid there often now, that she'd chosen to leave behind the past.

Olive could only survive discomfort for so long before she was forced to act upon it. 

Well, perhaps the druid was less inclined to call it discomfort and more like mild panic. She was a mother at heart, a midwife by trade, and where her children were in danger, Olive could not thrive. The attack upon Ibis, a child that was as her as those born of her own womb, opened the barely healed wounds that Oaxaca left upon her in his own departure. Olive tried to recover from these, and find the peace that once characterized her place within Sunspire, but found she couldn’t.

Instead, she found her daughter, which was just as good.

The grayscale fae trotted up alongside her star-speckled child, letting her nose press affectionately against the neck of her closest of kin. The girl was bigger than she was [surely, her stature had been more heavily influenced by her father’s genes more than her own] and Olive always felt characteristically safe when Cassiopeia was within arms’ reach. She was always grateful that the fates brought them together, time and time again.

Cassiopeia had been privy to Olive’s many thoughts and concerns; she always had been, as bonded as they were. They had been through thick and thin, trial and error, woe and strife, all together — and without her daughter and without Seabreeze, Olive wasn’t sure where she would be nowadays. Olive owed more to Rannoch than she might ever realize, too — but at times like these, Olive found it better to compartmentalize and engage her selective memory, the likes of which only those touched by motherhood could harness. Of most importance was her daughter and her soulsister, and the 4 babes that they nurtured between them.

“My child,” Olive purred affectionally. “Share with me your thoughts.”