Dragoncrest Cliffs i think im pretnet w my 14th child? the test was ghetto..what is your opione?

When it came to her personal, personal gains, Aure was usually more oft than not reclusive. But... in a sense, she had shared a part of herself with Isleña, despite the pair knowing next to nothing about each other. Unless snot and tears counted, of course. Besides, it felt nice, perhaps comforting, she supposed, to have a female friend.

She'd started at the cliffs, then whisked on by the apothecary, and, without much other ideas, began to seek the simmering female about the lake. Ever-cloaked in the unmistakable veils of her mate's scent — mate! Her soul sang at the mere blessing of it — the rosy, faintly-there swell of her belly only weighed at her fluttery steps a smidgen. It was as if she rose on a warm, soft, exuberant air that would not fall to the gloam that'd fallen over the cliffs.

So, with all of this in mind, the ivory she-wolf refused to be dragged back into the depths of Drakru despondancy. Not with the news she felt she was meant to share with the brana. Whenever and wherever she sighted the cocoa female, Aure skipped into a prance with an airy yip. The first thing she blurted, with crumbs of poppy-seeds at her smiling lips? "Babies! Childs!"

Isleña did not have a den; nor did she want for one. The Luks of Khorasan were a nomadic lot, which meant that den building and territory guarding were not top-listed priorities. Instead, she slept atop the sun-baked earth, with her brothers and sisters and cousins close by and on all sides — at one with the earth as well as her family. Sometimes she imagined what this might be like, to be a normal wolf with the privacy of four walls, but it was a simple curiosities that did not come close to jealousy. Whenever the banshee did vanish beneath the earth’s surface, she found that she didn’t like it. After all, the proximity she shared with those who shared her blood and soul was priceless.

Well, the Luks might be gone, but habits were hard to fade. Isleña continued to sleep and nap and live on the top of the earth, which was said to be closer to the gods. Though the wolves of Drageda lived in dens — caves, even! — she did not assimilate into this custom. Perhaps this strongly contributed to her perception of herself as an outsider, but it was something she was not ready to yield, yet. Every night a new bed, and every day a new adventure. It was the Luk way, even if her adventures and beds were confined to a single redwood forest.

Isleña was snoozin’, when Aure came upon her and roused her to wakefulness. The girl lifted her head and blinked sleeping against the light of the sun. “Childs?” she questioned, the word not registering at first — but when it did, she felt compelled to follow-up with “Who?” Isleña had never seen the white wolfess with a man, or heard her speak of one. Aure had seemed so responsible at first; but Isleña rather liked the Aure that would conceive a bastard child.

If there was any remorse for awakening, then it coursed over her facade with the maternal, stubborn flush that refused to now pale. "Verx!" She chirruped his name in the way that'd made her eyes as luminous as they'd been hours ago, and she gleamed towards the cocoa brana. Then, unable to resist from indulging in some sort of amative skinship, Aure curved her ivory throat about Isleña's sturdy, burnished shoulders. "He is ze father — and he has claimed them. I just had to tell you, prietenul."

It still was a notion of her heart that even if comorara had left them bastardized, it would'nt have mattered. Their children would still be known as their creation together, and Aure would be damned if the whole of Teekon and the uncharted world didn't know. Aure withdrew, taking her musing with her, and looking over the brana with a doting eye. In actuality, she worried for her since the last time they met, which had been... oh, heavens — a month, glimpses and everyday pleasantries aside.

There was something to this wildling that Aure couldn't help but feel drawn to; and perhaps it was just that; the speck of wanderlust that they had melded into themselves from such early times in their lives. The thought that Aure still hadn't quite shaken this feeling of outsider, herself; the thought that, regardless of everything, perhaps the two females would remain forever as gypsies, in a way.

Few things could have prepared Isleña for the name which Aure uttered and claimed to be the father of her children. Verx! The man who had once been her lover before she became a part of Drageda, and with whom the universes reunited her after Aure and Mallaidh had saved her from her own ruin. The banshee did not fool herself by saying that her and Verx were anything but what they were; two wolves destined to provide companionship and corporeal comfort to each other when it was needed, and space when it was not. Isleña wasn’t even certain she was capable of liking men in more than a “thanks for making me cum” sort of way, but still, this news irked her. Verx was handsome and a definite flirt, so maybe she shouldn’t have been so surprised.

But Aure, that was where her feelings on the matter became complex! The white wolfess had slowly wormed her way into Isleña’s heart through her quirky manners and verbose turns of phrase — she meant well and seemed to make everyone else’s life better, so the banshee figured that Aure was a good soul, who deserved good. Isleña rarely respected these laws of nature, usually searching for something to exploit rather than to celebrate, but things had changed when she devoted herself to Drageda. What worked before, no longer did.

Maybe that’s why Isleña felt a little bad for fucking the guy that Aure was very clearly enamored with, even though it was an accident and happened before Isleña even knew Aure existed. Really, this faux pas was upon Verx’s shoulder, but there was a sense of kinship and womanhood that Isleña felt she had violated, and without any reason. If she were going to hurt someone, it always had to be for the greater good. This, was not it. “Verx…” Isleña stammared. “I no…” but she didn’t really know what was the appropriate thing to say, here. She needed more information before she knew how to appropriately respond. “You are love, Verx?” she questioned, trying to appear [for all intents and purposes] happy for the new mother.

The skayona was, at present, ensnared in the euphoric emotions which she'd kept hidden away; restrained, even, to those she'd revealed her news to. It was for fear of overwhelming the already-overwhelmed kru. So she neither noticed Isleña's discomfiture or knew her embittered thoughts — or her past affair with said father — as she leaned in to hear the brana's chopped inquiry. Was the wildling asking whether or not she loved the cheka? "Yes," Aure breathed, eyes aglimmer, yet another smile crescenting her lips. "We are mated." Mated. Mated — sure, on fine print, but... she knew, too, what was being asked: did Verx love her? It was this that made her lips falter, only to be nursed on as her paler inecurities bled through.

When she'd told him of their children, she hadn't requested it of him to raise them with her. Not really; she'd been true in that she'd only wanted to let him know. Yes, he would raise them alongside her, but he wouldn't... He would not love her. Verx'd only agreed to one of those terms, and nothing more; otherwise he, as much as it vexed her, retained the freedom to bed, or love, whomever he coveted.

She'd known it, deep in that hidden heart of hers; that whispered part that limned her thoughts like crawling frost. And with these despondant times, the skayona would never ask anything more of him when he was already so spent. If he should love her, then she only wished it would be when all of him smiled again, and she wouldn't incite this great blessing more than it'd already bestowed itself upon her. No; him acknowledging their copii, it was... it was more than she could ask her. More than enough for her heart's content.

...Wasn't it?

Her argent gaze and fervent demeanor had fallen, faintly, as she lost herself to the labyrinth of her thoughts. But, ever the delighter, Aure became enlivened once more, shooing her own sorrows away, and her eyes soon glimmered again. "Yes, I love him. They will come in ze early-spring, and I... I...-- I forgot!" Her bliss now erred into something timid, halting, as Aure continued, "Isleña, would you to Elysium with me? There is a fertility festival, and... and I would like to take you with me. Ah, celebration?" The skayona reaffirmed, hoping a simpler word would get her own across; after the incident with Raleska, she wouldn't make the travel south alone from now on, anyways.

Aure was so unabashedly joyful about the whole thing that it erred on the side of sickening. Isleña’s gut instinct immediately kicked in and let her know that this was not a good position to be in; not a good lie to be making; and just as quickly, Isleña knew what she had to do. No girl should be that overwhelmed by a guy, especially not one that fucked around like that — it was typical of men of course, and amongst Khorasan both women and men often had more than one [or two, or three] lovers, but Isleña had a sneaking suspicion that Aure did not ascribe to these ideals and might take offense to this. Aure was her friend now, so it meant that she had an obligation to tell her all the things she didn’t want to hear, right? Who else was going to do this job for her?

Clearly preoccupied, Isleña quickly brushed aside the invitation to the fertility festival. “Ahhh… yes… will go,” she acquiesced, not entirely sure she would still maintain this invitation after she said what she wanted to say. If Isleña were a human, right now she would be bent over the dinner table with a thumb and finger holding her forehead in frustration. Hey, I fucked your mate was a difficult thing to say when you spoke the same language, but with the obvious gap between them, Isleña suddenly feared making her meaning known. “Ehhhh…” she muttered, her mind annoying blank. “Uhmm…” the banshee continued, then barked “Sikmək!”, effectively dismissing all of her problems and surging forward with a very Isleña-like tenacity. She looked Aure in the eye, a little bristle-y and visibly upset, and said “Verx and Isleña… we…” and then let her gaze fall to the ground, hoping the silence would speak everything that Aure needed to know.

Had Aure been through several romances, perhaps she may have looked back into this first one with something quite akin to what ran through. In her own faith, you practiced love with only one soul; and if that romance faded, you wandered through life until you met another, and tried again. To have more than one beloved was certainly out of the question — at least, in Aure's chapter. Her brother did not feel so restrained.

...Perhaps she wouldn't recoil from her current self, though; she didn't have time to think on maybe's and what if's, or that Verx might be more 'established' than she'd originally believed, because at the present moment, her ears feathered imploringly towards the next slew of halting verse.

After the initial surprise, her lips parted in befuddlement at the word that ripped itself from the brana's throat — mouthing uselessly at the threads Isleña left behind. They... they...? A slight cant came to her head, and her slim brow narrowed, all gullible, ivory girl, who stared a little dumbly. But then came the bristling, and the evident guilt creasing along that angular, cocoa face— oh.

...Oh.

For a moment, Aure said nothing — couldn't, as the bones of her pale neck strained at the wrench in her slender jaw. Nostrils began to flare, tongue gnawed thickly between teeth shivering inside a thin-lipped, clamped-shut mouth. Argent eyes went a bit bleary, unfocused, and something blinding and blazing and ferocious clambered up her spine, shrieking— whatever it was within her wanted to overwhelm Isleña—

No! No, she— she wouldn't do this to Isleña. In the ill-defined reaches of her strained sanity, if Verx hadn't thought to tell her about a female he’d had past relations with, who'd she'd somehow befriended, she... then it must have occured before either of them had known Aure herself had ever ventured the cliffs. That had to be it, yes?

In the meantime, her pale neck veered from the simmering female, brow notching with some sort of soreness she couldn't quite place. Instead, Aure passed her tongue along bitten lips, ears flickering inscruitbly, and rasped just as meekly, "Are you... have you two still... still..." And the her own gaze fell, thin shoulders curling in dreaded anticipation as reality placed itself into her verbose vocabulary

Aure distractedly made to settle back with what care she had left — but instead sat with a confused little ‘plomp’ that expressed her own self as thoroughly as Isleña had.

Isleña’s tail hung low, as if she had done something wrong. Really, Isleña did feel as if she did something wrong — guilt was a new feeling for the banshee, as it was — and Aure’s reaction only confirmed that yes, you hurt someone. way to go. If Aure hadn’t been a friend, then Isleña wouldn’t have really cared but… Aure was one of few wolves [maybe the only wolf?] on the planet that cared about her — and like, truly cared about her. Damn it.

Aure plopped herself to sit on the ground in exasperation and Isleña did the same. From the woman’s ultimately mellow reaction, yet at the same time distraught and forlorn, Isleña was able to intuit her only question. The banshee paused to think; she had flirted with Verx recently, but nothing more. She did not think that important to report, so Isleña shook her head. “No, I…” she began, stringing together simple words. “Now, no. Now… no.” and probably never again, because Isleña wasn’t much into fucking over her friends for no reason. There were plenty of males to be had — she did not need to have this specific one. “Many past,” she explained clunkily, since her and Verx’s tryst had really been some time in the past — back when the Luks were still all together, when they had been impenetrable.