Hideaway Strath too soon

Thank you for being my family. ♥

There wasn’t anything elaborate about the way the smoke-and-shadow soturi made her way toward the borders of Teaghlaigh — she spent more time out of them than she did in them, these days, looking for her lost son, the cub she’d blackmailed, her wayward daughter and, to some extent, her snowbound twin. It was stupid to look for Dagfinn when she knew that he was home in the tundra where he (they?) belonged. She couldn’t help it, though. She loved Arturo and Hemlock; she loved her remaining three children; but Lotte was blind to them, believing them safe and sound in the strath. She was fixated on the lost ones — those wolves she felt duty-bound to bring home and save. It had become her mission in life, replacing her desire to scout and explore, and although she was still home for several hours each day to cuddle with her husband and — dare she say it? — her wife, she was obsessed with the need to do something with the idle summer hours.

The crisp snap in the air hinted at the prelude to her favorite season, and maybe it was this that finally convinced Lotte to go home and stay there. She picked her way through the hinterlands with new resolve, making up her mind to let Roarke and Chusi go — she believed they were both alive somewhere but she regretted that they were alone and far from home. For Lotte, despite her children’s inevitable growth and Chusi’s adult status prior to her departure, they would always be tiny cubs in need of her protection and care — capricious and impulsive as she tended to be. Lotte wasn’t a good mother, but she meant well. In her head she’d built it up so high: she’d find Chusi and Roarke (in her head they were together, after all) and bring them back, and Eirlys, Mallaidh, Ceallach, Hemlock, and Arturo would rejoice at their triumphant return. It hadn’t worked out like that, though.

Lotte’s mind was alive with regret and hope, and the tangle of emotion made her already-stumbling paws clumsier. She’d been out in the heat for quite some time, and her thick, insulated fur wasn’t particularly kind to her in the hotter months. Heightened weariness was something she’d come to expect, and with the whorl of her inner strife, she could hardly be blamed for getting careless. The normally silent rogue stepped on a branch with a startlingly loud crack! and the unearthly groan that followed it didn’t make sense to her at first —

---

When the dust settled, it became clear that Lotte had been bested, but not by any wolf. Oddly, there seemed to be no mark on the wolf who lay with her sides fluttering shallowly in the dust. The only sign she’d suffered any trauma was the slow, fluid-filled swelling of her abdomen and the grotesquely depressed swell of her rib cage. Scent would tell @Hemlock and @Arturo what Lotte herself couldn’t say; she was focused inward on the wet gurgle of her breath. Her tongue and gums were unnaturally pale, but she breathed. She wasn’t far from home, and her paws twitched feverishly with the itch to drag herself there — but there was no strength left in her body. As the light in her eyes began to dull with shock and pain, she lifted her voice in a soft and fluting whine, unable to manage a summoning howl.

Although she knew Lotte traveled with a purpose she couldn't put aside Hemlock still fretted. No matter her rank or her place, Lotte would always be Banrion and queen of the Strath. No matter if Hemlock carried a mantle of leadership or not, she would step aside for her sooty colored bride. Inside there was a growing flurry of activity and Hemlock had set out, although slowly, to follow a fresh trail of Lotte's with the intention of discussing all those silly little things. Old wives tales of gender assumptions and how this pregnancy presented compared to Lotte's and what she thought might happen along the way. 

Hemlock did not hear the sickening crack nor did she hear her mates whimpers - when her slower pace did manage to come upon her wife laying on her side a sickening dread came upon her. The medic tried to quicken her steps, ignoring her own body as it protested to approach Lotte. "Rakastettu-"  She could thank a conspiratory Ceallach for helping her with the word, her touch soft as she nuzzled against Lotte's cheek. "Lotte, please..." But she could see; any should have been able to - Lotte was as swollen as she had been in her pregnancy, and with a haste Hemlock lifted her head from Lotte's plush fur to call for Arturo with an urgency. 

It could be foolish to assume that Hemlock would not push and try to save her beloved. It would be foolish to assume that her brain would do anything other than fight tooth and nail to help Lotte. But the fear in her and the logic in her warred. She could not leave Lotte, she would not leave Lotte, if these were the last moments they shared. She might send another to fetch medicine for her, but, she would not go. Not now. The moment Palisander had passed she had felt she buried herself too. But the woman Lotte had made, the Hemlock she knew, could not fathom what she would do in that moment. She had not been present to watch Palisander as he passed - and she was too afraid to face the truth of what was happening now with Lotte. 

The smell of blood is pungent and horror strikes fast and freezes his heart, steals and rips the breath from his lungs as it is mixed with Lotte’s scent; even before Hemlock’s call for him rises. Ceannasach has gone cold but he is not numb as he races forward, following the scent. He is not numb when he comes upon the scene: a horrific scene that he hopes with a choked noise that is just a nightmare. A trick. The parasite Riptide playing a cruel jest upon him. His heart hurts and he can’t find his lungs. He moves to her side, ears slicked back to his skull as looks past Hemlock to take in Lotte’s injuries. “No,” Smoky voice is raw with unbridled grief because he knows, he knows that this is not something Hemlock can nurse her back to health from. She has moments left, he fears. It does not take a healer to know this; besides it is written all over Hemlock’s face. “No.” He snarls the word as he presses his muzzle against Lotte’s. “No. You can’t leave me. You can’t — Lotte…,” His can’t find his lungs. He struggles for breath through the crushing grief.

“Please, please, please,” The gangster doesn’t even know what he pleads for. He wants to be strong but he can’t. He always knew Lotte’s death would destroy him, knew it because she is his great love. Not his only love, no, but his first love. The love that he feels in his soul. But if these were to be his last moments with her — and he knows that they are — he needs her to know one single thing. The most important thing. “I love you Lotte. I love you so, so much. I will love you always in this world and in all the others that come after it and I promise that when I pass from this world I will look for you in the next.” And he peppers her muzzle in kisses wondering how much more he could stand to lose before it finally broke him.

Lotte’s chief emotion now was annoyance. She didn’t have time to be injured; Hemlock was due to whelp soon and Ceallach and Eirlys still hadn’t been given their songs. It was in this moment that the soturi realized her grave mistake in dwelling on things she could not change while ignoring those nearest to her, and her face seemed to crumple, naked in that quick flash of grief. “I did not bring them home!” she wanted to cry out. “All of this was for nothing!” She couldn’t get the air to vent her regrets, though, and she lay with blood trickling from her nostrils and mouth — but no other open wounds to speak of. She’d bitten her tongue in the fall, but as she moved it listlessly within the confines of her tightly clenched jaws she found it still worked. If she parceled out each fading breath, she believed she could speak — but she had to be careful about what she spent them on. “Liekkikukka,” she breathed urgently in the split second before Arturo arrived. “Take care of — ”

Arturo broke before his mate’s eyes, and her soot-stockinged paws scrabbled with weak futility as she itched to worm nearer to him and assuage his hurts. A faint spark came back to her moonbright gaze, but it was fleeting, born of love and urgency but dulled again with the weakness of her broken body. “Rakas, Turo,” she tried to soothe him, wishing she could lie to him. “I am not dying!” she wanted to protest, but he swam before her in rippling waves. This was worse than the fire and worse than battle; she knew it as well as they did. Between gasps, “I am so sorry,” is what she said instead, though she couldn’t elaborate as to why. She thought he would understand — she was sorry she hadn’t brought Chusi, Roarke, and Sirius home; sorry she had wasted her last months on earth gallivanting all over the Teekons instead of staying home with her family; sorry their time had been so cruelly cut short.

Her eyes filled along with her writer’s at Arturo’s outpouring of love, and she twisted her muzzle in an attempt to snake it saucily against his. It was an attempt that failed, but her tail thumped the ground weakly in response. “I love you,” she said, “both of you, as much as Dagfinn.” To any other wolf it might have seemed a poor compliment, but Arturo and Hemlock knew how tightly woven the tapestry of Lotte and Dagfinn’s twinned souls were, and they would understand. Her eyes scanned the shadows but the children she’d made with Arturo were nowhere to be seen — and while part of her regretted that, she was also somewhat grateful for it. “Take care — ” she gasped and coughed, a fresh bout of bright red blood spilling from her nose. “Babies,” she said, trying to look at both Hemlock and Arturo at the same time, her argent eyes flickering weakly. “You — ”

Her face spasmed again, this time with pain, as she registered what was truly happening. The tears that had gathered in her eyes spilled down her cheeks as she dragged in another breath and spent it on: “Love — always — nightingale — ” and then, in a very Lotte-like manner, her last words ended up being an insisted and very unromantic: “No! Not dying — no wolf — ” She struggled briefly, and then her body seemed to relax utterly, and the last of the light went out of her eyes.

 

No - no! - Hemlock felt her entire body growing so stiff, so frozen as if she was swallowed up in her grief in some palpable thing that might protect her. If she could not feel, she could not hurt and in those all too brief moments of solitude between wives she pressed her kisses to Lotte's face, cleaning her with painstaking movements as she tasted the blood and the life of her beloved as it drained away. Arturo was there it seemed even before her song died off, and Hemlock moved a fraction away to let Arturo see Lotte, to give them their space. A sound left her, as broken and tragic as Lotte's form was in that moment. As it often was, Arturo provided his words far more freely than Hemlock and his pain was her pain, it was real and she could feel it as he spoke and it was her own though her voice never lifted up from her lips. She could not. Not then. 

She wanted to leave, fretting for a moment as her limbs moved uneasily but she could not pull away. Poppy, it would help the pain, - but in her heart she knew that there would simply be no time. Not to get it, not to bring it to her, not to pluck the seeds and give them to Lotte. It would not be enough time, and she was actively failing Lotte every second that she debated leaving or staying. Frantically she shook her head against Lotte's apologies - quickly uttering her own, for she had failed Lotte, Arturo, the children, the pack, she was their healer! She should have been able to do something! "Please, do not - you have nothing to apologize for, I.." But her jaw clamped shut with a snap of teeth against teeth because there was nothing she could offer that was strong enough for what she felt. She weakly pressed her snout against Arturo's shoulder, and as Lotte reached out to press her snout against Arturo's Hemlock reached down to lap gently at her snout, clearing the blood away again. 

"I love you," She offered it like a plea, begging somehow to whatever gods she had never believed in might take pity on her. She was cursed. She was a curse. She had ruined Palisander and she was taking Lotte from Arturo and she was destroying the love that she had so respected for so long by bringing her blighting curse upon them both. "I love you, - t-they will know you, know their Mother," The brilliance of the blood that spilled from Lotte now was as vibrant and bright as her life ever had been and even in the last moments the trio had together it was a testament to how Lotte always had been. Dutifully and gently Hemlock cleared her face, pulling back as she felt that rattle and it's horrible pull; these last moments were spent as her emotions raged through her, wracking her body no doubt as strongly as the contractions would to bring their children into the world. 

She would tell her children of their other mother, of the woman who had so stolen Hemlock's heart; of the heart and soul of who they all were and what they had become. When Lotte had stilled, when the world had become deathly silent Hemlock tore her viridian gaze away to look at Arturo with a horror. "I-I failed you," She sobbed out, voice broken before she buried her face in the crook of his neck and sobbed freely, call it hormones, call it something more - those fleeting moments of happiness seemed so many years ago when compared to the strength of the sorrow in her body now. 

Rakas — oh, how he savored the sound of her nickname for him even in the maelstrom of his grief. He savored it greedily as if he knows he is about to sink to the crushing depths of the ocean and it is his last breath. It is the sweetest sound in the entire universe and the worst because he knows that this is the last time he will ever hear her say it. “Save your strength, my nightingale.” My nightingale whose song had been enchanting and alluring and captivating. Arturo trembles as she gasps out a sentence, like the ending of a love letter. Love always, Nightingale. A closure. An acceptance of an end. The end of the Teaghlaigh’s Queen. As Lotte drew in her last breath and became eerily still, Arturo wrenched his head away from her and Hemlock and vomited up his stomach’s contents, because his heart is shattering beneath the weight of the sky as it crushes him. He is no titan, no Atlas and he is not designed to handle this force. He has seen death time and time again, delivered it himself time and time again but Lotte’s death was not something he’d ever wanted to witness. Not something that he can take.

The Nightingale’s song fell to silence and that silence was deafening, pushing in on Arturo at all sides.

His breath is hollow and he nearly jumps out of his skin when he feels Hemlock bury her face against the crook of his neck. Because he sees but he is blind, hears but he is deaf, feels but is numb. “It’s not your fault, Hemlock.” He hears himself murmur to her mechanically: and it wasn’t. It wasn’t Hemlock’s fault, it wasn’t his fault…it wasn’t anyone’s fault.

All he knows in the moment is that he will never be the same again. He already feels it, feels himself being ripped asunder. If it meant not having to face the grief he realizes he would welcome the witch doctor back with open arms. His grief is great and he is ready to tear the Wilds apart, stone by stone if it would make any sort of difference.

“I can’t stay here. I don’t want to. I don’t want Teaghlaigh anymore and I don’t want it to continue on.” Why would he? In Arturo's mind, his reason is sound: it was his creation, and even so, it is a cursed legacy. It has been ever since Furiosa’s death. Besides, his only heir had failed him time and time again, disobeyed and done whatever she wanted to do without a moment’s pause to what her actions might cause. If the gangster was cruel before now he must be an absolute monster. Then so be it. If he’s expected to survive Lotte and continue on then he’s going to be the tyrant he’s been painted as to do it …because it’s the only way.

The old Arturo can’t come to the phone right now. Why? Oh, cause he’s dead.

Hemlock could feel the ripple as it hit Arturo, even if their marriage had been brief in title and formality they had been more for so long. As he emptied his stomach Hemlock attended to Lotte, cleaning her face and moving her head from the blood that had pooled on the ground before she turned her attentions to Arturo. She licked the excess saliva from his muzzle, scarcely moving with any thought and more on Instinct. 

While his words might have been a comfort Hemlock could not hear them, could not process them, not when it came to the depth of her guilt or how it consumed her entirely. Hemlock had come home and then Blackfeather had arrived on the doorsteps, she had become a leader and Roarke had vanished, he had sired her litter and Chusi had left them, she had become their mate and Lotte had died. And it all hit her, more painful than the scars that crossed her side. 

His heart wrenching admission made her whine, shifting her face from the plush if his coat to press against his muzzle and beneath his chin. "I... I cannot leave now," She winced as she was forced to deny him this thing he wanted - this thing that she truly did too. How could she face this place it had taken her love from her? "I do not want to be here. It... It is not home now." It had never been about the Strath - it had been about Lotte, after all, who had made it home to her again. "The children... What... What do we do?" Eirlys and Ceallach and Mallaidh, the children she had not even brought earthside yet - what would they do? 

I can’t leave now. For a second, Arturo ceases to be selfish and that second is all that is needed. It reminds him that Hemlock is his wife, too, that she has Lotte too; and that they are all they have left. Monster or not, he can’t leave her. He won’t; but he can’t stay here, either. He cannot stay in this false paradise as wrought with death as Ravensblood has been. Arturo has always known his business is a dirty, bloody one; but he’d never wanted the blood of those he cared about on his paws. Yet, his paws are saturated with blood. Furiosa’s, Palisander’s, Roarke’s …possible Mallaidh’s and now his nightingale’s. Blood that is not of enemy’s but of the wolves he has cared for the most in this world. Arturo Fearghal is not a good man and he has received what he has given the world; but instead of turning him to a path of virtue it only twists him further. Stealing away what little redemption he has left. Defining him further in the art of villainy. The torture, the grief, the pain it only makes him want to do worse. Because why bother being good when the world is so very far from virtuous?

“Hemlock,” The gangster’s smoky voice is thick, a choked croon; and he clings to her as if she is his last salvation. Because she is. “It is toxic here. I do not want our children born here.” Cursed. Perhaps it is Teaghlaigh that bears the curse …and if that is the case then Arturo is gladly ready to part with it. To let it vanish into the depths of hell where it belongs. Or perhaps it is Arturo himself that bears the curse …in which case he would be relieved to end it. To let the witch doctor back into his mind, into his bones and skin and seek the peace that which beckons him from the darkest corner of his mind. Arturo is certainly vulnerable to it now.

“We tell them, but first we bury her body. I don’t want them to see her like this.” Not like this. He wants them to remember their mother how she was in life. Beautiful, vibrant and fierce: a goddess among mortals. “It's a nightmare I would not subject them to.” A nightmare that he will see every time he closes his eye for the rest of his life as long as it will be.

Hemlock wanted to provide him the answers he needed, to be the rock through that storm. Without her attention acutely on Lotte she can feel the swarming of her children, no doubt protesting her emotions. She winced at a particularly strong kick, her eyes turning up to Arturo's face as he spoke her name. They agreed, as they usually did, but at what cost? Could she be as strong as Lotte had been, to trek across the canvas of the world while so gravid? "I worry,"  Hemlock admitted, "-if I whelp while we travel, what... Where shall we go?" She tried to stop her voice from trembling, to seem stronger. 

Maybe if she faked it, she might eventually be able to believe it too. "I want away from the trees." Hemlock hissed suddenly, angry irrationally. Ravensblood had Palisader and the Strath had Lotte and she would give no one else her loved ones. "I do not know where to go, but I will not let another forest take you from me." For a moment, selfish and heady, she did not stop to consider the children who were gone. Chusi and Sirius had made their choices, it seemed, and they were not there now.... She did not want to wait either. She could make it, Lotte had done so, she could do as her beloved had. 

Which brought her back to the reality of the moment. She turned her gaze to Lotte again and shuddered, like her heart was ripped from her chest freshly. "We will dig, and when we bury her, I will give her a garden to watch her. The plants I took my name from are deadly. They will guard her." Hemlock would not allow anything else to befall Lotte. If Hemlock could not stay and protect her, she would do all she could to ensure that she was still cared for. 

bleh, crappy post is crappy.

Arturo closes his eyes as Hemlock brings another good point to the table: she was due to give birth soon. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t have the answers. Not a single answer. “Somewhere far away from here.” Not really a solid answer, he knows. There is no plan. Just the fierce desire to put as much distance between the Strath ( even though it means leaving behind Lotte’s grave ) and himself. “I don’t know.” He says, because most of the Hinterlands is covered in forest. “Eirlys has always wanted to see the ocean. Perhaps we can start there and see.” Hemlock’s words, however, about not losing him to a forest is like an knife carving into a heart that has quickly turned to stone. No, Arturo thinks, he does not want to lose Hemlock either. As bad as it is, losing Lotte, as much as it hurts and devours him inside he knows that he’s not alone. He has two children left to care for and more on the way. He has Hemlock. “Good.” Her idea is sound and he likes knowing that her grave will not be disturbed. It gives him…some measure of peace.

Their grisly work would begin before she wanted it to - in truth, she never wanted this moment. They were all so young. The prime of their lives. It seemed a foolish dream now and if her mother's insane ramblings had ever given way to truth it was now. She was a fool for thinking that somehow she could escape the fact she simply wasn't made to have such nice things. The Fearghal family had not suffered until she had gotten so close to it, and her selfishness had ruined them. 

Arturo knew just as little as she, no concrete options to give her and Hemlock reached up to press her snout against his own, movements gentle and sweet even against the shaking that had begun in her shock. "We will go up to the coast. See that world again." The last time she had laid eyes on it that she could remember was gathering seaweed with the Inkblot and her companion. Maybe they would see the sea sprite again. "When... When we have finished, we can call the children." Once she had laid out the plants and flowers to her liking, once she had given Lotte something to protect her in her rest. 

Arturo doesn’t speak as Hemlock ponders aloud, but is glad that Hemlock agrees with his desire to go to the Coast. She does not want forests and Arturo holds a well nurtured hatred for mountains ( or anything resembling one, in all honesty ). The coast is their only hope. Preferably an island. Somewhere far away from the mainland. Of course, that brought with it it’s own hazards but at this point in their lives what was left that they had not already lost in some capacity or another? They’d lost Lotte, lost children, lost their home …and as for minds Arturo’d already lost it once. It was not such a far cry from losing it again. He gets to work digging out a grave, shoveling dirt from the earth, taking up pent up rage and pain and grief and channeling it into his digging.

Hemlock joined him in the unwelcome task, digging at his side until she had to move away, cramping and gasping as she attempted to control herself. She watched for a moment as Arturo continued their work, her viridian gaze taking stock of his body and knowing that tonight, for all their sakes, she would need to make sure that they slept a dreamless sleep. She briefly had him pause, face tucked against his scruff. "I love you." She said it softly, urgently, and couldn't remember if she had even gotten to say it to Lotte, to them both, before now.

Sne waited a few brief moments before she turned away, making several trips because with several plants brought up by their roots. She would make sure that Lotte was safe, with not only the hemlock to guard her but flowers to keep her bright and happy, to encourage birds to come so she has songs to listen to. 

sending arturo off with the crappiest post ever. ;-;

“As I you.” The gangster murmurs in return. It is hard to speak the word “I love you” so soon after Lotte’s death when he can’t feel his heart. He’s gone numb to it, or perhaps it has simply turned to icy stone. He does still love Hemlock, of course, but Arturo handles grief by shutting down and locking himself away, or, alternatively by giving himself over to a monster that should never be allowed loose from his cage. He doesn’t realize what the lasting effects of allowing Riptide to slip through the cracks would be, doesn’t realize that the parasite will very soon snuff him out. And…maybe he does. Maybe he is selfish and just doesn’t care. With the grave finished they place Lotte’s corpse in it, bury her and gather the children to explain what has happened and what is going to happen in the future. Arturo isn’t sure they fully understand but he doesn’t push. If they do not understand now they no doubt will in the near future.

When the pair are finished explaining and answering the questions that they can Arturo ushers the children away allowing Hemlock to tend to Lotte's grave and plant her namesake to guard the tundrian's grave for all of eternity.