Sun Mote Copse The book is on the table.

It felt like things were on an upswing lately, Towhee's mood included. She still ached now and again, though the promise of Phox's kids on the horizon (and grandchildren in the further distance) grew less painful and more exciting day by day. No, they wouldn't be hers and they certainly wouldn't come from her body. But in that sense, maybe she was lucky. Niamh would do all the dirty and hard work and Towhee would just get to enjoy the fruit of her friend's sister-in-law's(!?) labors.

She latched onto that thought. She'd wanted to bear her own children, her own flesh and blood, but pregnancy sounded a lot more like a shit show than a miracle. Sure, it was neat creating lives and all that but it also sounded really uncomfortable. Towhee should just be glad she didn't have to deal with morning sickness, leaky nipples and pissing herself. Not to mention the horror of childbirth. She could say with complete honesty that she didn't feel like she was missing out on that particular experience.

The Regent paused suddenly, her thoughts breaking apart and scattering on the chilly February air as she sensed someone nearby.

@Wraen

Wraen had dreamt about falling in love and, when she woke, she kept her eyes closed so that the pleasant, warm and happy feeling would not relent to the reality she lived in. But dreamland though inspiring and encouraging is not known for being consistent and solid. It was still cold and dreary February outside, the bouts of warm sunlight still too sparse and rare for her to believe that it was not long before everything would be lush and green again. 

The scent of Niamh's heat had caused unrest in Wraen as well, for a moment there she had been drunk enough with the delicious particles that she believed to be in season as well. Yet the moment she put distance between herself and the Sun Mote Copse, she realized that, while spring reigned in the golden girl's veins, her body was as silent and bitter cold as barren landscape in winter. There would never be green shoots breaking through the thick blanket of frost and snow, there would never be a colourful garden, filled with blooming flowers and trees. 

Being a dead end of an otherwise branched family tree was not a nice thought to dwell on, not when you have felt so much in love just minutes earlier. So Wraen left both dreams and hard truths behind her and to a walk through the forest. There ahead of her she spotted Towhee, who too was alone. She wanted to call out to her first, but reminded that it would be no use, therefore she chose a route to come as near as to be seen and then spoke: "Hey! How are you doing?"

Said person appeared in her visual field, moving toward its center, though Towhee turned her head the instant she spotted the gray blur. Her gaze settled on Wraen, specifically her lips, as the Sovereign greeted her. Slowly, the mercenary's tail began to wave and she nodded her head to acknowledge both the leader's presence and the question.

"Better," she answered simply, knowing Wraen would understand what she meant. "I was just thinking about Phox's and Niamh's kids," Towhee shared, "and how I need to make absolutely sure Niamh doesn't name one of them Sloth." She paused before asking, "How about you?"

Being able to joke was a very honest sign that things were going for the better, even if Raven's verdict still plagued and poisoned every day of Towhee's life. Especially, when Niamh's season (and two existing children) at the moment was a constant reminder of, what she could not have. Wraen could picture, what Regent felt like, but was not vain to declare that she could walk in the other's shoes.

"Is that, what she intends to do?" Wraen chuckled. "You know that you and I are in power of forbidding parents calling their children in derogatory names," she suggested, though would not do no such things. She exerted power only, when it was absolutely necessary, and let her loyal subjects live under impression that they were free to do, what they wanted, in the meanwhile. 

"Same old, same old," she shrugged, there was nothing new on her facebook feed she would want to share with the world. "Though I have to admit - I was surprised to see that Niamh approached me about the matter of having children. I thought... after Colt... well, you know," this did not puzzle her very much, she was glad that Niamh had moved on with her life, but it was still odd to think that after everything she wanted to have a family again.

"I fucking hope not," Towhee said with understated vehemence. She would like to think Niamh wouldn't actually do that—and surely Phox would have something to say about it—but she just knew there was a small but real risk there. Her lip pooched out in sympathy for her future niece or nephew.

Wraen seemed surprised by the whole notion of Niamh's children altogether. "Well, you know." "What?" Towhee questioned, immediately tanking that belief. "What do you mean?"

Towhee did not understand, what Wraen had meant right away, and she wondered, if she had unknowingly crossed the thin line between a harmless talk with petty gossip. "Oh - she was pretty broken about his sudden death and, seeing, how badly Eljay took to losing Wildfire, I sort of not expected for her to recover... at all. But - don't get me wrong - I am very happy that she wants to go on with her life," she smiled sincerely.

"And Phox seems like a nice and a reliable person," she shared. "Though, since you know him the best, you can lavish me in details about his good qualities that I have not praised enough yet," there was a hint of humour in her voice, when she said this, but it was probably lost on Towhee.

One corner of Towhee's mouth pulled downward as Wraen elaborated. Her own feelings toward Colt's and Niamh's relationship would always be complicated. She would never forget the day when Niamh had showed up to tell her the news of his death, how the wedge between them had vanished. She recalled, too, how Phox had come along and opened the grove's arms to the grieving widow and how Towhee herself had taken a more pragmatic perspective. It was interesting to think about all that now.

"I don't think Eljay's the norm," came Towhee's reply, that thought the real cause behind her slight frown. "Niamh grieved for a while but she's moving on with her life," the Regent said. There was no tone of agreement (there was no tone at all), though she nodded her head as she concurred with the Sovereign's observation. She kept any other thoughts about her depressed elder brother's inability to cope to herself.

Now the subject of her litter mate turned that frown upside down, her orange eyes glinting with mischief. "He farts a lot in his sleep. I can't hear it but I can certainly smell it." She huffed a laugh, shaking her head lightly. "You're right about him, though. He's a wonderful person," Towhee continued in the next breath, her words almost fierce with fondness, "and he's going to be a great dad, again. I think they'll be good for one another," in spite of their recent argument, which had boiled down to semantics, in the end.

She paused, glancing idly around the copse, before her gaze settled on Wraen again. "I may not be able to have kids of my own and theirs won't belong to me the same way Fig and Fen do, but they've both made it clear I'll be very involved in raising them. I'm still a little..." She trailed off and shrugged, leaving that sentence incomplete, knowing Wraen understood. "But this makes me happy."

"Good thing then, that this problem is for Niamh to deal with now," Wraen remarked dryly and continued to listen Phox's description with interest, all the while also keeping an eye on Towhee's expression, when she spoke. There was affection and genuine sincerity. The two had been together almost as long as Wraen had been with Maia. She could easily imagine that the Regent also did not have too many good friends in the world and Phox was probably the only one, who qualified for "bestie".

"I offered Finley and Elwood the chance to have children this year as well, but seeing as they are doing now - I don't think that they will be up for it," Wraen said and, frankly speaking, she was glad for it. Having only Niamh's litter for all of the packmates to take care of would be a lot easier than it had been last year with eight children and only so much adults. "By the way - I met Arcturus the other day. Poor fellow has been traumatized by yet another Firebirds' woman. Niamh talked him into embarrassment," she grinned at her cousin. 

"If I was Hydra, I would send him out in the world to get to know people better. Women especially," she chuckled. "Or - perhaps - that's just Sun Mote Copse's special assortment here that drives him up the wall."

Towhee lifted a brow when Wraen told her it wouldn't be her problem but chose not to comment. She still slept near Phox and the kids nearly every night and didn't see that stopping anytime soon. She supposed it was possible that her brother and Niamh might want to steal away, especially during the honeymoon phase, though assuredly she wasn't going to be free of his nighttime gas forever just because he was getting hitched again. And Towhee wouldn't want it any other way, of course.

Wraen brought up Towhee's godparents and she focused astutely on the leader's lips even as her mind wandered back to her conversation with Finley not so long ago. She doubted her aunt felt any differently now, with Sugar gone again and everything else. Despite the Sovereign's surety and how broken Finley had looked that day, Towhee silently hoped they would decide to try again, maybe one final litter before retiring from that particular duty and enjoying their golden years in peace.

The mercenary stiffened when the topic changed again, this time to Arcturus. Her head cocked at the mention of Niamh, her lips parting as if to ask a question, though Towhee thought better of it. Her gaze grew speculative as it weighed on Wraen's face, wondering why the Sovereign would choose to bring up this particular point of contention. Towhee certainly would've been fine never thinking about him ever again.

"Are you two pals?" she guessed offhandedly. She remembered waking up the night after Wraen's attack and accusing the she-wolf of being involved with Arcturus. Towhee wondered again now, though she didn't say that outright. She did say, with a smug twist of her lips, "Do you drive him crazy?" She was the queen of the Firebirds, after all.

Wraen had not lived alongside Niamh for almost a year to learn nothing about suggestive questions. Towhee might be all stoic and noble, and stood several heads high above everyone else in public, but she was a woman. And all women from every path of life love a good gossip. So...

"I like to think him as my friend," she replied simply. "I met the fellow some time last year, while he was out hunting on this side of the valley. I had met other Charon's children - Vela and Jarilo - so I was curious to see, what was this one like," Wraen was not going to reveal that her friendship with Arthur was in part a social experiment. Could Hydra's influence be reversed? There were the first results, but there was so much more to research. 

"I don't drive him crazy - not the least - but he is a stiff, awkard and somewhat shy chap, unused to people that are way different from those he lives with in Moonspear," she explained. "A good listener and shows some inclination to change the rigid nature of his upbringing," Wraen listed Arthur's good points, but naturally kept the best bits to herself.

"I feel responsible for him the same way an older sister would be to a younger brother," she concluded the true nature of their relationship (from her side; she was not aware of, what went on in Arcturus head). "He will make a great king of Moonspear one day and I want to ensure... if I am very, very lucky that he is a good one too."

She hadn't expected Wraen to offer up so much detail about her relationship with Arcturus, though Towhee's gaze fixed curiously on her lips, her method of listening astutely. She wondered if she should know these names (Charon, particularly) but didn't bother interrupting. Anyway, she deduced that Charon was Arcturus's parent, which also made him or her Hydra's as well. Towhee's lips pursed as she pondered these things, head cocking as the Sovereign concluded with a comment about Arcturus's future as king of Moonspear.

"Isn't Hydra king of Moonspear?" Towhee joked, though it was a serious question too. Those two weren't so different in age, plus Hydra had heirs, so what made Wraen think Arcturus was next in line for the throne? And, otherwise, they would have to agree to disagree about his merits in that regard. From what Towhee knew of him, she didn't think he would make a good monarch whatsoever, though she would keep that opinion to herself.

"You know," the Regent said next, leaning a little into the whole notion of gossip, "Hydra and I are kin of sorts. We decided to consider one another sisters, sisters-in-arms. I haven't met them but I consider her offspring my nieces and nephews." Towhee was glad that relationship was preserved despite her tryst with Arcturus (which is only an assumption, because our current thread hasn't progressed yet) and she wondered what Wraen would make of it.

"She is," for now Wraen agreed, missing Towhee's pun, because she was thinking about something else. On the tip of her tongue she had the "no one lives forever" line, but it would be too unwise to say this in the presence of a close friend of Hydra. Suspicion would be raised and questions asked, and at the end of a ve-e-e-e-ry long game of "Chinese whispers" one might start to assume that she was plotting a regicide of sorts as the worst case scenario. 

Was shagging nephews part of the deal too? Was the first heretic remark that came to Wraen's mind after hearing about the nature of relationship between Towhee and her bestie. But Wraen's face betrayed nothing, she decided to ask a different, but more relevant question regarding pack safety: "So... how are you and Hydra nowadays?"

Her lips twitched faintly at the question, which was fair. "We're good," she said simply, pausing for a moment before deciding to elaborate, "she didn't even try to kill me." Jokes aside, Towhee was glad for that for the more obvious reasons, though primarily because she truly and deeply valued her camaraderie with Moonspear's ruler.

That made her wonder: could Firebirds and Moonspear be considered sister packs, based on this adopted alliance? She opened her mouth to speculate aloud to Wraen, when a lurch in her gut took her by surprise. It felt like she was brewing an absolutely ferocious bowel movement, though at least it wasn't painful, like gas could be sometimes.

"Better clear out," she warned, although her stomach hadn't made any accompanying noises (not that Towhee knew one way or another), "I feel a massive toot coming on. It's going to be devastating."

"That's always good to know," Wraen replied, though she had a suspicion that Hydra's mellowness was due to the fact that Arcturus's had kept his trap shut and not revealed a damn thing about - what he perceived - shameful ordeal with Towhee. "Under different circumstances, I imagine she would consider you a wife worthy to have there. To strenghten the bloodline and such..." the corners of her lips turned up in a wry grin. 

"You did not eat any suspicious looking fish, did you?" Wraen asked, remembering the last time Regent had had gastric upsets and how toxic she had been to have around.

She didn't doubt Wraen was right, that Hydra would've perhaps approved of a union between Arcturus and Towhee under very different circumstances. But it didn't really bear thinking about, so she didn't, especially not when her guts grumbled again. It felt like she'd not only eaten a suspicious-looking fish, but several, alive and whole.

"As a matter of fact..." she joked in reply, before gesturing. "I'm gonna go find somewhere private to drop this load. I'll catch you later." She bobbed her head and waved her tail at the Sovereign, then turned and sought somewhere isolated. But by the time she located a likely latrine and prepared to squat, Towhee abruptly realized the sensation had passed entirely, so she shrugged and headed onto the rendezvous site.