Ravensblood Forest seraphim weeping

mom. i love you. i'm staying.
heda refused to lose her faith as october winds pushed she and the others along the landbridge. by the time her paws touched the giltgrain on the other side, she regretted so much that she had taken them away from the island.
discovering little @Ava Amara besotted on the fruits did much to restore heda's righteous fury and lessen her anguish. she did not leave sweetharbor until the girl could move again, and by that time if caracal had showed his face, she would have lashed out a second time to truly end things between them.
as it was, she plied the child with a mixture of herbs to sweeten the stomach, and it was against her flank she tucked ava, away from the bite of oceanic winds that cut at them all.
ravensblood forest dripped with red sap. she had hardly liked this place when she came with bartholomew, and now she was sole caretaker for — "let's rest," came her encouraging murmur for the children. poor @Dinah, and confused @Simeon, and confident @Malakai, who she dreaded would not be so when he spent this night away from judah.
"grandma towhee is in the heartwood. it's south of here, i think, another day or two." she would need to hunt. "we can play a game on the way." voice cheery, heart thumping with anxiety that something would fall upon them in the gathering night.

This didn't feel right.
At some point, it had set in that she was now the farthest she'd ever been from the Isle; from Daddy. And that chasm inside of her ached, it roared and screeched and echoed hard beneath her ribs.
In the hours that had passed, she wept in the comfort of silence and tucked herself close to Simeon; Malakai she avoided, said not a single word to, for he had nothing good to say to her. For all intents and purposes, he was not her brother, and Daddy, at the current moment, was not her father. But in the river, she saw his face when she looked down.
And none of it felt right. None of it felt real.
The trees are big and tall and freakish, nothing like the sweet spruces that sweep the Isle, and Dinah hadn't the energy to be fascinated with them. She misses Judah. She yearns for Gramma; she yearns for — she doesn't know. But her eyes rest upon the darklit form of Ava, nestled at Mama's belly as if she were still a nursing newborn, and she can still smell that awful, awful, awful stench. It still burns her eyes.
She sits in between two sprigs of bracken as if they may shield her from the cataclysm.
Mommy, comes her puny little voice, dredged in salt and oh, so tired. can I have a hug?

when ava awoke, it was to headsplitting confusion. 

the noises - the scents - why were the birds so loud? why was the sun so AGGRESSIVE?

she followed bleakly, head down. but more than once she paused there on the trail while heda blazed ahead —

and not until she was urged did she move off again, her ears and eyes searching;

where’s daddy? communicated the wide, doleful eyes to their miserable procession — where is daddy?

nestled in the crook of heda’s arms, ava’s head bobbed. the vision was blurry — at first she mistook dinah’s face for that of her father’s and her expression brightened — but upon realizing it was her sister, ava’s tongue danced across her nostrils and her muzzle wrinkled in an unhappy, cornered snarl.

I didn't realize Ava had gone with Heda oops, jumps in here instead

When Ana discovered the trail of her sister leading away from the island, she followed. She had been forgotten, left behind, but still she tracked her littermate with a growing desperation.

It was for Ava that she had returned to the island. If her sister no longer wanted her, Ana would depart; she would go with the wolves who had taken Tzedeq — Saint? — as she had wanted to. But first she would look into her sister's eyes and see the rejection for herself. She had to know.

When she came upon Heda and the other children, she stopped some distance away, silent and staring. Her eyes were only for Ava, and in them, a question: had she been forsaken?

Malakai had never left his island home before. Now he was doing so and to his dismay, without his twin brother at his side. @Judah was supposed to be with him. They were supposed to be strong, together, on this venture, to speak, share and spread the word of God. They had agreed at the meeting. Now, Malakai's eyes turn into the direction of his home though it was too far to see now. The sound of the ocean waves for the first time no longer present in the backdrop. 

They followed the river inland. Beyond the open stretch of land, they came to a dark forest tucked between two mountains- landmarks far taller and wider then anything on the island. The forest was a place where God's light seemed not to touch. Mother wanted to have them rest here? 

His head lifts and turns, towards Heda and his face revealing much reluctance at the idea. Malakai instinctively awaited for his sister to start crying about it. She had not paid him any mind all the while, which was good to him. He didn't like her. She didn't like him. Kai smelt her weakness and his lack of pretending otherwise likely put her off. 

Dinah asked for a hug. One of the spawns of evil growled at her. Another stared in wonder. Both silent, as always. Malakai swept his eyes over at Simeon and he shrugged. Simeon was okay, he guessed, but obviously wasn't Judah. Sighing, yet head still high as best he could, he turned to his mother then. I can take first watch. He was young, sure, but they were in strange lands now- mainland. It was his duty now to look over God's flock, however dim in the head they were.

we can continue if u all want, otherwise this will be my last post here! <3

without a word she twined dinah closer, and ava also. ana was given a look of sorrowful apology, and malakai took up his father's position.
"ana, dinah, ava. we'll go hunting," she decided, "while malakai watches out for us. we'll bring you something back, kai," she called to her somber son.
heda, holding things together in tight delicate buttonings of porcelain that threatened to crack.
"come on. we'll find some rabbits," she told the girls, exhaling all in peace and offering ana a place at her side, chagrined.
they must eat before they made any more choices. she would protect them, bring them to towhee, and then return for caracal.