Hushed Willows Cause' we're connected!

Stark was kind. A bit of a rascal, but that was her type; she hadn't really thought about having a type but when the concept struck her, she felt oddly put-off by the conversation. Confused by herself, maybe. Her ears fell to either side of her head and she mumbled something incoherent (if you say so) and then breathed a deep breath in, steadying some nerves she didn't realize had gone a bit off-kilter.

The man's next comment caught her by surprise, only because she thought first of her children - not just Tambourine, but the one that had died, whose head now decorated her favorite willow tree - and she looked at Stark as if he were some kind of all-seeing thing. A man with nine heads and thousands of teeth, a hydra of shadows like her old nightmares. (How did he know about...) But no, she was just confusing things. They had been talking about Reek. Her expression softened, slackened, became hollow, and she relaxed.

You're right, she confirmed. Octavia didn't know why she had abandoned Reek the way she did, but so far it had served her well to think of herself in that desperate moment. The grotto had been a place of desperation — created in haste by two unfortunates, it was doomed to an unfortunate end, and Octavia would be damned before she'd let her baby grow up there. She swallowed a lump in her throat and asked something very important, and the seriousness of her tone made her voice feel alien upon her own tongue: Did he ask about Tam?