Deepwood Weald the birds and the bees and the cigarette trees

Private for @Arturo, tagging for reference.

NOTE: Each of the traveling threads is a day apart. ♥ This is day four, March 24, 2017. Shinhwa’s nineteenth anniversary!

Wary of the feral Cathán’s snapping jaws, Lotte chuffs softly to rouse Declan before touching her nose lightly to the cusp of one burnished ebony shoulder. She says nothing, turning instead to @Conan to brush the bridge of her muzzle against the honeyed velveteen of his cheek. As the three of them exchange scents, layering spice upon spice to strengthen and diversify the united scent of the Family, her coal-capped tail whisks with wolfish satisfaction. “Next sentries,” she whispers, not that the brothers need to be told. They are reliable and steadfast, familiar with the workings of Teaghlaigh and the discipline required to ascend its ranks. Lotte has forgiven them for bringing August along, deciding that the cowed female will be largely their responsibility. Banríon has little energy to spare on rehabilitating the shy and submissive waif, concerned as she is with the wellbeing of her pack and her children. Her focus is fiercely narrowed, mercilessly honed to the bare instinct of survival and the ticking time bomb that is her pregnancy.

After a beat, Lotte remembers that Arturo is waiting for her — there, at the edge of the weald, with concern in his hellfire eyes and weariness pulling taut the handsome angles and planes of his face. Like Declan and Conan, the masked leaders always patrol as a matched set; but inseparable as they are, Lotte feels as though she hasn’t seen her mate clearly for days. Traveling has been a miserable experience for the young mother-to-be — an increase in nausea and cramping has plagued her over the past week, and although the queasiness seems to have ebbed away and abated, the cramps are only worsening. The mischievous glint in her argent eyes belies her weariness and pain, and she flashes the Fearghal a dazzling smile as she sidles suggestively past him, the swell of her abdomen pressing against his svelte, reassuring warmth.

Sinuously, she threads her way through the spindly trees and fussily shreds the ferns beneath her feet; the instinctive urge to nest grows stronger and stronger, and it is frustrating to her on a deep-seated level that nothing feels safe or familiar or right. A whine tangles in her throat, the mask of competence, confidence, and calm falling away as she looks to Arturo with an intense expression of desperation. “Turo,” she hiccups softly, slipping to the ground and curling her tail around herself as she turns to her abdomen and grooms the thinning hair there. She realizes now that she could never have traveled with Arturo to see the new territory and forgives him, releasing the knot of petulance that bubbled painfully within her breast, but she is swept away by a single disturbing thought: “They will be born somewhere I have never been — they will be born somewhere Dagfinn will not know to look for me.”

With that bleak declaration, the young mother-to-be bursts into tears.