Ocean's Breath Plateau the lemonade springs where the bluebird sings

During Teaghlaigh’s trip to their new territory, Olive will be experiencing the 7 stages of grief — grief over the pain of Dakarai losing (and regaining) his memory, being brutalized, BFW finding them, being demoted and abandoning Ravensblood Forest… and a little bit of postpartum depression. Each thread will represent a different stage of grief, dated in order (albeit, a little expedited). This thread represents stage four: depression, reflection and loneliness. 

Of course, feel free to skip Olive! I’ll bring her in when she is needed and/or addressed.

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These days held very little happiness. Their pace was brisk, despite their interminable slowness. The travel had begun to wear and tear on her body; there was a constant sense of soreness that pulsed in her paws and legs and her still bloated, postpartum tummy. Her mind, which had abused itself endless during every leg of their journey, was tired and listless. Even her mewling infants [so young, so undeserving of such a mother!] seemed depleted, certainly affected by their life-giver’s melancholy aura. Olive felt herself slip even further into depression at her inability to transform such a journey into a fun adventure for her babes — it was the thing she wanted most for them; to spark a love for travel early on. 

But Olive was tired. Olive was crestfallen. She wept silently at almost all times and most of her intermittent energy was cashed in for the fatiguing act of relocating herself and her babies. There was no fun to be had where the new mother was concerned — and no sense of togetherness, either. So when their fifth day of continuous travel was punctuated by yet another hiatus, Olive found harborage amongst the soft grasses of the plateau, pressed up against her lover @Dakarai. The tall spring grasses that swayed around and subsumed the family also shielded them from their reality; it harbored a cloud of sweet milk-scent and Olive luxuriated in it. The action of nursing stirred the oxytocin in her brain and gave the ophelia a slight reprieve; but it was always overshadowed by the hopeless that she harbored in her delicate little heart. Through half-lidded eyes Olive observed as their scanty little mouths [one as black as an oil slick and the others a fuzzy, heather grey] latched onto her breast and pulled forth the thick nectar; the gentle prick of their milkteeth and their featherlight, grunting exhales were  reassuring reminders that her and Dakarai’s babies were real and not a dream conjured by her incoherent and distracted mind. 

Real as they were, the three cubs felt so far from her in both body and spirit — it left olive with an all-consuming desire for physical contact with the cubs and it pained her that she could only carry one at a time [instead of all three]. If she were home, nestled against the enduring stone of her grotto, there would be no need for them to part for even a moment; but here it was necessary to part from her brood so often to be carried and cared for by another [even if those others were often the trusted Dakarai and Lotte] and the sullen fae would take any opportunity for closeness she could [given the circumstances she was given]. So when her eldest finished his meal, the dove pulled @Sirius forth and set to bathing him with her small, rose-tinted tongue — to clean him of residual milk but also, if anything, to soothe her melancholy with the bright light that emanated from her children.



 

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