Hideaway Strath if you're soft on rebellion, it'll grow

;-; ♥

@Sirius @Cassiopeia @Aries

Just a friendly reminder to the puppy players: at this current developmental stage, “eyes open and are blue at 11-15 days but their eyesight is not fully developed and pups cannot perceive forms until weeks later.” Ears are not erect yet and they will likely not be able to make sense of the foggy sounds they hear around them. This also goes for the other threads since the move from Ravensblood Forest, as the cubs would have been even younger and smaller upon initial departure [eight days old]. Please refer to this page or this post in the Guidebook and keep this in mind in all threads leading up to this point. ^^

Sorry for the double tag! ♥ Just trying to keep it real, as the cool kids say.

The argent and onyx Banríon, while physically present, was mentally and emotionally ruled by the pulling, twisting pains that threatened to consume her. It was all she could do to breathe her way through them, dry of mouth and clenched of jaw, and to try to hold on to Solene’s stoic dignity for the duration of this trial. Now and again she broke her introspective silence to pant raggedly, but she was still and quiet as her mate explained the reason he’d called them to order. At Lotte’s own behest, she flanked her mate just slightly, tucked into his shadow and partially concealed by the strath’s abundant foliage. She lay curled on her side, her attention trained inward as the dizzying sensations tore through her; and she was wracked now and again with a sporadic sort of shivering. Her body temperature had dropped significantly, but she felt as though she was burning — and it was difficult for her to focus wholly on the trial despite her best efforts.

Lotte kept quiet as she considered Ceannasach’s position in all of this, weighing the wellbeing of Teaghlaigh against the horrifying idea of keeping a new mother from seeing her children. She considered Olive’s feelings — she considered her former jealousy of the woman — and she did her level best to turn off her heart’s wild clamoring. It was the most impartial thing, in this case, not to feel. Hemlock’s pragmatism was to be praised: it was generous, in the grand scheme of things, to cast them out in a region untouched by the strife they’d been forced to flee. It was when Lotte’s thoughts circled back to the discussion of the children, though, that she found her voice — and she was surprised at how stripped of warmth it was, but she was equally unable to stop: “No matter your sentence, if my cubs do not live,” she said quietly, rising from her prone position to press into the circle of wolves and make herself seen and heard, “I will not suffer yours to live.” She spoke directly to the disgraced twain, her coal-capped tail arching high above her back as she lifted her head and fixed them with an intense stare and a somber expression.

It was a heartless decree — and perhaps opposed to what her husband and Hemlock proposed — but in her travail Lotte could see nothing else clearly. She knew that the pain she felt was unnatural — that even the strongest warriors were not made to fight or travel or scout when their time drew this near — and she feared that her babes would die. Fear was paramount in Lotte’s decision making process, but instinct ruled her as well: she was alpha, and if her children died as a result of this forced exodus, she would let no other female’s whelps — especially an omega’s — survive to usurp Chusi’s place. Dakarai’s biting response fueled her decision, and her posturing made the slow, inexorable tick from dominance to aggression. Her muzzle wrinkled, revealing the barest flicker of alabaster cutlery as her hackles bristled and she took one menacing step forward. “I am Banríon,” bespoke her stance, long before she calmly suggested: “Yield, Dakarai.”

“Comrades,” Lotte said, giving the pair on trial what respect she could even as a growl scraped her timbre to a guttural roughness, “where I come from, a soldier who willfully makes decisions or takes action without the strength of her — her unit — or the sanction of her commander,” she found the Common equivalents of her Tundran terms with varying degrees of success, “is cast out. This is familiar to me — because a soturi who acts alone endangers all.” She paused for a moment, collecting her thoughts. “This is not the Enok Tundra and Teaghlaigh is not a warband, I know — but this is a case where my upbringing and my husband’s upbringing align. Jumalauta, helvetti vieköön,” she swore, casting a pointedly sorrowful gaze at Olive. “I did not want this for us,” she said to the older female, perhaps betraying her emotional weakness on some level, “but my hand is forced. You acted without the Family — yet you have been nursed back to health, fed, and sheltered. Your children were born safely in a place my children will not see for months — if they live.”