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

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It was all far too much and Olive soon completely lost her train of thought, every thought evanescing into a haze of distress upon her initial thinking of it — her every utterance was borne on intense desperation; a visceral need to keep her family intact. To keep her progenies close to her being, to nourish their minds and to keep them where such vileness could not touch them. They were to be soldiers of light, all three of them, instead of the soldiers of darkness she now saw the wolves of Teaghlaigh to be. Olive did not fit in here, never did. Olive hadn’t the heart or soul to pass the sentence they passed unto her, and it awed her to glimpse this macabre side of them — a side she had never seen before now. Why now? Why accept her and Dakarai home, nurture them, give them hope and a sense of false security? The idea of banishment had not been foreign to the star crossed lovers and had been exhausted as a topic of conversation during their flight from the Blackfeather Fuckers.  But no — the mother had experienced the utmost relief when Ceannsach had accepted them back into his bleeding forest. It was all over she had thought to herself, she could birth her pups and raise her children in the relative safety of the family; but it was only to get worse.

“Yes! I do beg! I do!” she cried as Rollo bade her to do the exact opposite. Her life would not be dominated by a man who was a relative stranger her, even if it required debasement of her dignity to do so. Arturo called her a bad mother and she grit her teeth against such an accusation. She knew she wasn’t. Olive’s relationship with her newborn babies had changed drastically since they exited her womb and became mewling, crawling jewels of heather grey and solid obsidian — distinct realities with different personalities and inclinations, real wolves. Olive would not let them be taken from her side. The mother was dedicated to them every beyond her own belief.

“Arturo…” She supplicated solely to gangster cloaked in darkness, the man who once treated her with such kindness. He had elevated her to act as his red herring, for gods sake! Could an affinity that ran so deep evaporate so completely. “I beg for my heart and soul, for the familial love you once bore me… do not turn us away.” Deep inside, the doe knew it was a futile effort. “We are not the monsters you make us out to be.” Arturo had made his mind and announced it to the family — to rescind now would be to show weakness. Ceannasach was not a man who liked show weakness.

As the mother realized he [nor any other of the teaghlaigh wolves] would not yield, she peered down at the three babes that nuzzled into her limbs. It was unthinkable, untenable, to even imagine severing such a bond. Doleful eyes peered up to her husband, who seethed with rage and wishing to prevent the happening just as much as she did. Was he destined to have his children torn from him yet again? Perhaps it was even worse this time, since they would actively be turned into wolves who only knew their parents to be selfish criminals; at least, with Dakarai’s first litter [who had perished], that was not such a possibility. It was a morbid connection, but that’s where Olive’s destroyed heart was at that moment. Olive couldn’t help but twitch her upper lip in utter agitation, glimpsing just the tip of her ivory fangs. “Any remorse I harbored has now died,” she sneered at each wolf in attendance, the arbiters of her weeping fate. “Pikkusisko” she spat.

Arturo turned to leave and Olive choked back a sob as her sentence was officially passed, the sword swung, her every plea turned away by the man who once offered her hearth and home. It was then that the queen did something most unexpected — beseeched her husband to allow her daughter to remain with them and only one of her sons.  Immediately Olive took a step forward, but knew the situation was too delicate for a disgraced woman to move upon the family and stepped back again.  Her sidereal heart was climbing out of her throat and she that knew she should be experiencing the utmost happiness, but a loss of one child stung as much as the loss of three. Olive looked down once more to the lives that twisted and fidgeted amongst the pillars of her willowed limbs and Dakarai’s strong ones, without a clue to the evil forces at work. Without a word of gratitude to the queen to gave unto the grieving mother the blessing of two] babies, Olive dropped the the ground and curled her petite, gamine frame around the tiny lives. “my poor lambs… my poor babies.” she crooned softly, pressing her forehead against the warm masses. Sirius radiated the most heat, by far, as his body worked to fight his sickness. The mother knew it was true; another trip would kill the small body, quivering and shaking in her maternal embrace. Sirius was not to die, but such a certain fate could not be promise to the babes forced to endure yet another arduous journey. Perhaps they, themselves, would not make survive their expulsion from the hinterlands. Perhaps this was not a gift, but a death sentence gussied up to look like generosity but their mummer queen.

Anger immediately dissipated in such close proximity to her three children and it was replaced with utter sadness and despair. Despite her misgivings, Olive looked at the queen and saw her physical pain. The mother had always seen it in Lotte’s mannerisms and exacerbated anger, but had chosen to ignore it until now. “Your poor babies” she uttered apologetically, as if Olive recognized her role in Lotte’s troubled pregnancy. Helpness, the pale wastrel looked up at her King, beseeching him to any semblance of comfort. As confirmation that this was nothing more than a nightmare and he would fix it all. “I just.. we…” and, unable to convey her emotions, she looked at the ground, utterly defeated, not knowing what to do next — so she nudges her three small babes towards her breast and encouraged them to latch, knowing fully it was the last meal they were to share as a complete family.

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