The Sentinels where the handouts grow on bushes and you sleep out every night

Blinking rain from her lashes, Lotte pushed her gravid frame into a sitting position to greet Hemlock with a warm smile. “Rakeet, liekkikukka,” she murmured amicably enough, regarding the leaves with some reservation. “If I sleep, will I wake when I wish?” she questioned. In a hushed undertone, she confessed, “I must be strong — I cannot afford to be weak now.” It was the added pressure of having bonafide Teaghlaigh members from its first incarnation in Quicksilver Hollow that troubled Lotte so. She worried that Declan, Conan, and Lia would be disappointed in their new Banríon’s typically jovial nature; after all, the contrast between her personality and Arturo’s personality was immense. Plus, they had all been part of this culture for longer than Lotte had even been alive. It was a lot to live up to, all things considered.

Lotte watched quietly as Olive and Dakarai extricated themselves from the group, dismay flickering in her moonbright eyes. The songbird was no empath, but she didn’t have to be. The mist-shrouded druid’s pain was easy to perceive — it wafted from her in waves. As alpha female, the rogue felt slightly responsible for the older female’s grief — but there was frustration there, too. She found it hard to process exactly what she felt, but it was somewhere between, “What right do you have to grieve, you who have put your Family in such an awful position?” and “If I could, I would take this pain from you. No mother should have to reveal her cubs to the world before she — and they are ready.” It was a hard line to walk, and it was difficult not to feel bitter about the den she and Arturo and left behind. The den where their children ought to have been born.

Pulling her thoughts away from the scarred pair with a considerable amount of effort, Lotte refocused on Hemlock. As a vicious cramp seized her, she swung her muzzle around and brushed her whiskers against her convex flank. “Peace, my little bears,” she murmured in the language of her beloved tundra. “Peace and sleep.” She hummed a few bars of the lullaby her mother had sung. “Hemlock,” she said in a low, urgent voice. “I fear — not only for Olive’s children, but for my own. Is there harm in taking these leaves for sleep? My cubs — they eat whatever I eat, yes? Is it good for them to sleep?”