Hideaway Strath ceathairéad

Please let @Arturo reply first.

@Chusi and @Dagfinn, feel free to weigh in on the naming! Last post from Lotte and Eirlys.

The moment she heard her first daughter outside the den, “Chusi!” Lotte cried out joyfully. She spared a moment to bid Hemlock farewell, exchanging a few last tender, meaningful words with the wise woman who had guided her through travail. “You can come closer if you wish, perhonen,” she gently encouraged the ocher-eyed adolescent. Life had not been kind to Chusi, whose world had been turned upside down over the past few weeks. Arturo and Lotte had been sorely inconvenienced and troubled by the move, but the Ríchíosa had far more at stake: she had lost friends and moved away from others, had been essentially let down by wolves she’d trusted, and had been stripped of her sense of security and innocence. Her plight had not been lost on Lotte despite the rogue’s growing preoccupation with the demands of her pregnancy.

At present, she did feel a little stretched thin. She was beginning to see that her love for Dagfinn, though unchanged in fervor and loyalty, had to make room for other great loves: namely, her love for her newborn children, her love for Chusi, and her love for Arturo. If you’d asked Lotte pre-Arturo whether she would choose to save the life of her twin or her mate, she’d have said ten times out of ten that it was Dagfinn she’d choose. She was still naïve — she would probably still choose Dagfinn — but even thinking about losing Chusi or Arturo now, after they’d been through so much together, was terrifying.

Fortunately, the overextended feeling was soon eclipsed by the hypnotic pull of four tiny mouths, and Lotte felt utterly invincible. “Their names are Mallaidh Furiosa, Roarke Altaïr, and Ceallach — who needs a second name,” she said, murmuring the names she and Arturo had discussed previously. “This one must be Mallaidh Furiosa,” she intoned, pressing her lips to her firstborn’s crown, “for this one is the only other female, already named for her favorite uncle.” Reverently she repeated the gesture to the snowdrop. She then looked to the Ceannasach for his opinion, though her argent gaze settled briefly on Chusi and then Dagfinn’s faces in turn. “Who should be Ceallach and who should be Roarke?” she wondered, nosing lovingly at each of her tiny sons. “What should Ceallach’s second name be?”