Hideaway Strath Happiness is like glass

I’m sorry! I didn’t realize it was my turn.

Lotte watched contentedly as Chusi drew closer, rising carefully and disengaging from poor Mallaidh and Roarke so that she could greet the young hunter properly. Lovingly she nibbled at the girl’s cheek, smoothing her tongue across her dusk-dark crown. “They cannot hear you well yet,” Lotte reassured her first daughter. “See how their ears fold over? Sounds will come to them slowly. Anyway,” she continued blithely, “noise is good for them — making it and hearing it. Your uncle Dagfinn and I were always shouting and making noise, and now we are some of the best singers from the Enok Tundra.” She preened boastfully, though a glint of mischief was in her eyes as she settled down again and tucked poor Mallaidh and Roarke back in the fluff of her decolletage.

Lotte grinned at the girl when she commented on Ceallach’s beautiful blue eyes. “Your eyes were blue once, too, you know,” she said. Of course, by the time Lotte had met Chusi her eyes had already shifted to their striking ocher hue. “All cubs are born with the sky in their eyes.”