Hideaway Strath that's the language that stuns, scars, breathes into you

Lotte continues to soothe and coddle her son, wanting to make the transition from birth-blindness to the seeing world as easy as possible. “You needn’t fear the light, little snowbear,” she says, eyes prickling with saline as she thinks for the umpteenth time of Dagfinn. The twins make it difficult for her; she keeps musing to herself, “This must be what we were like.” She falls abruptly silent, not even humming for a moment or two, and Arturo offers her the sweet reassurance of her touch. She leans into it and revives her low crooning, though it dips deeper into her wide vocal register, heavy with the weight of her loss. Ceannasach will never understand what Lotte now feels in quite the same way that Coelacanth and Amoxtli, Serein and Sirimiri, Crosscurrent and Undertow do. The same way that Roarke and Eirlys will one day feel.

There is part of her that wants to separate them before they can grow too closely, to rescue them from the inevitable pain of separation that will come whether they like it or not. It will come before they are ready, because they will never be ready. To cheat them of their bond is practically sacrilegious, though, and so Lotte simply pushes all thought of her children’s future pain away. For now, she can prevent it. Control it. She’ll savor these days and be grateful for them in the future, when her little ones hurt as Chusi has been hurt, in a way that is infuriating and heartbreaking and terrifying for the parents who have no power to stop it. “Little Roarke, I love you so,” she whispers to him, bumping her nose lovingly against his little round sides.