Hideaway Strath when we arrive, sons and daughters

Lotte beamed brightly as Eirlys and Roarke catapulted from the birthing den to gambol and frolic in the spring sunshine, carefully detaching herself from the little girl when she made to hide in her äiti’s skirts. Banríon was fiercely loving and fiercely protective, but she had strong opinions about fostering anxiety and dependency in her young. “Run and play, Eirlys, lumikello. You are safe,” she instructed gently, tipping the bridge of her muzzle against the snowdrop’s shoulder to nudge her toward her siblings.

The young mother whipped her head around at the sound of a soft “blech” — she hadn’t puppy-proofed the area, feeling that it was more useful for them to experience the world just as it was — but the smell of crushed grass filled her nostrils and she only chuckled. “Are you a deer, Roarke, little winter’s bane?” she teased him playfully, her breath huffing from her lungs when Mallaidh collided softly with her flank. “Oh, my girl, my brave girl,” she crooned lovingly to the darkling female, nosing her cheek and tickling the curve of her firstborn’s ear with a well-placed boop of a cold, wet nose. “Mallaidh, did you miss me, little firecracker?” She drew the most ferocious of her bear cubs nearer with a gentle paw, drawing a warm kiss across her fragile crown.

Ceallach was more cautious, and Lotte, still bent on not coddling her offspring to the point where it might later become a detriment, called encouragement to him. “That’s right, Ceallach,” she praised him as he marched forward with a soturi’s purpose and pride, tiny tail ticking like a metronome as he too explored the big wide world. “Brave warrior, strong warrior,” she crooned to him, her coal-capped tail picking up speed as he drew near to her. When he leaned up to lick her chin, a feat made easier by the way she bowed down to meet him halfway, it triggered a natural desire. Saliva pooled in the divot beneath her tongue as she stepped a few paces away and deposited a pile of partially chewed meat upon the earth. Licking her lips, she stepped away from the pile and called again to her children. “Come and eat,” she encouraged them, calling them each by name as she so often did to cement their understanding of them.

Stepping away from the pile, sweetly fragrant with the scent of fresh meat, Lotte fairly bounded over to Hemlock and @Sirius. She was overjoyed to see the both of them so healthy and hale, and she made to nose companionably at the healer’s shoulder before dipping into a playful bow. With a warm, slow smile, “Good afternoon, liekkikukka,” she offered in as blithe a murmur as she could to the red-furred woman. She pushed the part of her that pined for Dagfinn further and further down, though she couldn’t help but do a quick scan of the horizon. Part of her still expected her kaksonen to arrive at this momentous occasion in the cubs’ lives. Part of her still resented that the rosy dream she’d thought up, of him being alongside her, the “cool uncle” who helped the Lotturos break rules she’d set, had died before it’d begun. “Good morning, Sirius,” she added. “How are you today?”