Hideaway Strath yours are the sweetest eyes i've ever seen

[grapples wildly with pronouns and paragraphs]

ONE HOUR LATER: THIS POST IS MAKING ME FEEL THINGS.

It was the bouquet of Hemlock’s scent that Lotte buried her nose into, and not the lavender. The nightingale pressed her mouth to Hemlock’s nape, rumbling pleasurably as her fireflower began sweetly to groom her, and was swift to respond in kind. Her relationship with the viridian-eyed sylph was more tactile than Lotte could ever remember being with another female, but she enjoyed it. In the wake of Dagfinn’s disappearance it was hard to feel happy and whole even with a bevy of bears at her breast and a doting husband. They made things of her: a mother, a wife, a queen. Hemlock, on the other hand, saw Lotte as she imagined herself: just a girl, vastly experienced but stubborn enough to pretend she knew what she was doing. Lotte saw Hemlock as…well, a hero. And maybe it was a good thing Dagfinn was back in the tundra, because next on Lotte’s list of “Hey, I’m not really qualified to do this, but I’m going to do it anyway and you’re going to like it,” was pairing the two of them together. She couldn’t trust anyone to be good enough for Dagfinn, but she couldn’t marry him herself — and the same went for Hemlock.

Fortunately, she also had a healthy amount of respect for Hemlock, and this kept her from inadvertently spitting on Palisander’s memory (even though choosing Dagfinn would always be a step up in Lotte’s eyes).

Lotte couldn’t imagine losing her firstborn child anymore than she could imagine willfully trespassing on another pack’s territory, especially one lined with skulls and body parts. She tried to think about things from Olive’s perspective. How might she feel if, for any reason, she was made to leave Mallaidh under the care of wolves she didn’t particularly trust? Lotte stamped down her personal bias on the matter and considered it for the first time since they’d acquired the little ball of heather-gray fluff.

No. No. It was utterly unfathomable.

And how was it for Hemlock, made to care for and love a child who called her “mama” when she’d been stripped of the chance to have her own children to say that exact word? Lotte’s ears drooped sorrowfully. She mourned for Olive, denied the formative weeks of Sirius’ life, and she mourned for Hemlock, given the weeks only to possibly have them stolen away when he was of age. “Olive is his mother,” she said slowly, sounding out her thoughts before she really thought them through as was her wont, “but you are his mama.” The idea of having multiple mothers wasn’t so foreign to the soturi, who had been raised among all manner of children and mothers, both adopted and biological. “It cannot be quantified.” Banríon disagreed with Hemlock’s statement — “he has been mine more than theirs” — but not the sentiment that prompted it. “He is yours, and you are his, in a way that Olive will never be able to take from you. He is hers, and she is his, in a way that you will never be able to take from her. That is the way of things when a cub knows two mothers.” Her moonbright eyes were sad as she preened lovingly at one fox-red ear. “I am sorry, liekkikukka — I have asked too much of you. Arturo will give Sirius the choice someday, and maybe that in itself is a cruelty, but until he reaches his majority he will be part of this Family. Then it will be his choice, whether he wishes to be fully a part of both.”

Lotte blew out a shaky breath.

“Nine months I can give you, but these hours we have sworn to give them.”