Altar of Twilight i painted you a picture, but it never looked right

Those moments before the Teaghlaigh wolves arrived with her progeny were the longest moments of her life. There was a sense of unknowingness that plagued her; and even though her bones told her that little Sirius was alive and well, there was so much that she did not know about him. Aries and Cassiopeia, they were real and she could touch them and smell them and kiss them; but Sirius? Even his scent, once a perfume so strong that she wore it as her own, was fading from memory. 

To settle her nerves, the pale woman took to preening the fuzz of her son’s head, kissing him even though the growing boy abhorred her corporeal expressions of a mother’s love. His squeakish howl had not gone unnoticed and though she was riddled with anxiety, pride in her two intact children bloomed as did the grass under the summer sun. She would never miss a chance to let her babies know how strongly she felt about them— she could not afford their father such intimacy, so she channeled such energy into the love she bore their children; the only thing she had left to lose.

The little, dark girl — a striking replica of her shadowed sire — did not escape the wrath of their mother’s tongue. Neither did Dakarai, and she stole away to place several sweet kisses upon his velveteen cheek; but just as she withdrew her caresses that the wolves of Teaghlaigh incarnated from the silvered mist.

It was at that moment that the druid realized how little she wanted to see Ceannasach and Isley; how much she loathed to look upon their callous facades and know that nothing of substance laid beneath. The woman gave an incredulous lash of her tail, somewhat surprised [and even more surprised that she was capable of such a gentle wrath]. But as the form of the coy wolf  and his firetouched henchwoman moved closer, she decided she would not submit. Arturo stole her child; they had paid their dues a thousandfold. The shrouded fae would not teach her children to respect creatures such as these. 

They could no longer hurt her.

Olive’s heart lurched in her throat as all of her and Dakarai’s lessons on decorum fled her mind; and, thankfully, her maw stayed clasped shut. She was silent and brooding as they approached ever closer, her eyes cut like emeralds in the dazzling sun. Her breath came in short, rapid, anxious puffs and the edges of her lips twitched in agitation — but all of this apprehension in the face of her oppressors fell away when her gaze found the heather tangle at Isley’s feet.  Her breath stilled. 

How was it that he was so small? He was no bigger than his twin, Aries, but something about his presence made her yearn and pine and die over the distance still between them. He was beautiful; a vision, and she dared not blink incase he spirited away, as he did so often in her dream.  Sirius was pushed forward by his caretaker; a woman who Olive would eventually come to respect, but was currently held in complete disregard. Her dazzling daughter approached and he responded to her, and oh! That voice!


Breathless, she stumbled forward — but only made it several feet before she shimmied herself down and upon the ground, laying upon her stomach and crawling towards him. There was no such thing as debasement when it came to the bond between mother and child — and at that moment, Olive wanted nothing more than to be on the same level, vis-à-vis her sweet firstborn. “Hello, stardust” the sylph cooed, voice held like spun silk; cool and smooth. She could reach out and touch him if she so wished; but she would not, and would let the boy come to them on his own terms. This all was so much to place upon shoulders so small.