Hideaway Strath a map to find my way in the dark

There is an empty place in Eirlys’ life that cannot be filled. Roarke is gone, and although she is young and will one day find it difficult to remember the finer details about her twin, the ache is still too new and the hole too wide to overcome. She follows her siblings and her second mother without enthusiasm, her tiny muzzle so low it practically bumps against the ground. Already there are differences to be drawn between herself and her remaining littermates; Ceallach and Mallaidh bear the slightly sharper features of their father, but Eirlys gives an impression of roundness that can only be attributed to her northern blood. She is almost the antithesis of her sister — fierce, lithe, spirited Mallaidh! The firstborn child lightens as she ages while her middleborn sibling darkens. Eirlys’ ears, tail, and paws are a soft, smoky taupe and a smudge of the same hue wanders up the bridge of her blunt muzzle.

Her glacial, pleochroic eyes seem particularly blue as she tips back her head to look at the glimmering light show, and something in her heart breaks as she says her first words. She’d been trying to save them for Roarke’s return, but it’s become more and more apparent that her kaksonen isn’t coming home. “Roarke,” is the snowdrop’s first tentative utterance, her voice light and sweet with the buoyancy of youth. “Papa?” She makes her way to @Arturo’s side and plants her tiny paws on her father’s great chest, looking beseechingly up at him. “Papa,” she says, seemingly unsurprised at her own fluency. She’s always known how to speak — no child of Lotte Ansbjørn Fearghal’s could possibly be quiet forever — so it doesn’t shock her into silence. Without hesitation she gives her first full sentence to the parent who loves her best. “Don’t be sad, papa; I’ll never go away from you.” The accent, smoky and lilting, is all Arturo’s. For all she resembles her mother in appearance — minus the coloring, which is yet uncertain — she is the Fearghal’s daughter.