Hideaway Strath too soon

 

No - no! - Hemlock felt her entire body growing so stiff, so frozen as if she was swallowed up in her grief in some palpable thing that might protect her. If she could not feel, she could not hurt and in those all too brief moments of solitude between wives she pressed her kisses to Lotte's face, cleaning her with painstaking movements as she tasted the blood and the life of her beloved as it drained away. Arturo was there it seemed even before her song died off, and Hemlock moved a fraction away to let Arturo see Lotte, to give them their space. A sound left her, as broken and tragic as Lotte's form was in that moment. As it often was, Arturo provided his words far more freely than Hemlock and his pain was her pain, it was real and she could feel it as he spoke and it was her own though her voice never lifted up from her lips. She could not. Not then. 

She wanted to leave, fretting for a moment as her limbs moved uneasily but she could not pull away. Poppy, it would help the pain, - but in her heart she knew that there would simply be no time. Not to get it, not to bring it to her, not to pluck the seeds and give them to Lotte. It would not be enough time, and she was actively failing Lotte every second that she debated leaving or staying. Frantically she shook her head against Lotte's apologies - quickly uttering her own, for she had failed Lotte, Arturo, the children, the pack, she was their healer! She should have been able to do something! "Please, do not - you have nothing to apologize for, I.." But her jaw clamped shut with a snap of teeth against teeth because there was nothing she could offer that was strong enough for what she felt. She weakly pressed her snout against Arturo's shoulder, and as Lotte reached out to press her snout against Arturo's Hemlock reached down to lap gently at her snout, clearing the blood away again. 

"I love you," She offered it like a plea, begging somehow to whatever gods she had never believed in might take pity on her. She was cursed. She was a curse. She had ruined Palisander and she was taking Lotte from Arturo and she was destroying the love that she had so respected for so long by bringing her blighting curse upon them both. "I love you, - t-they will know you, know their Mother," The brilliance of the blood that spilled from Lotte now was as vibrant and bright as her life ever had been and even in the last moments the trio had together it was a testament to how Lotte always had been. Dutifully and gently Hemlock cleared her face, pulling back as she felt that rattle and it's horrible pull; these last moments were spent as her emotions raged through her, wracking her body no doubt as strongly as the contractions would to bring their children into the world. 

She would tell her children of their other mother, of the woman who had so stolen Hemlock's heart; of the heart and soul of who they all were and what they had become. When Lotte had stilled, when the world had become deathly silent Hemlock tore her viridian gaze away to look at Arturo with a horror. "I-I failed you," She sobbed out, voice broken before she buried her face in the crook of his neck and sobbed freely, call it hormones, call it something more - those fleeting moments of happiness seemed so many years ago when compared to the strength of the sorrow in her body now.