Wheeling Gull Isle just you and the moon on my skin

Witchdoctor watches as Hemlock gives a nod and recalls back into the birthing den and follows after her with the silent permission she offers him. His eyes adjust to the darkness of the birthing den, ears pivoting and swiveling as he hears her settle back down around the newborns. He’s heard them during his vigilant “protection” of the den: their mewls, squeaks, cries and the suckling as they eat. They are tiny and fragile looking, Witchdoctor deduces as his fiery gaze lowers to study them. It would take a blind man not to see that the pair of children are a blend of them in coloration. This feels like a moment. One of those “defining” moments where the suspense should build and something should happen. A shift in the universe, perhaps, where the villain’s stone heart cracks and his redemption ark is revealed. Witchdoctor does not get one of those moments. There is no dramatic redemption ark waiting to happen. There is only a primal gratification at laying eyes upon his spawn; that confirmation that he’s spread his genetics. He’s a madman, a villain. Utterly underserving and uninterested in being saved. “They’re beautiful.” While his words are genuine they are purely narcissistic and vain: spoken because he sees himself and he sees her — the fiery sun given flesh and blood — in the babes.

A son and a daughter.

Just like the older two. The nightingale’s children with him — because as far as Witchdoctor is currently aware there is only two older children ( he is not aware there are three wayward children because as he’s not yet been told about them they don’t even exist to him ). “What’re their names?” Witchdoctor asks Hemlock, fiery twin sun gaze lifting from them to her as he wonders if he’d be able to remember. In his quest to fill in the massive, gaping holes in his timeline names aren’t a priority for him to retain — truth be told he has not lost Hemlock’s name because she bears the name of a deadly plant and as it falls in line with ( one of ) his passion(s) of poisons it is effortless for him to remember it.