The Tangle hips that could bear you a buffalo

For a long moment, Eirlys simply held on to her sister — Ceallach had made himself believe Mallaidh and Roarke were dead, but the snowdrop couldn’t bring herself to do the same. She knew what death looked like. How it felt to stand beside it. The shaking of Furi’s shoulders and the tears streaming like fire from her eyes into Eirlys’ fur was blessedly alive. Hooking a paw around her littermate’s shoulders and drawing her in, Eirlys did her utmost to protect Mallaidh from falling apart — but the damage was already done, and by the snowdrop’s own hand.

“Olen niin pahoillani, sisko,” she said wretchedly. Though she didn’t wish to take it back — she believed that Mallaidh needed to know these things, and she also believed [somewhat naively] that she would have wanted to hear them if she were in the other girl’s place — she wished she could somehow assuage the inevitable hurt Furi felt. “She loved you so much, Mallaidh,” she breathed brokenly. “You remember the song she gave you, right? ‘Never and never, my girl riding far and near…’ She stopped singing it after…after awhile, but I sing it for Reed and Droman sometimes so they — so they’d know you.” She was talking to fill the silence, talking to cover the wracking sobs, talking to keep herself from doing the same. She had questions of her own, but felt they could wait — and so she stowed them, swallowing them like the lump in her throat.