Sunbeam Lair I'm counting UFOs

Natrona. There it was again, even when she didn’t understand the rest. The singular word that plagued Reina, Verx, and now, it seems, East. She didn’t understand it — yes, it was apart of that cliff-culture, and more, she supposes, but Aurëwen hadn’t immersed herself into Drageda entirely. She hadn’t become onerous enough to feel that she had been at fault for doing exactly what ‘Wood himself had. ...Or maybe, she simply didn’t care to be so pained, so guarded over that which she didn’t understand. Maybe she didn’t care an inkling, at all.

Taking her eyes from the stars and to Eastwood’s stricken façade, her silver brow furrowed, gaze unapologetically resolute. “Perhaps I will always be an outsider, never adapting to ze ways other than my own. But, East... Drageda has gone north.” Let the words waver there, with time to let them nestle into his mind, and then, casting her eyes back to the stars, she quietly told him off all that had happened after he’d gone. She stumbled a bit over Caiaphas’ unprovoked instigation, which had evoked the proposal and decided move to Diaspora, while the rest of the kru had straggled back to Trigeda. ”There is no guilt in me because ze cliffs had become so irregular. Even if I had not been pregnant,” lashes fluttered in several blinks, perhaps the first mention of whelping at all? “I would have done ze same as you. There is no shame in what you have done, Eastwood.”

Aure fell quiet then, and if the gona allowed it, she picked her way closer, slim jaw set in that adamant way. “Opalia and Dacio are somewhere in ze Teekons, last I saw of them. As for here... Blodreina and Verx are with me. If you would ever like to see them,” she proposed, settling down alongside, “I am sure it will bring ze three of you some joy. Some comfort.” For she could offer none, as far as the anguishing over natrona went; but she smiled tentatively up to Eastwood all the same. If he met his new cousins — Isilmë and Dragomir — then perhaps that would bring some comfort, as well?

Whatever the situation seemed to be, time spent with Eastwood was a hesitant mosey; and when she made to depart, she did so warmly. Soon she hastened back to her thicket, eager to return to her babes. Only time would tell whether she saw East again or not — but she hoped dearly that she would.