Arrow Lake separate the weak from the obsolete

just setting scene for babies ❤️
ʀᴀɴᴋ ʀᴇᴍɪɴᴅᴇʀ: aure’s position as pionier isn’t effective ICly until june! you’re all probably aware of it, so it’s more of a “note to self” & to avoid confusion than anything. so right now, she’s still optio <3

Earlier, from scrapping with Blodreina for as long as she could endure, the herbalist had intended to retire to her now-vacated thicket. Aure wished to fade into such a dreamless, unending slumber; taxed in a myriad of manners, to rest her aches away from everyone who pried. ... But, then, Drago and Isi coaxed her from privacy with giggles made light and sweet on the late spring winds.

In what seemed like eons, Aure found herself smiling again — faint, tentative, but there. She rose without complaint, in this, and followed those heralds of her heart. It was when she went to nuzzle Isilmë that she heard it; heard him in all his raggedness. But it was him, and everything stuttered. Aure let herself linger in that shivery moment for more heartbeats than was wise — and then, hastening, she brought their children to the foothills.

When she saw him, Aure knelt, tethering them to her with soft chirrups. Far enough away (she hoped) that anyone’d be hard-pressed to get a good study of her face — of the emotion, the new scarring, the half-sight there.

Still, a smile bloomed upon her lips, and she nudged eggingly at their children’s cheeks. ”Chon ste dei de? Hm? Ste dei de... noni?” Laughed, hushed and loving and low — and whenever it seemed they were frantic with frenzy — and no Mahler currently in sight — the silver let them romp the rest of the way to their awaiting father.

As much as she longed to pursue them, Aure thought it’d be best to linger behind — for now. While Verx spent these precious moments of blissful embrace with their babies, she would keep a weather eye out for Mahler... and if he would keep to his personal verdict.