Northstar Vale If I ever were to lose you, I'd surely lose myself.

Akavir carefully extracted himself from alongside Ibis, and as she hadn't been sleeping well in the beginning, the void where his body once occupied and warmed her was met with a frustrated squint and the reaching of paws. She forgot for a split second that the girls were wedged between them and nearly swiped Arielle's nose; but she remembered where she was in time and carefully adjusted herself back in to place. With a few sleepy blinks Ibis felt the fog of sleep lifting quickly - aided in no small part to the smell of fresh food drifting in to the den.

She could not leave her daughters. But when a shape swept across the den mouth, Ibis thought it must have been Akavir returning - perhaps she'd lost track of time, it happened often and easily enough. The huffing breaths drew her attention slowly, and as she blinked and fully awakened, she did not see her fiancee standing there, but his brother - the handsome Viinturuth. She felt her heart thump and face grow warm immediately, much as it had after the girls had been born.

With a low voice Ibis whispered, Is that for us? Best not to wake the babies, she reasoned. Better to blame her breathlessness on them.