Broken Antler Fen pleisosaur

teya was young, but not so young that she did not realize, finally, how self-absorbed she had allowed herself to become. "ibis, why you not ask help?" no one else was a mother yet, and she could not think to understand more than what ibis could tell her.
a moment spared to smile toward the children again, meaning to reassure, before she swept her furrowed brow back to the woman. "they big." she had expected — teya was not sure what she had been expecting, having never been exposed to the true nature of growing children.
"you do all this alone? for long time? why?" a pause. "akavir not here when they born. he not here to understand." the little raven straightened slowly, turning toward the woman. "lilitu love you very much, ibis. do not have doubt." to arielle she could not speak, her own fault, but if ibis had raised them, she did not know why the sister would be so different.
"we here." to hear that ibis still held the dark man in esteem stung teya, flaring the ache of pain. the compulsion to believe that the auspex would always care for this man, and therefore men, and that teya could not be enough. "these your children. akavir not father unless you want it." he had not even put them inside her, he had no entitlement to them. teya studied the pretty, drawn face. "maybe you not able to make so many choices right now. no sleep."