Blacktail Deer Plateau i told you i didn't want to go to this dinner

Someone spoke her name and Meerkat finally withdrew from her father's embrace to ascertain the rest of the group. She knew Mou and Maegi, though her eyes lit curiously on the youngster. So many questions cropped up in her head all at once. What were they all doing here? Why were they here together? The opiates still singing in her bloodstream decided the answers to these questions were ultimately unimportant. They were here together! That's all that mattered.

"Hi," she returned Maegi's greeting, still exuberant from her reunion. She glanced at Phox, her cheeks aching with the broadness of her grin. Wait until Towhee heard the news! Of course, her mother wouldn't hear it. Meerkat snorted, then whipped up her good paw to cover her mouth and give the other four a sheepish look from behind it.

Her expression sobered quickly at the scarred woman's next words. In fact, Meerkat felt her mood plummet straight out of the sky at two in particular: "Niamh died." Her stomach rolled, her eyes bulging. Surely she'd heard that wrong. Meerkat's gaze skirted to Phox again, watching as he also reeled at the news, meaning he'd heard the same thing.

Abruptly, her whisky gaze flicked back to the puppy huddled by Mou. Her face contorted in confusion. Maegi mentioned three children, yet Meerkat only saw the one. And her mind grappled with the implications. Niamh had given birth? And then died? Her eyes bored into the little girl, who looked about the same age as her younger siblings. Her entire body began to flash hot and cold.

"H... you..." Like her father, Meerkat fumbled her words. "You. Wait." Her lips trembled as Aiolos's words came back to her: "But by the time he arrived, she was already gone." She felt like she couldn't breathe properly. "You..." Her eyes swung to Mou. "...if we hear from Niamh, we can send word." She had been out of her mind with confusion and fear for her Neema and they'd... they'd lied to her face.

Quaking from head to foot, Meerkat choked out, "You lied?" Her eyes opened, closed, opened again. "You LIED."