Northstar Vale I don't wanna hate you, kills me that I have too

He could handle nightmares, he offered—her thoughts trailing to the pieces she could recall dreaming of in her hours of sleep. Solpallur had haunted her frequently in the days past—stemmed, maybe, from the worry she held close to her heart about motherhood—her life previously imagined stripped away when he had impregnated another she-wolf. That hurt did not linger the way it used to—her sense of usefulness and fulfillment had come to blossom in Epoch—but it would be a lie to say the experience of it had not left her with a shield up to the world when it came to intricate feelings.

Or had she dreamt of Reyson? Perhaps, her worry of the Pharaoh descending upon Tamar and bringing her back to a life she had left behind—a life she had made Meadow promise to never tell another of what it had been—she flushed again, praying that promise remained strong. Yet still, she could only hope she had not called out for Germanicus.

She blinked, then—his nose touching the tip of her paw, and she drew her focus back to him. He spoke of Renaud, Amity and Rook—all names she had become familiar with in their time together. His own horrors of his past.

“I went to the lake after I spoke with Tamar about… my heat coming. I worried I was not ready—and she told me I should… I should suppress it, if I didn’t completely know what to do. That there would be time in the future…” Had he seen those herbs? She did not know. “I didn't know what to do, but I knew I wanted the option, just in case...”