Phoenix Maplewood li pale [m]

tell me about your mothers.
mireille's eyes tightened in spite of herself, face opening into a raw sort of pain she had shown no other upon her long foray from home. 
before that, she had been fixed upon the sound of totoro's voice, watching their mouth move and wondering if it was as finely careful in all things as they were with their speech.
it would be a lie to say she was not definitively piqued by the other's body, these things that had been seen and dazzled others, but mireille would say nothing upon this. she did not want totoro to feel valued only for their flesh, despite her own current mindset.
"i do want children," the seawolf heard herself answering hoarsely, and now she rolled to her back, gazing up toward the interlocking maple-branches. "dat why i be out here. my mot'ers, dey raised ah, twenty? children." a laugh! were they so numerous?
"my maman erzulie, she died dis year, protectin' de pack from a bear. i be out here for her, for our people. our ways. to do as she did. to bring children in de names dat built us." passion, resonating, and now mireille swallowed, quieted, smiled gently toward totoro. "i have no da." it felt good to say. it hurt to say. "only mot'ers an' sisters, so many, an' aunties now. an' dis be my first year of age as well." they were not alone.