Swiftcurrent Creek Hear my words that I might teach you.

Eshe understood what Arric was saying, but it was something that she didn't agree with.

"I was raised differently," she explained, carefully crafting her response with a hesitant pause. "My parents have been mates for years now, and they've been the example and standard of how I always wanted to live my life." She felt self-conscious for admitting this when she had so desperately wanted pave her own path and flesh out her own beliefs. Was that what she really believed? She wasn't sure.

All Eshe was sure of was that in that moment, it felt like she was regressing back to the narrative and fantasy that Rannoch and Liffey had created. "It might work for others ... it just ... doesn't work for me."

Arric's remark about his father strengthened Eshe's smile. "Your father also didn't have a uterus," she reminded him; childbearing was different when you were the one growing the children.

"I've been meaning to find her," she said when he mentioned the pack's medic. "Is there any chance you could connect us?" She had felt anxious about asking everyone she met if they were Arlette, and would feel more comfortable being introduced.

"I actually didn't know that," she said when he told her about the reed-fluff. "I haven't been working with them for long, and thought that the fluff was just something you tore off to get to the good stuff."

"Is there anything else about reeds you can tell me?"