Stone Circle Homesick

She mouths at his curls in the diluted light, “Ok,” she agrees, “Saudur. Saudur is a good brother to his little siblings.” Her eyes follow at the heels of his transitions: pleased to tense to a dithering hesitation.

“Skáld, if you want more time that’s ok. I will speak with him.” She is eager to renounce this provisional warren that they have sorely outgrown, the bedding gone musty with the constant comings and goings of four bodies, but she will not push Skáld for fear he may only be led further away from her. But he is altogether not so dismissive of the idea so she clings to the notion of hope.

“Maybe we can help expand Tréheim in the meantime. Dig it out a bit more, decorate. Could be fun?” In weariness she had resigned her attempts at bringing Fig and Skáld together but now that the pups were weaning it was time to try again, and even if a fantasy of the five of them living peacefully together was only ever that- it was still worth reaching for; a way to keep them all in her life. “Just imagine how very impressed the kids will be with the quartz.”

“There’s something else I want to ask of you,” she noses at a bronze coil along his cheek.