The Heartwood graunsheika

feel free to keep throwing anyone in! <3 gonna post again in this one bc of plot movement <3

it was not long before towhee joined them. the young mother's eyes blurred, relief mingling with a mounting fear of her mother-in-law's response. towhee had always been level-headed and no-nonsense, kind to heda, but this situation was the first of its kind.
still, she stepped forward, and took a breath, and began to break into the story of how saint had disappeared, how ava had almost drowned. how she and caracal had been stretched too thin. how he had sought respite in the fruit and how she had finally fractured to see him seek an out that wasn't hers.
how she had gathered the children and left the island after believing ava had almost died due to caracal's neglect. that she had been wrong, but it had been too late; that she needed to go back to speak to him, to gather judah; she was finally crying, her breath coming in hard hot sobs, as she prepared for what she assumed would be towhee's anger, the general misery of her children standing around her like a fogbank.