Hideaway Strath too soon

Hemlock could feel the ripple as it hit Arturo, even if their marriage had been brief in title and formality they had been more for so long. As he emptied his stomach Hemlock attended to Lotte, cleaning her face and moving her head from the blood that had pooled on the ground before she turned her attentions to Arturo. She licked the excess saliva from his muzzle, scarcely moving with any thought and more on Instinct. 

While his words might have been a comfort Hemlock could not hear them, could not process them, not when it came to the depth of her guilt or how it consumed her entirely. Hemlock had come home and then Blackfeather had arrived on the doorsteps, she had become a leader and Roarke had vanished, he had sired her litter and Chusi had left them, she had become their mate and Lotte had died. And it all hit her, more painful than the scars that crossed her side. 

His heart wrenching admission made her whine, shifting her face from the plush if his coat to press against his muzzle and beneath his chin. "I... I cannot leave now," She winced as she was forced to deny him this thing he wanted - this thing that she truly did too. How could she face this place it had taken her love from her? "I do not want to be here. It... It is not home now." It had never been about the Strath - it had been about Lotte, after all, who had made it home to her again. "The children... What... What do we do?" Eirlys and Ceallach and Mallaidh, the children she had not even brought earthside yet - what would they do?