Ouroboros Spine xlvvi. ringing in my head, when you broke my chest

His nearness made her tremble, strangely enough. Lótë couldn't quite define the emotion behind it. Fear -- to have a man so close to her vulnerable younglings, that he was not real. Desire -- to hold him and never let go. Anger -- for his absence despite how unfair that was. Despair -- because she didn't know where they went from here. Somehow, things felt different. She almost felt she was at a loss for words, dumbfounded in what she should say or do now that he was back and standing only inches away. 

She turned secretive peridots to her children instead, not wanting him to see the turmoil that brewed beneath her skin. She did not want to ruin this, what should be a joyful homecoming in which she did not have to bury her husband and raise their cubs alone. 

"Lómion Baptiste," she whispered as she brushed her misted muzzle along the tiny ridges of his spine where he'd buried his face near her armpit. "It means 'Son of Twilight' in my mother tongue. He is kissed by the night."

"Vairë Baptiste, 'story-weaver'. Your firstborn daughter." She indicated her dark earthen form, planting a tender kiss against her freckled features that caused the pup to shift and sigh in her sleep. 

"Inkalorë Baptiste. It means 'top-gold'." It was fitting, seeing as the golden babe was already coated in soft blonde hair that reminded Lótë of dawn striking a field of autumn grass. She curled around them a bit more out of instinct, as if reluctant to let anyone pry at her child and gawk at their differences. "Ink is special. They are both in the body of one, male and female. Such wolves often faced difficulties in society in the Land of Many Elms but they often made great healers and spiritualists -- many were revered as mouthpieces of the spirits." The words escaped in a wisp, ears flattening to her skull as a long silence stretched, her body tensing in case Adrastus rejected the child as some men were known to do when one was born to their hearth. 

When she continued, they had but one child left. "Wilwarin Baptiste. Butterfly. She is small but strong," she demurred in soft-spoken pride, preening some of her fur aside to reveal the tiny girl of ivory where she shivered against her mother. "I expected they would all be northerners like you. But she is the only one that seems to be borne of winter...she looks like you."