Hushed Willows we'll create an empire for you.

Last post for me! Unless things randomly go crazy again lol

Harlyn shut her eyes and grit her teeth as pain, sharp and relentless shot through her with every other breath. Her eyes opened to slits to peer at Tavi when the woman spoke, and for a brief second she felt relief to hear that Tambourine was alright. It was short-lived though, for she had never really thought that he was dead. Everything was moving too fast and the pain made it hard for her to focus fully on one thing or another. It was easier now that no one was being attacked, but still her heart boiled with anger towards her co-alpha for this whole mess. 

But Tavi clearly was beyond reaching at this point - a fact that was unsettling on some level to the druid but mostly just infuriating in that moment. She seethed, but then let it fall away as another shot of pain lanced her. She felt Mordecai's touch and looked up at him, sensing the urgency in his actions. With a deep breath, Harlyn braced herself from the protest her body made against movement. She stood with effort and leaned into her mate gently. For a moment, she simply fought to still her trembling limbs. Then gingerly, she started to walk, hobbling on three limbs with her mangled paw held in the air.

"We have..." Harlyn murmured as she struggled slowly along, "...find Pip.."  For much like Tavi, Harlyn cared little for anyone else around her then - Only her own son mattered. But it wasn't from the entire pack and everyone in it that she felt a threat towards him; she saw now that the danger came from only the one wolf of the Keep that had been her friend and supporter from the beginning, whom she had trusted above all others - an apparently foolish thing to have done.

Her reaction was to cling tightly to him, tears and something thicker and stickier dripping all over him. Tambourine didn't mind. "Oooh," he said, in fact, reaching up to swipe at his nose only for a thick rope of Tavi's snot to stretch between his muzzle and paw like melted cheese on a pizza. "'Ook, mum!" he said, oblivious to her breathy sobs of relief, as well as Harlyn and Mordecai gathering their wits nearby.

Though his neck still ached and there was a decided tension in the air, the puppy did not acknowledge any of it. He put his little foot on the ground and chuffed in delight when a bunch of dirt and grass stuck to his toes, the phlegm acting like glue. "Mum!" Tambourine shouted again, although he didn't even look up at her. Now giggling, he flopped to the ground to roll the rest of his damp, gooey fur in the dirt to hopefully cover himself in it.

Nothing else mattered to Tavi. Nothing else ever would, not like this. When her son resumed his wiggling and varied chit-chat, Octavia could only gasp and grin and pull him close. She didn't care what kind of mess he was making - didn't even try to correct him as she usually would, or clean him - she only held him close until her breathing was less laboured. And then, with the situation behind them (for the most part) and the group disintegrating, Octavia planted a number of warm, wet kisses across Tambourine, and then plucked him from the earth, hoisting him high as she sought a place to rest; they both needed it, and she wasn't about to put her son in to any further harm. She did not head towards the Crook with her babe carefully held between her teeth; instead she sought the cover of the willows, the moody outskirts of the Keep where she could find a hollow within which to stash the two of them. The woman was in no state to trust anyone at this point, and only knew that Tambourine was everything — so she would keep him safe, keep them both safe, and things would be okay.