Stavanger Bay (fall in, fall out, fall along)

@Doe

The girl is jerked away suddenly. A quick breath of air sucking into her lungs as if her body had forgotten how to breathe and is only just now remembering. She scrunches up her eyes and buries her muzzle between her paws as reality courses back through her veins. "Amayo, amayo, amayo," she mumbles into the dirt like some kind of reminder. They muffled to her own ears but the words formed upon her lips comfort all the same. It takes a moment for her to move again, lifting her head to her sleeping parents as their even breathing remains in tune and lull her into a calm.  

Carefully and quietly, Qilaq shuffles to her feet and lazily slips from the den. She doesn't remain standing for long as she droops, legs flopping into place in a curve of sand that is—most of the time—Qilaq-sized. It is there she rests for the last hours of the night to turn into morning.

Doe does not wake when Qilaq does; not anymore. By now, the woman has grown used to her dreams, and such fickle things do not rouse the pregnant shewolf as they once had. It's a good while before her eyes blink open to a cramped but emptier-than-usual den - and the woman is then quick to go after her dark child.

"Stargazing again, Quil? the woman asks fondly, relieved to find the girl alive, well, and within sight. Doe has never kept careful track of her, thinking too much of her autonomy to set the limits she should have - but ever since Qilaq's drop, Doe has worried about her. She'd been prepared to lose the child since finding her, but now that she was here to stay, Doe found herself thinking it too good to be true.

Doe wandered away to relieve her bladder before returning to sit beside her daughter. She did not truly know whether or not Qilaq had been watching the stars - it was nearly dawn, now - but she'd seen her looking at them before.

"Maybe we can find someone to teach you about them," she suggested, speaking slowly and clearly so that the girl might better understand.

Truthfully, Doe did not think much of the girl's intelligence.

Sleep does not come back to her, even when she shifts in the curve of the earth, twisting and turning for just the right position.  None of them make her any more tired or comfortable and most times she ends up a mess of legs in the air, staring at the sky. Sometimes she can make sense of what's happening above her and others write intricate stories far too complex for her to understand yet. 

Or so she assumes. 

It is later when she hears a rustling, twisting herself back to her belly and eyes drift upward to Amayo's face. Long awake, her tail thumps eagerly and makes a half hearted attempt to stand, only to mostly remain in place except now she's facing her mother. 

"Yes," she says quietly, dropping her head to rest on the arch of earth to keep her nose pointed upward. 

Her grey eyes watch fondly as the woman accepts the answer and moves, wandering briefly out of sight and returning a moment later. When the suggestion is brought to her attention, her eyes widen and ears stand erect upon her head. Questions fill her mouth, weighting down her tongue so that she doesn't even know where to begin and manages to squeak out an excited "okay!" instead.

Talkative today, she thinks to herself, wondering if this litter will be as taciturn as her husband and daughter. Szymon, at least, had learned to speak to her when she needed it - perhaps Qilaq would be the same, in time. Perhaps not. Doe had submitted herself to fate in this; the girl would speak when the gods willed it and not any sooner. One-word answers would suffice until then.

"I'll see if someone at Donnelaith knows about the sky," she told the girl, delighted to be heard by her and a bit affected by her excitement. "Or maybe someone from Riptide's pack will teach you."

There were options everywhere. Doe remembered that Fluer had known about the stars, but the woman was long gone. It was for the best, of course, but she wished now that they had another like her to play tutor to Qilaq.

"What else would you like to learn?" she wondered aloud, giving the girl's dark cheek an affectionate lick.

Her eyes do not wander from Amayo's face as the plan is elaborated on but Qilaq doesn't focus on the words for long. She stiffens every muscle, as much as she can, at the same time in order to keep still. The strain is briefly portrayed upon her own features but she relaxes as the affection is placed upon her cheek. She shuffles up and out of the dip in the ground, slinking up close to Amayo's chest, albeit awkwardly with her increasing height, and rests her cool nose against her chin.

Once again, the woman's words fall on deaf ears. Doe eyes her girl ruefully as her attention wanes but accepts her into her embrace with a huffy laugh. It is getting awkward - and not just because the girl is growing into a gangly adolescent. Doe is growing, too, and her belly is almost too wide to to accomodate her first daughter's cuddles.

They do their best, though, and the sun rises on mother and daughter with weak but warm light. Autumn is fully upon them by now, and cool winds rake almost constantly across the bay.

Doe decides that it's time.

"Wanna see something?" she asks softly, rubbing her cheek against the top of Qilaq's head before gently untagling herself and standing aside. Even if the girl hadn't been listening, the stance is an easily recognizeable one: Let's go.

Qilaq twists her head a little when she's spoken to but she shrinks a little with the nudge, closing her eyes as her whole body softens beneath her. She mumbles a quiet "yeah" before she allows herself to be willingly untwisted from the embrace. Her own movements begin to mimic that of Amayo and stand, scrambling out of the divot and ready to go. 

"Wh-what is?" she whispers as she falls in line behind the bulging mother, unaware the words aren't still encased by her mind.

Doe is relieved when she hears her once again. More words flow from the girl's mouth, clumsy and only half-heard, but words all the same.

"To a bigger den," she explains, suddenly doubting that this will please Qilaq as much as it pleased her. It seems to Doe that the girl doesn't like a roof over her head, and that's fine - but it's much safer to run out of the sand den than the stone one. They'll have to do something about that, or at least drill it into her that, even waking from nightmares, she must not move quickly along the ledges.

"We have to climb a little," she explains when they reach the cliffs. The ledge is not too narrow that Doe really worries about the girl, but caution is always warranted. "Be careful, okay?"

Qilaq blinks a few days when she gets the answer and then turns her head over her shoulder to observe their den in the distance. How can they find a bigger one than they had if they're going in the wrong direction? Her jaw sets and she sweeps her head around upon the new instruction and slowly mimics the same pattern as her mother. The question is gone from her mind, for the moment, as is their destination, so that she can put all focus on each step and follows along in silence.

Soon enough, they'd reached the den. Doe had to duck only a little to enter - in the early days of her pregnancy, it'd taken very little effort. Now, though, the weight of her belly made such movements more awkward and cumbersome. It took her a moment to find her way through, but once on the other side, it was easy to amble over to her bed and collapse.

"Come here, Qilaq - I need to tell you something very important," she said, looking around for her daughter.

While Qilaq doesn’t entirely know where they are going, she follows along anyway. One step in front of the other’s he tries to place them right behind Amayo’s remaining foot step so that she follows along as carefully as she’s able. The focus does not break right away when they approach, having to hesitate her steps when there’s a stop in front of her. Her eyes widen as she feels a little unbalance—albeit, nothing put her in danger—and she looks up to see her mother disappearing into the dark.

She stands on the outside for a moment longer as she forces herself in, but with careful steps as her vision compromises inside the den. Qilaq wrinkles her nose as she looks to Amayo, dropping like a sack of potatoes, as she’s called over. The girl mimics the action as best as she can, dropping her own form to the ground in front of the other.

A snort of laughter escapes the woman as she watches her daughter's antics. For the moment, seriousness is set aside in favor of an attack of tickles and impromptu-grooming. These could be the last free moments she will have with her first child for months, and Doe is glad for them. Her love for this child rises in her chest, and soon enough, it is too bittersweet a moment for levity.

"Qilaq," Doe says with a gentle smile, giving the girl's nose a loving lick. "Do you know why I have gotten so big and fat?" she asked, deciding to start with the basics, so as not to confused her simple-minded daughter.

As Amayo laughs, Qilaq’s nose wrinkles and turns in to receive the grooming and tickles all the same. Her limbs kick out a little and she goes through her own fit of laughter, burying her nose down between them to ward her off. It is when a kiss is planted upon her snout that she begins to relax again, twisting her head to peer up at her mother. Her ears prop forward, eagerly listening to the question with her own inquisitive look. She breaks her gaze away when she realizes she hasn’t given it much thought, looking at the roundness of her belly and her swollen underside. Qilaq swings her nose back up, staring upon her face as she awaits the answer.

No, apparently not. Doe wondered if she should try to explain the entire process to the girl, but eventually decided that it would not be necessary. Though she loved her daughter, Doe had already decided that poor Qilaq should not reproduce. The children might come out like normal wolves, but they might also come with whatever vice afflicted Qilaq's mind, and that was neither useful nor kind. It was better for the girl not to know - and should something happen, and the poor girl become gravid through some dark twist of fate, Doe would give the results a merciful death.

For now, though, she had to find a way to explain this little hiccough to her poor, dumb daughter. "Wolves are borne, Qilaq - mother wolves grow fat with children, and when time has passed, small wolves come out of their bodies." A flicker of ears betrayed Doe's discomfort. It was not the way that she'd been told of the process; Hind had been much more graphic and in-depth, knowing that her own daughter would one day experience it. Qilaq, however, did not need to know. "Like when you poop - except baby wolves come out, and not poop," said Doe, hopefully clarifiying the subject. Maybe not, though. "Do you understand?"

Her amayo begins to explain the origin of wolves and Qilaq's ears perk up and her tail wags. Her own imagination of the process becomes vivid, as if she is just given details to fill in the blanks. Her light colored eyes become brighter and she breaks away from the mother's face, looking at her rotund belly. While Doe is still speaking, she lowers her nose to touch the swelling and a few licks are given. The scent is familiar to her in a way she can't explain and so she, very softly, rests her head upon her belly in case she can hear them inside.

Even though the process is explained, Qilaq's nose wrinkles at the mess they will cause but she doesn't say anything about it. Instead, to the question, the girl nods her head while her cheek rubs against Doe's belly. "Yeah," she murmurs into tufts of fur while she looks up at her mother. "So I was here?" she asks with a few thumps of her tail, thinking how wonderful it once was inside the warmth of her Amayo.

Doe doesn't miss the disgusted look on her daughter's face. A sly smile flashes over her features, and she ducks her head to press an affectionate kiss to the girl's cheek, amused to no end by her reaction. Doe had known that she would not think it a pleasant thing even if she could see past it to the wonder. And, of course, the wonder was not absent, either.

A tiny frown works its way onto her face at the girl's question. She hadn't realized that Qilaq did not know she was adopted - there were days when Doe forgot it herself. For a moment, she thinks about lying, but she knows that there's no guaruntee they can keep the truth from her.

"I did not bear you," Doe said gently, licking her cheek once more. "But though you grew in someone else's belly, you have grown in my heart. So I wanted to ask you something - A den mother loves all cubs of the pack, no matter where they come from. The name of a den mother is Amayo. A mother, though, loves the cubs that are hers, and the name of a mother is Mama.

"Qilaq," said Doe, attempting to catch the girl's gaze, "I love you as a mother does. I have always loved you this way. If it pleases you, you may call me Mama like the cubs that will come."

The explanation happens faster than Qilaq is able to process, trying not to get caught up in one before she hears the next. While questions have risen in her mind, a heavy breath has lodged into her chest as Doe explains the differences in Amayo and mama. Her eyes glaze over in an unexplained hurt she doesn't know how to voice. Her head drops and she stares at the ground instead, the rest of her body trembling. The breath escapes her in a rattle and her heart begins to beat quickly—something she has only felt a handful of times—and tries to steady herself with little success.

It is only when Doe speaks her name that she feels the change. Qilaq's surge of emotions seemed to halt upon a brick wall as her wet eyes stare up at the woman. She doesn't get the answers she wanted but she is given something that should make her feel comforted. Qilaq swallows a hard lump building in her throat and she looks away to try and sort everything building up in the back of her mouth. "Okay," she says quietly and through a suddenly dry mouth. She smacks her lips a little and lowers her head to rest against Doe's chest.

Qilaq blinks a few times and swallows a second, hardened lump in her throat. Slowly, she turns her attention back but her own weight feels heavy and while the questions mostly remain without the proper words, she shifts so that she can fully lay on her side with her back against her mother. Quietly, she murmurs amayo to herself a few times, followed by mama but in that moment, she can't find comfort in either one. "M'tired, mama," she mumbles once she adjusts her position once more, tucking as much of herself beneath Doe as much as she can.

Oh. Perhaps it hadn't been a good idea to just come out with the truth like this. Doe had never meant to mislead her into thinking that she'd been born of her, but it wasn't a topic that often came to the shewolf's mind, and even when it was, Doe hardly thought that it needed to be spoken.

All this time, she'd still assumed Qilaq would remember the day of her 'rescue' at Doe's jaws. That she did not was a bit of a blow to the dusky beta; it was one of her better moments, she thought.

Regardless, what hurt most was the stricken look in her daughter's eyes, and then the dead way she responded to her gentle offer. When she tried to brush this off and simply go to sleep, Doe almost let her. Almost.

"Oh, lamb," said Doe, shifting her body to allow Qilaq to burrow, but setting upon the girl to give her a firm grooming. "I've hurt your feelings - I'm sorry," she said between licks, nuzzling the girl when she pauses to speak. "Will you tell me what's wrong, or what I can do to make it better?"

The sound of Doe’s voice keeps her attention, even though she does not answer. She does not fight or welcome the grooming and she allows herself to be manipulated when need be. There is a void that she cannot explain or put into words while her mind works, thinking back into what memories she did have and sort through them as best as she can. She goes back before this, before he puppies, before the drop. The constricting feeling in the back of her throat makes it difficult to take an even breath and her body shudders through one she can’t hold in any longer.
 
“Where?” she asks, quietly, and for a moment she isn’t sure it was loud enough. “Where do I come from?”

She tries to make it better, tries to push the pieces of her daughter back where they belong, but none of her manipulations seem to work. Qilaq lies like a rag on the floor, dead to Doe's grooming and the sound of her voice. But she asks a question, and Doe jumps to answer, hoping she will continue to speak.

"I - I don't know," she admits, realizing it as she says the words. It is not something she often contemplates - Qilaq his hers, and that is all that has mattered since bringing her home. "When I found you, you were sick and alone. It was... the woods, deep in the wilderness. Far from the shore. No one was around, so I took care of you - and then a dark wolf came out of nowhere, trying to take you away. I thought it was your father, but you ran from him. You were afraid," Doe explained, reliving the day. "Skellige came, and Appeh - and they chased away the man. And you've been ours ever since."

Would it be enough? She hoped so, desperately. She'd never meant to cause this kind of heartache or confusion.

Qilaq listens to every word Doe speaks, listens with every fiber of her being. Missing a single word may mean she loses some bit of information she needs to find the answers. There are more questions swimming in her head, feelings that she doesn’t know how to put into words. There is a silence when her mother finishes speaking and Qilaq stares off toward the opening of their new home to consider what she wants next. None of the story is familiar but it tugs at the ends of her nerves, as if she should remember, but comes up empty handed—there’s a hole somewhere she now can’t fill, memories she can’t put into place, and she sighs again.
 
She moves after a moment and shuffles, turning so that she can see Doe’s face but her head returns to the floor, nestled on her paws as her gaze flickers away.
 
“Can…” she pauses, unsure of what she wants to say or how to find her voice. She stays silent for several more seconds before she shuffles back up into a sitting positon, frustrated when she can’t find what she needs to get across. “We go there?” she asks, ears cupping forward with a slight tilt of her head. She isn’t even sure if she wants to go at all but, maybe, she can piece a few things together.

No! There were monsters there - a large, black monster, namely. Doe was terrified that her little girl would be taken from her, still. That the dark wolf would steal her while she slept on her own in the den in the pampas grove. So many times, she'd asked @Szymon to check on her in the night, and she had always been safe, but Doe had dreams. Nightmares.

But Qilaq does, too. And Doe wonders if, maybe, visiting that place will help her. Maybe it's something that needed to be done, like when she put Shink back into her tiny den on the plateau. Maybe she would get better. Maybe she would start talking. Maybe she was a real wolf inside, but not knowing about her past had turned her into the small, careful, mindless creature that she was.

"In the springtime," Doe says softly. "When winter is over, Szymon and I will take you there. If you still want to go."