Hushed Willows wolfsong

<3 tags are for reference, love yall

when okeanos was a very small child, his mothers had taken him and his siblings and guided them to a new strange world, away from daddy and aunts and uncles he remembers in pieces but incomplete. he has never thought to mind this, even when the sickness came (something he does not really remember for himself, so much as what he's been told about it) and they had to again relocate. what he does remember is this:

another group of children as young as him, but sickly, thin, their eyes hurting. no mother for them, only an absent father figure and sharp words hurtled any time he or ibis dared approach. two of them missing. brilliance, back, but still so tired, their reluctant truce (why do you get two mamas, she'd asked him once, and he couldn't answer). his slow realization that his beloved mothers could not keep them safe, a realization that had not brought bitterness but a firm resolution.
mali. impossible, angry mali, who thwarted okeanos' attempts at peacemaking at every turn. 

eventually, okeanos had given up and retreated into the warm arms of his own family, quietly studying with his mamas and keeping a protective eye over ibis. and then ibis had left, and okeanos did not go with her, even though he'd thought about it -- mama had been hurt, and had needed him there with her to heal. and then mali left, and though every nerve in okeanos' body had screamed for him to go find him, he hadn't. because mali hated him--okeanos hadn't understood as a child, but now, he did. okeanos had been fortunate. okeanos had been loved. mali had been --

he loves his family. he loves his mothers. he loves his newborn brothers, tiny, dandelion things. and he wants to love.. their new wife, he does -- he has seen how the quiet man breathed life back into their family, was there for olive and seabreeze during seabreeze's injury. he cannot hate him, but he cannot forgive him for what he did to his own children. he's tried to talk to brilliance about it, but she, in her funny quiet way, only changed the subject. 

okeanos isn't a small child anymore. he is grown -- big, bigger than all of his mothers, thick and soft like his father. he has been loyal to his mothers, stayed by seabreeze's side, and he loves her. but seeing ibis the other day shook something loose inside him. he has never been impulsive--it takes him a day to commit--but at last he seeks out @Seabreeze and spends time talking to her in low tones. she is okay now, without him. her wives and her new children will be here even if okeanos is not. and so he pulls her close, feeling her tiny, frail form against his for one last time, and promises to come visit. he presses his nose against each of his siblings' tiny heads in turn. he finds brilliance and tells her she can come too, if she wants, but does not wait for her answer.

okeanos is not impulsive; he has a plan. but first he needs to visit his father and his sister, and so, with a final parting call, he departs.