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It was a risky move, taking the children out of the Cour des Miracles packland, and one that had troubled Alaine for quite some time. However, Princess and her mate, Haven, were not always around the babysit the three pups - At such times that she could not remain in the Chien Hotel, it then became imperative that the colliewoman be able to take her hybrid spawn with her.

So on this lazy afternoon, amidst a gentle and silent forest, the beautiful woman had bundled her two bloodchildren in blankets and settled their growing forms in saddlebags attached to the leather straps and the pommel of her riding gear. Normally, the healer would have ridden bareback, for on the rotund mare which carried her there was little added benefit by the fickle leather thing. But now it was essential for carting Elvira and Elijah throughout the slowly defrosting landscape.

The oldest, her adopted Odette, sat tediously perched over the saddle in front of her. Alaine's ivory arms held the girl in place, and she seemed to think it the most exciting adventure of her young life. Although Odette had come to her on the mountain, the Apothecary had immediately taken her in as kin, and now saw no difference between her and the other two children in her heart.

There was, of course, a difference - That being parentage. What the almost month-old pups had that differed to the almost two-month-old child was the thick and tainted blood of the King of Inferni, the warrior-priest himself; Gabriel.

She had not thought of him in a long while - Tried not to, because the thoughts often led to stray fears that crept upon her in the dark hours of night. Him, of raven hair and calloused palm and hot breath and gentle touch; Sometimes it pained her to look into the open eyes of her daughter Elvira, and see the same piercing amber gaze. Vira was much alike her father in many ways. Proud and strong, she dominated over the other two pups as a natural leader. There was fire in her eyes, and Alaine grieved to think that she might suffer the same pains in power and control as her father had, and did.

The youngest of the three, inferior to his sister by mere minutes, was Elijah. He was a confusing creature, with coyotelarge ears and a scrawny, wiry frame. Smart, yes - Very. But constantly lost to a world that only his blue eyes could see. It frustrated the mother that her son seemed so vacant, when his sister was so sturdily rooted to the reality of her life.

The broodmare stumbled slightly, pulling Alaine from her thoughts enough to provide some absent clucking to the animal, and a gentle directional tug on otherwise slack reins. She was by no means an experienced rider, but Nana was such a placid and generally steady beast that skill was not required to utilize her as a means of transport. Odette whined in her arms, and the cream and ivory woman soothed her daughter with a soft croon, before setting cool emerald eyes to the trail again.

She sought a particular place, a place where bramble grew and concealed from her the fresh-growing winter aconites that would provide some substance for her flu remedy. Perhaps, on finding such a copse, the Apothecary might be lucky enough to find the remaining clumps of witch hazel to have survived the winter's bite. She was not particularly hopeful, but sometimes luck favoured those who thought to seek the spiky plant.

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Maybe she would never have noticed him.

What a paradox that might have caused, perhaps changing the course of her life and her children's lives. An intriguing concept, that the motion of a horse's head could change the entire flow of her existence. But when Nana's nostrils flared, and the heavy-set beast lumbered to a halt and swung her doe-eyes head in way of the stranger, Alaine too followed the mare's intent with her own emerald gaze.

For a moment, she stared back at the fellow who was watching her. Hands tensed on the reigns, and sensing her mother's unease, Odette's wrigglings stilled. Nana seemed to pick up on her mistress' air of anxiousness, for she began to shift her weight on big dinnerplate hooves, and lash her unkempt black tail at invisible flies. Knowing that the lumbering mare's trot was almost enough to unseat her, Alaine didn't dare urge her on, and instead quietened the creature with soft mutterings. The equine's small ears curved back to catch the healer's gentle accented whispers, her words an ancient language lost to the new age of Nova Scotia.

She spoke Gaelic more often now, than normally, especially around the pups. Alaine lived in fear that her heritage would die out with her, and as such wanted to offer them the same bilingual skills that she had.

Her emerald eyes were sharp on the male, watching him warily. Horse and rider remained still, but one a whim, Alaine turned the rotund beast in a neat circle, keeping the horse's front between herself and the strange man. He was carrying a large sack, and her curiosity rang alarms bells, but there was something about the youth's appearance that twanged faint notes of familiarity in her mind. The mare's huge dinnerplate hooves plodded heavily with each step, and for once her size offered the colliewoman a sense of protection. "Who are you?" The words were called out in a curt tone. This land was not her land, but she had been in the area often enough, and have never before caught sight of him. Pupils narrowed suspiciously, "What are you doing here?". Awoken by her voice, Elvira began to squeak and yap, determined to see the cause of her mother's discomfort. The smaller boychild, Elijah, had also woken - But as often were their want, his eyes remained vague, peering out of the leather saddlebag with mild curiosity at the stranger.

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It appeared that the stranger was somewhat intelligent, for he did not advance, and went so far as to show the protective mother his bare hands. Somewhat mollified by this show of respect, Alaine allowed herself to relax her posture slightly, although emerald eyes remained keen and wary.

The cargo she carried was precious beyond repair, beyond recall, beyond all things. She valued it beyond her own life, and certainly beyond the life of the stranger whose golden eyes looked so similar to those of her daughter.

He smiled warmly at Elijah, and the pup's dreamy blue eyes focused for a minute on the man's handsome young face, a look of young intuition pulling a similar smile across his own slate-freckled maw. But by then Alaine had shifted to mare, just enough to block her son from view. He may have spoken kindly, but as yet he was an unknown, and the fact that his face was familiar to her only served to make the colliewoman more nervous, rather than less so.

Regardless, he had done nothing to arouse her suspicions than to be in the same area that she was, and the Apothecary was not an unfair woman. After another moment of sitting tall on the rotund mare's wide back, her frown lessened, and the lithe creature slipped off of the horse with a rather smooth vault. She moved to stand aside the creature's head, stroking gently at the docile face. "I am Alaine Winters, Apothecary of Cour des Miracles, and a healer of the South." For a long time, she had been the only healer in this area - News had spread to her that there was another who had taken up the practice in the new art-based pack, but she had yet to meet her colleague there.

During this time, something unusual was happening. Elijah, usually the most vacant and listless of the three pups, seemed to have made up his mind on something crucial. At only a month old, his thought process was faulty, but it seemed the blue-eyes boy knew what it was he wanted. He began to whine in an alarmingly high pitch - Alaine responded by retrieving him from the saddlebag, but the antics did not end there. The boy wriggled from his mothers grasp, and made a straight beeline for the one called Ezekiel. Wanting to follow her son but loathe to release the reigns of the mare, for she carted another two pups yet, Alaine watched in anxious resignation as the boy seated himself a small distance from the hybrid. His small face, darkened in a similar pattern to his father, peered innocently at the man.

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Her gaze was shallow and cold, watching the man with the intensity of a hawk watching a rabbit. There was little truth to this analogy, as Ezekiel easily outsized and outmuscled her, but Alaine had been known to fight dirty before. This litter of pups was especially sacred to her, as for a long time the woman had solemnly thought herself barren and incapable of fulfilling the miracle gifted to females of making new life.

But her pups had come, blessed by a night spent in the arms of the Raven-king and the shadows that he had seemingly commanded. This, she had him to thank for, but no more; the pups may have been Gabriel's by blood, but the healer harboured no illusions to the transcendental nature of their relationship. It had been a fleeting thing, and perhaps would be a fleeting thing again, but they orbited two different planets, and the children belonged to her world for now.

When the man had spoken, Alaine stiffened her resolve. She felt unnaturally inclined to stand idle, although the familiarity of the man's golden eyes warned her perhaps of the sun he had been spawned from. Elijah, however, seemed entirely taken with the hybrid, and tilted his head to a jaunty angle in that vague unnatural manner that was his own. His head tilted so far as that it would look almost disjointed - Somewhat endearing, and somewhat disturbing. Alaine knew her children to be flawed, but they were hers, and that made them perfect.

However, it seemed that Ezekiel was not done in administering his charm on those in her company - A series of foreign noises streamed from his maw in inelegant fluency, and the woman and her children were baffled into silence. The only creature to have a response was, in fact, Nana; Her dopey expression suddenly became one of intense interest, with small ears perked forward from large head, and nostrils flared. She whuffled at the young man, clearly confused, before uttering a whicker that Alaine could have sworn was of utmost amiability. Then, lo and behold, the mare began to move to him of her own accord - Regardless of Alaine, who's grip on the reigns had tightened considerably as she was dragged forward by the mare's slow ploddings. Nana did not seem to notice her mistress' tuggings, or even that Alaine was near her at all.

Finally relinquishing her grip, the Apothecary stared in utmost confusion at the scene playing out before her. The mare ambled directly over to the male, dipping her large head for her nose to be scratched. With her, went the precious cargo of Odette, who was perched precariously on the equine's withers, and Elvira, who had deemed it time that the world recognised her magnificent presence, and had begun to yap at the top volume of her tiny lungs.

Surprisingly, a strange sound welled forth from Alaine's throat, and it took the woman a moment to recognise it as the sound of her own laughter. "Well, I know when I am beaten, Ezekiel of-" The laughter stopped short, and the conflicted, wary expression returned, "-Inferni," Emerald eyes widened suddenly and she stifled a gasp with one ivory hand. "I should have seen it! You are of his blood, too..."

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The man certainly had a way with beasts. Nana had quickly become enamoured with him, and drawing his scent into large, flared nostrils such that her small herbivore brain would recognise it forever as friend rather than foe, she allowed the two-leg to rub at the soft velvet of her muzzle. Although placid, it was not a reaction she gave to many - Alaine had experienced a pang of jealousy, that the male was able to gain the equine's trust so easily, when it had taken her many fruitless hours.

Elijah, edging nearer to Ezekiel's frame with strange dragging motions, sat still again when the male's gaze swept over his face. Apart from the startling blue eyes, it would be clear to a seeking mind whom that dark mask had originally belonged to. De le Poer blood pumped through his veins, as it did in those of his sister, who's fiery eyes were an exact color of both Ezekiel himself and the Warrior-King. It seemed that the stranger was quick-witted, for by her words alone he knew to check for the signs of similarity, and clearly he saw them. His sigh left no remorse. Alaine was affronted with the irrational urge to take her children and flee from him, back to the cave with the etching on the walls that had guarded her against the world. Although, in truth it was not Ezekiel she wished to flee from - It was that blood, his blood. Inferni would one day seek to steal her children from her, but they would be outcasts on that blood-soaked soil, as much as they were within the green land of Cour des Miracles.

Unlike their mother or their father, the Winters children belonged nowhere.

Resisting this impulse, the colliewoman gazed back at amber-gold eyes, her own forest emerald refracted with shards of worry and pain. "I know him well," There was no point in uttering lies now. slowly, she moved forward - Enough so that seeking ivory hands could pull the wriggling form of Elvira from the leather saddlebag, and place her on the ground aside her brother. The girl's accusing eyes would show her blood for what it was. "They are his, too," For a moment, her emerald eyes harboured the two children alone - One weak of mind, one weak of soul. Perfectly imperfect. Moving to scoop the quivering ivory pup that had been perched on the mare's pommel into her arms, she then continued, "This one is mine alone." Odette had none of the tainted blood in her veins, not that Alaine was aware of. Her adopted mother could find no flaw in her, but for the girl's broken heart.

She placed the third pup on the ground, but unlike the other two, it did not venture nearer to the male. His face did not draw her as it had his half-siblings - Perhaps the was a sixth sense honed in them, the ability with which to recognise their own. Emerald eyes gazed solemnly at the handsome young man, seeing Gabriel much stronger within him now. "You'll not take them from me," She spoke calmly, "They will not be welcomed by their father. Their blood is too thin." Too false, too weak. She did not assume that Ezekiel would actually attempt to retrieve the pups, but it was a lingering fear regardless. "... He does not know." Another dark admittance, and this time her emerald gaze deviated from the painful scene of half-siblings united, looking instead to the memories of her once-lover. What would he do, if he knew? What could he do?

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It seemed the youth was wise enough to know the difference between touching her horse and touching her children, especially with her half-hearted accusation hanging like the Grim between them. Emerald eyes were quickened to that ever-familiar burnished gold, and Ezekiel did not drop his gaze from hers as he spoke. Alaine allowed the small bud of hope and trust to grow, if ever so slightly, from the tarnished soil of her heart. He was not her enemy, but she was wary by nature and by habit, and it was a trait that had served her exceedingly well in the past.

He was smiling, but she knew it well enough to be fake. There was a sharpness to each tooth that spoke not of malice but of force, perhaps a frustration with memories reborn. Elijah, however, knew no such difference - The smile was to him as a strange and enticing thing on the handsome strangers face, and in his usual oddball manner, the strange boy lifted his own lips to reveal white pointy teeth. The mirrored image of Ezekiel was distorted by his young face, and the tilted head only added an air of disturbing amusement to the whelp's expression. The older he grew, the more it became obvious that Eli's mechanics were faulty - something about the hollow listlessness of his vague, staring eyes, the jauntiness of angles and expressions that allowed for no true emotion to be shown.

For a moment, the mother had gazed at her son with saddened eyes. She loved him dearly, but he was flawed, so obviously.

The young man's cheeky turn of phrase slid her defenses lower, and allowing him to glimpse a rare but startling smile, the exotic female stepped forward again and lifted her hand to rest warm palm on Nana's rounded haunch. The mare did not move from her spot beside Ezekiel - Her ears and eyelids were drooped comically, giving the mare an appearance of rapturous dozing, while her nose occasionally wrinkled against the man's palm. "Ezekiel," She spoke in a soft, accented tone, created in a place far from this one, "this is Elvira," a nudge with her foot to the bad-tempered young girl, who had fixed her glaring amber-gold eyes on the male with an air of supremacy, "- Odette," the small ivory girl whined softly at the sound of her name, "... And this is Elijah." She gestured to the merle boy, whose staring blue eyes had widened somewhat, and gave him the appearance of a fluffed up baby owl. Unblinking, the boy regarded his kin with a chillingly blank expression, made comical only by his youth and endearing cuteness.

Allowing her curiosity to best her, Alaine took a step closer, peering at the bag that the male held. "What secrets do you keep in there, that my fuzzballs would not fit?" She would allow the handsome coyote hybrid to be near to her and her children, now - He had passed the first test.

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If Elijah noted the way his poignant stare so chilled the insides of the handsome hybrid male, then he did not show it. His blue eyes, swollen pupils sucking light from within, gazed widely at the man as if to take him in, too. Fluffy ears flopped as head retained that jaunty angle, smile disappearing in want of a thoughtful line. The vibrant smiling face on his bandanna smiled at Ezekiel, on and on and on...

However, the females were much more taken with Zeke's actions, and all three watched with Alaine's peculiarly wary mannerisms as the youth's hands strayed to his bag, made hefty with the weight of its contents. With the curiosity inherited from their specie, all three Fae creatures seemed to lean forward as his hands fiddled with the leather thong that kept the secrets concealed from them. When at last the secrets were revealed, each acted in a separate manner - Little Vira lifted her lip in disdain, sharp golden eyes glaring at these objects which were of no use to her. Odette, so meek and fearful, peered at them in confusion. Did they want to hurt her? She was not sure.

Only Alaine recognized the items for their worth, her emerald eyes sparking with memory. "Books..." Eyes feasted on the piles he had, although their titles were foreign to her. She knew very few of the man-written words, having only been taught the basics by her mentor, an ivory woman by the name of Orin. Although she held no particular love for the rune-covered items, the Apothecary was curious nonetheless, for she owned a book that Orin had informed her had been of great value to the humans. It was an English translation of The Canon of Medicine, and held much knowledge of her craft within its tarnished pages.

She wondered how well Ezekiel could read, and if he would find much use for her book. Asides from being able to read the title and some of the contents, it held little but sentimental value for her.

The young man was holding a colorful book within his hand, and even as her emerald eyes focused on it, Elijah had taken a peculiar liking to the blur of colors that his pale eyes registered. The boy gave a soundless expression of interest, his entire body stiffening as gaze focused intently on the book. The reaction was strange, but Alaine had grown used to her son's increasingly wayward antics, and she took little notice of it. However, it would please her to please the boy, and so she said, "Do you trade for them?" She had little to give to him, but a wealth of medical supplies and knowledge - perhaps something would be of equal value to the hybrid as the book he held.

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She did not miss the way the young male's golden eyes turned edgy as they grazed the pained face of her son, who strained so much now to show his curiosity that the entirety of his small blue-mottled body had begun to quiver. She felt a pang of sadness, that even he who shared half blood with the boy could not have an understanding of his flaws. Did this mean that Elijah truly was damaged? Wrong - He is wrong on the inside. The words went through her mind, too, and while emerald eyes flew over the other two children, she thought: They all are.

The young male had moved, and now he rose to a stand - He was tall, like Gabriel. The wariness to her gaze returned; He was not Gabriel, for his hair was of the sunlight, not of the darkness. It was crucial to remind herself of that fact.

She did not shy away when he approached. Ezekiel's nearness did not fill her with dread, but a strange sense of familiarity. She gazed deeply into his shallow golden eyes, and saw nothing but mirrors of sincerity. The book was a pleasant weight in her hand, and the woman waited until he had moved back before she tucked it against the gentle curves of her chest.

For a moment she gazed at him, her expression guarded, clouded. The deep scars in her upper arm stood out starkly, for they were rends in the flesh where no silky cream fur would ever grow again. A gentle wind toyed with auburn curls, but the severity of her expression sudden changed, allowing the young male a glimpse of the vacant weariness within her, the supple beauty and joy that her children had created within. "Thank you." One hand lifted to hover a moment in the air, before ivory palm sought the lean muscle of his upper arm, wanting to offer sincerity but not knowing how. The gesture of vulnerability made her feel awkward, and so she let the hand drop, calloused but slender fingers curving again about the book. Alaine clutched it tightly, feeling ashamed that she had been unable to make the connection. He reminds me too much of Gabriel...

"I know the faster way back to Inferni," She paused, gaze lingering away from his face, drifting vaguely over Elijah. He had resumed his poignant, owlish stare at the stranger who was his half-brother. "But... But I have supplies, if you... If you would like to join us for a meal."

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The young man had a startling grin. Sometimes it was fake, but it was a very good fake, a very clever fake - So almost-real that she could believe it for moments at a time. But it was only when the genuine smile spread across Ezekiel's face that she could note the real difference; His eyes smiled, too, and he was handsome like his father. She wondered if Elijah would ever develop that same easy appeal that Ezekiel and Gabriel had both managed to muster, but knew immediately that he would not. Elvira would, for she was a strong-willed and handsome creature. in spite of the menacing glower developing in manipulative golden gaze. Little Eli, though, would always remain the oddball - she was dully, reluctantly, aware of that.

As though thought had conjured it, Elijah's strained head tilt proved too much for his little body, and the boy keeled over onto his side. It took wide blue eyes a moment to register why his world was upside down, and the rigidity melted from his puppy form with a surprisingly innocent and natural-looking yawn. Alaine had moved to scoop him and Vira up into her arms, the cream little girl still managing to glare around the soft ivory of her mother's fur at the handsome stranger. It seemed she recognised her own blood, and had deemed it competition. Her aggressiveness continued to worry the mother, but of yet the girl was too small and weak to prove much trouble.

As Ezekiel accepted her offer, the Gaelic woman was moving to one side of Nana to deposit a pup back into its leather saddlebag, and she slipped beneath the mare's round belly to do likewise on the other side. Emerald eyes then lifted back to Zeke, who had brought his bow into her attentions by stroking it gently. The weapon, although recognised for what it was, was unfamiliar to her - Alaine only ever hunted in Lupus form, or with the clever little snares she set out for unlucky hares. Her older son, Caillen, had been good at hunting the antlered ones, but her diminutive size and lack of long-range weaponry made that almost impossible.

Gazing at the bow curiously, she nodded mutely, scooping the last pup into her arms. The shy ivory girl yawned widely, seemingly placated when in Alaine's embraced, and curled sleepily on the saddle when placed there. Nana had stopped her love-struck whuffling at the young man, but remained stoically at his side, as though she had walked a million miles with the de le Poer huntsman. Emerald eyes gaze darkly at the fat broodmare for a moment, before returning to the hybrid. "How do you propose to do this?" She wanted to know how his contraption worked, but could not leave the heavy-footed equine and her children out of sight for long

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It was clear that the male knew what he was doing. Within moments of hunting, Ezekiel had, with the elegant expertise of someone who survived on their skill alone, brought down two plumpish birds with his magical weaponry. In spite of herself, Alaine was awed with the speed and accuracy he shot the arrows, and soon had plucked the birds clean of their parasitical feathers. Much preferring cooked meat to that of raw, her step-son had crafted a fire to please her, and they roasted the birds slowly on a makeshift spit. While the scents wafted deliciously, the two spoke in light words and deep words, revealing with each tone a slighter depth to one another.

Her hesitance to warm to him had slowly melted away. Nana remained adoring, standing as close as she dared to the crackling flames and occasionally reaching to whuffle at the man's golden hair, as though he were one of the children she had left back in the stables. Her broodmare ways were brought into question as Alaine and Zeke discussed the mare's abnormal behaviour, and after revealing his ability to share communications with her, the man expressed his with to own such a creature also. The Apothecary barely had to think of it - There were a handful of useless, untrained yearlings milling around the packlands, and some of them were Nana's own. She promised to bring him one, and plans were made for a secondary meeting.

Dusk fell quicker than expected, and with the warmth of the fowl in her stomach, the healerwoman was feeling relaxed and kindly enough. She would fret, later, about the cleverness of her decision to meet with Ezekiel de le Poer again - He with the eyes of his father and her daughter. But in the end, the decision had not been her own, but that of her children. After Odette and Elvira were fast asleep, Eli had remained awake, staring out of the bag at his half-sibling. Unable to resist his strange stare, Alaine had removed the boy from his bag, and the pup had made a beeline for the hybrid male. He had sat awkwardly on the male's legs, and while the flames crackled, eyelids fell lower and lower over staring blue eyes until finally the rigid and restless form was at peace, dozing softly in what appeared to be an intensely uncomfortable position, draped over the lap of his half-brother.

They had parted ways not long after that. She had given him rough directions with a stick-drawing in the remaining slow as to the fastest route back to Inferni, back to Gabriel, that the man could take. And then, knowing her secret was soon to be released forever, Alaine watched him melt into the shadows and disappear.