close on you like the fist of a baby or an anemone

After the talk with Skoll, insomnia buzzed between Dreyma’s ears like television snow.

She didn’t think her golden paramour slept at all despite shut eyes. He reacted too little and too quietly when she stood, her four paws shuffling to avoid hurting him with her weight. His abdomen tensed when she accidentally stepped on it, but he didn’t move. She supposed he didn’t want to talk further – and she couldn’t blame him. Their words felt numbered, now.

Dreyma searched her heart for anger or regret, but diving deep she found only a cold pit of anxiety. Silently, she slipped off the bed and snuck out into the hall, and only then allowed herself to pant with stress.

Perhaps never more than now did the adopted Stormbringer wish desperately for her mother’s presence, her calm advice. She tried to take steady breaths, and though each caught painfully in her chest she did not cry. The time for crying was over, though now that she didn’t have to wear a mask for Skoll the tears threatened to cloud her eyes. Gods, she was scared – she was scared and it pissed her off.

Stop, breathe, think. Dreyma was strong. She was as strong as Shiloh.

But she needed to talk to someone. She glanced then padded down the mildewy corridors, suddenly feeling claustrophobic trapped between peeling wallpaper and endless doors. Like she was running a maze.

Shaking her head, she paused at a particular door then scratched lightly at it with a forepaw, speaking softly. “Abi?”

Though the eldest of all the siblings, Dreyma sought Abigail like she would her mother. Her sister was the only one of them with a family; she would have some insight, and she knew Skoll well enough to help with that aspect, too. While Dreyma alone did not have a twin to confide in, she was close with her sister, and she knew this was what she needed. She had told Skoll as much.

Abigail’s children slept peacefully – at least, that was what it looked like to the Mother who watched over them. Their eyes were smoothed shut, not scrunched; their chests rose and fell gently. Yet every now and then a paw would twitch and a faint whine would sound and Abi would wonder what Cicely and Ajax dreamed of – whether their paws twitched because they were running towards their futures, or fleeing something terrible.

The Archiduchessa tried her level best to enjoy her son and daughter while they were still children. She had promised Kira that she would and Abigail Sadira wasn’t one to break a promise – especially a promise to the man she adored. Still it was a constant worry that the trials of the past would somehow, someday catch up to her children.

For now it was little more than a musing on whether they dreamed or experienced nightmares. Someday Abigail would have to know what they remembered of Mistral’s reign. She feared that day but it was inescapable; the future was even harder to avoid than the past.

The scratch of a paw at her door made the woman’s head turn away from the sleeping youths. Abigail quickly rubbed the fatigue from her eyes and rose from the edge of the bed to open the door.

“Come in,” she invited, tail stirring into a slow wag – an innate response to seeing any of her siblings. Her voice was soft but it held a note of concern. "I thought I was the only one not sleeping."

Her sister invited her in, and Dreyma craned her neck to look up at her as she stepped into the room with four soft paws. Though she was younger by a couple weeks, Abigail looked older than Dreyma somehow – perhaps it was the dark lines beneath her eyes, the note of concern in her voice that of a weary mother. She was no longer the light-colored pup who climbed the Jordheim hills with her dark sister; she was Archiduchessa of Cour des Miracles.

But at her heart she was still sister – wasn’t she?

“Are they doing okay?” the black wolf whispered, glancing at the slumbering puppies. She remembered when she and Abi were that small – and found herself wondering the same things. When Shiloh’s first trio were small, they too had been kidnapped: ripped from their mother’s arms to serve as hostages in a short-lived conflict. Dreyma remembered her nightmares – the fiery cast to their abductor’s tawny eyes, the blood around their uncle Saul’s mouth as he carried Alessan home, the desperate snarls of her mother above all.

She swayed on her paws, wondering about cycles and curses, then shut her bright eyes.

“I wanted to talk to you.” Dreyma sat down, curling her bushy tail close to her soft belly. “I mean – I wanted to talk to Shiloh, I still wish so badly that Mama were here, but…” She swallowed. “You have been pregnant before, so you might know if this is really…”

It was easy for Abigail’s eyes to flick to her sleeping children, though it wasn’t so easy to just watch them as it had been when they were smaller. Now, whenever Abigail watched Ajax and Cicely, worries intruded on her mind. Fears.

She did not need to look at Dreyma to know that something was different in her darker sibling. Abigail appreciated the lowering of her sister’s voice and she did her best to push a smile across her dark lips, though it was hardly a steady expression.

“I worry,” she admitted. “But what Mother doesn’t?”

Her green eyes focused – properly – on Dreyma and her head tilted. A question nearly left Abigail’s maw then but she held it back, waiting to see what her sister wanted to say. Her eyes softened at the mention of Shiloh and she nodded, allowing her gaze to slip down to the floor for a moment. Abigail wished, more than anything, that Shiloh was still here for all her siblings to talk to.

Her gaze returned, sharp and swift, to Dreyma as she trailed off mid-sentence. The Archiduchessa struggled to keep her voice steady and soft. She wanted to be helpful, to be dependable in this moment – but within her there was a battle between excitement and fear. She felt an urgent need to be cautious with her words.

“If you have cause to wonder then chances are… yes.”

The Sadira woman moved to sit carefully beside her sister.

“You and Skoll – you didn’t plan this?”

What mother doesn't worry?

Dreyma's smile was tight. She supposed that she worried now – about what this would mean for her, for Skoll, for these more-than-hypothetical pups. Never had she imagined herself carrying and nursing children. She wouldn't want to raise them outside a family unit like the Stormbringers provided for her when she had nobody.

And yet here she was.

Abigail's sea-green eyes darted to her, and her voice quaked as she brought it under control. She padded over and settled beside her, and Dreyma exhaled slowly, leaning briefly into her sister's shoulder before she shook her head at the question.

No, of course not. We weren't meant to be anything in the first place. She had spoken little about her relationship with the golden Haskel to anyone – hadn't even dwelled on it herself. After Mama, I needed someone. We were friends and he was there. I didn't want to replace Aurelya or upset poor Lee. I didn't want anything. Her words were spilling out faster and faster, and her emotions (anguish, regret, wistfulness) played openly across her face.

Skoll said... he would take care of them, if I decided to have them. He would be their father and cherish them, I know. But I... I can't be a mother to them. I can't bring them into this world just to abandon them.

An old hurt flickered in her eyes.

—

Abigail’s expression was caught somewhere between a knowing smile and a look of anxiety. Perhaps it wasn’t just Mothers who worried but sisters, too. True, Abigail spent most of her time worrying about her younger siblings, particularly in the wake of Shiloh’s death, but that didn’t stop her being concerned for Dreyma. The darker sister had never expressed a desire for children and had never really struck Abigail as a maternal type.

She tried her best not to judge the situation quickly. Instead Abigail sat there, quiet, willing to listen and to be the shoulder her sister needed, physically and emotionally. Rarely did the woman wonder about her relationships with her siblings. It was only now, not knowing what to expect of Dreyma, that she pondered how well she truly knew her. With that contemplation came guilt; by now it was a familiar feeling.

Her ears flicked as she forced herself back to the moment and for that lapse in attention she felt guilt, too.

The Archiduchessa reached out a hand to rest over Dreyma’s paw. She sought the other woman’s eyes and she thought she recognised every emotion in them.

“You say you can’t; that you never wanted anything. I understand that but… what is it you do want?”

Her timber tipped ears folded back, apologetic. This wasn’t an easy question to ask – and Abi expected it would be twice as difficult to answer.

[230]

ooc: dis crusty, can wrap up? post again or archive :D

ic:

What is it you do want?

Abigail dipped her ears and sought Dreyma’s gaze with her forest green, but the dark she-wolf bowed her head and focused on the hand covering her paw. Her lips rolled under a tooth, and her eyes shut. It was painful to think about, impossible to respond to. And in the end, she couldn’t give the question a proper, honest answer.

“If Skoll wants them, I would let him raise them. I can just give them up once they’re weaned – so they can be with family, Skoll and Lee. That way they wouldn’t miss anything.”

It wasn’t what she wanted. She wanted to go back and stop this all from happening: to turn down that kiss after the ball, to prevent her mother from being killed, to keep the family together in the beginning.

Dreyma swallowed. Then she turned to press her face against her sister’s shoulder, hiding tears.

She didn’t know what else to say.