belladonna, in italian a beautiful lady; in english a deadly poison.

She needed time to think. Being alone had given her too much time to do so, and yet she somehow could never get herself to contemplate the realities of it all. Lakota hadn't seen Ktulu since the murders had ended, she had disappeared for nearly two seasons, leaving Lakota pregnant and trying to figure out if it was anything she had done wrong. Aodaun had always been the guardian of her thoughts, and it had been him and Eytan who had managed to get Ktulu and Lakota together in the end. But when the Falls was secured and Ktulu still did not return to Lakota...her thoughts and worries grew ever darker, until his attempts at convincing the Poisoner that it wasn't she who had driven away her mate were nothing but mere whispers in the back of her head.

Her pregnancy was overdue. Not by too terribly long yet, but her body was punishing her for it nonetheless. The mare was too frail, too delicate for the strain it was placing upon her frame. Lakota had always been small, her siblings towering over her, but she had fought tooth and nail against any asshole who had thought that her stature meant she could not adequately defend herself. But this was no physical foe, and she was incapable of magically fixing her body type to make the pregnancy easier on her.

She had to tell her brother. Alleo needed to know that soon he was going to become an uncle. But the Falls was vast and unfamiliar to her, unforgiving in her attempts to find her older brother and give him the good news. It only further isolated her, made her feel the emotional strain of loneliness that was amplified by her hormonal fluctuating emotions. Nevertheless she wandered, no matter how it made her back and hooves ache with the effort. She could no longer make the trip to the Threshold, after she had come across Badger and Laedere. But sitting in one place had her mind working triple time, devising ways of torturing her further, drawing up her inadequacies.

What's that? Lakota turned listlessly to where Aodaun was looking, a little cubby with a half-made tent. Her heart ached with absence, with the desire for touch and companionship. Lakota had always been a creature for the physical, though she hid it well with her undoubtedly prickly personality. So instead of turning and wandering away from whomever dwelled in the tent, she made her way there. It was Aodaun who spotted the garden first, moving ahead of her as he always did lately, ensuring any danger faced him first so he had time to warn and defend her. Garden! Lakota drew the dots herself.

"Kitten?" she croaked pitifully, shuffling in on aching hooves, her heart pitifully hoping the brindled mare was present. If company was not awarded - Lakota remembered Resplendence's hatred of the Grey, the fear in her eyes even as Lakota had defended her from Oxy - at least she could ask the mother and healer for herbs that Lakota did not know. She was a poisoner. She destroyed. Though her knowledge of herbs was also vast, both from Alleo and her time as an Earth Medic (and no she was not bitter about not being given back her rank, she wasn't) she'd never had to utilize or memorize anything regarding pregnancy and birth. Perhaps pleading with her for help would be enough conversation for the lonely mother to be, even if Kitten despised her as a person despite being obligated to help her as a fellow Falls member.

Lakota