She's pregnant.

Her body recognizes the subtleties of conception; it has done this dance once before. She stares at her swollen sides with conflicted emotions, her heart battered as it hangs in her throat. Arya is a sore wound that never heals, the absence of her firstborn daughter like a constant ache she tries to ignore. Mirabella is vanished to the wind once more. Raeru has not been seen in seasons. Those she'd loved as a mother loves had faded like ghosts away from her. She fears this child in her belly will be the same.

Already she is so round and heavy with life, far sooner than she had anticipated. Alice gazes at her body and wonders about twins, but Hotaru can barely even wrap her head around another cycle of motherhood. Another soul to let down. But she is full of life and excitement as well, sprightly with new love and a warmth at her back that promises shared strength and companionship. Déodat had been a fine man, but there had been no love between them, and Hotaru had desired it that way. For the first time she had a mate, someone to love and care for, who would love and care for her in return. Perhaps motherhood would be a blessing this time around.

The news had not yet reached Ashamin's ears. Hotaru hadn't told anybody yet, instead letting her body appear to fatten up with the approach of Birdsong rather than budding life. But she intended to, though she had not seen Ashamin in quite a while. Life had a funny way of working, but Hotaru was not a patient woman. She would hunt him down with Alice at her side for the sake of delivering the news. Her heart raced with anxious delight imagining the ways he could receive the announcement, not even sure of her own emotions anymore.

Alice is the one to find him, though that had been her eager self-appointed mission on behalf of her Alpha. Her demonic braying bowl rings across mud and snow towards two stalwart figures, seeking their ears to bid them to wait. Her beloved traverses the land behind her, slow with the weight of her belly but persistent in her exercise. The pups would be born healthy and beautiful, and she would await them as the proud and powerful woman they deserved to be raised by.

The valley is a familiar creature to her, a yawning slope of dim-lit darkness in the dawn hours. The shadowed king stands opposite her lover, and her hoof pauses over terra that leads to certain confrontation. Her heart shivers in her chest, a sordid voice that whispers gleefully in her ears. You knew this was coming! It giggles manically. Alice's excitement withers in her chest where she stands between Hotaru and the two stallions.

For a moment she considers running. Turning a blind eye to whatever this is, this anxious tension that promises disaster. She'd rather be abandoned in the shroud of darkness than boldly face the retreating back of the man she'd finally let herself love. Hotaru could not bear to witness someone else leaving her, spiriting away with the heart she'd hesitantly placed in their hands. Because she knew instinctively that's what this was. Or maybe, because it was her greatest fear, she told herself that's what it was to try and harden her heart in preparation for the pain that would lance her apart otherwise.

Bravely she lets her foot touch the earth, strides towards them with the morning light imbued in her skin, glowing with life and grace. She won't let him see her fall apart. Not here beside Deimos, where she is Lady and Queen. Not here where he asks her to wear her crown, not her heart. She is his lover - his beloved, she prays - but she is his Lady as well.

Alice comes to her side like a white and violet ghost, hell eyes like coals of judgement in her animal face. It contrasts the serene landscape of Hotaru's pretty features, a sad weariness at her eyes that she can't erase. Her nose goes instinctively - perhaps because she likes to tempt fate - to the hollow of Deimos' flank. Just as she had in the tent with the paint and the...she can't.

There is no telling Ashamin now. Not with Deimos here and the evidence laid plain before both of them in the swollen nature of her sides. Ashamin will have to take the news at face value, in the silence of her defeated understanding. She wants to scream because this is exactly what had happened to her parents. Her mother in the Foothills, her father in the Basin. A love that had transcended distance and alliances. But one that had still broken their family. She has no proof before her to hope for anything better, but she hopes like a child anyways.

"Do you need something, Ashamin?" It's asked gently in the face of Deimos' rough inquiries. It's a vague and open question. Do you need to leave? Do you need supplies? Do you need me to beg?

She won't. She won't begrudge him this, at least not where he can see. She will retreat to her cavern, alone once again after but half a season of knowing the warmth of another's loving presence. She will cry there, in that hollow of silence, and she will rage against the unfairness of it all. She will cradle her belly and cry and cry because once again she is alone. Hotaru doesn't know whether he will love her beyond these borders. Whether his leaving will impact the way he feels for her, or the frequency with which they meet. If he will even want to meet, with where his travels may take him. But she knows, like a solid weight on her back, that it will impact their children. She prays that it will be minor. That her faith and love was not - is not - misplaced.

the
Aurora Basin

hotaru