Ktulu's vehemence is a comfort, now that Lakota knows these are her last few hours. Perhaps her heart is in the wrong place, or her love too strong and blinding, but Lakota appreciates it all the same. She won't be leaving this world alone and sick, as the Poisoner had feared with each night Ktulu did not return home. She will die without pain, with her beloved at her side, knowing her memory would go on in the form of a new life. A daughter that would make the world a better place than Lakota had ever managed to make it. "It can't be changed, beloved," she says instead. What-ifs and what-I'd-gives had no place here, where even a God could not slow the ending of her life force. It's soft in tone, but there is iron beneath each word. Lakota didn't want her last conversation with Ktulu to be one of maybes and passionate futility. Her life had been filled with enough suffering. All she asked for now was peace. 

And then Ktulu, looking as if she'd eaten every sour herb in Helovia's biome, at last consents. It's more than Lakota could have imagine or hoped for. It wasn't something planned, this transference of life. In the end, though, it was all Lakota could have asked for. Maybe, just maybe, the child would be enough to keep Ktulu moving forward. Maybe it would benefit them both somehow. Lakota didn't want Ktulu's self-destruction. She didn't want mourning or grief. In her passing, the Poisoner prayed there would only be rebirth and renewal, a flourishing of new happiness and new beginnings. The continuance of her memory, somehow. And Ktulu had vowed to secure that. 

The God speaks once more, and she turns her violet gaze to her lover. 

"It's your choice," she murmurs. "But I'd rather our child learn early on how much I love them. That I would give my last spark to them, and that I didn't leave them willingly. Will you tell them about me? The good and the bad?" Her voice remains at a whisper, and yet the tears slip quietly across her cheeks even as she smiles. There's no pain here but the one in her heart, and she prays that on the other side, she will be able to watch their child grow. Knowing these are her last moments she turns more fully to Ktulu, touching her gently with her muzzle as if to imprint Lakota's touch upon her skin. 

"You are the most amazing soul I've ever encountered. You are my everything. I would not have known happiness if you had not come into my life. I love you. I love you. I love you, Ktulu." If only she had the time to say it a thousand, a million more times. But she kept murmuring it to the cadence of her tears. Her passing would be marked by her love. If there was only one thing Ktulu took away from this moment where her life force died away, Lakota wanted it to be the profession of her love. "You will be an amazing mother." 

At last she turns to the God of the Earth, and then looks to her side where Aodaun gazes steadily up at her. I'm ready, Lakota. She drops her muzzle to the softness of his head, breathing in a scent so close to her own she can scarcely tell the difference anymore. Green and purple eyes look up at the God of the Earth in tandem, their intertwined souls finally at rest. 

"I'm ready," she whispered, waiting for his magic to take hold, for his will to bend her spirit and shepherd the two of them into the realm of reunion of peace. Let her eyes shut and finally let go.