"Claire says Drone 12 on the patrol route got... a view. Of the window. Earlier. Before she realized and enabled a temporary flight ceiling."
For a longer four seconds than I’d like to admit, I don’t understand what she ans. Then I do, so excessively proud that I tilt my head and try not to smirk.
"Oh. I see."
"The marking. The operator saw it and... inford the pack."
Trying not to laugh and admit that her bad news is making feel this much better is hard. Her continuation only makes my stomach worried about what I think of myself *untwist*.
I suppose this is what vindication feels like. When it cos to social gas while stuck in a court of busybodies, I think I know what I’m doing.
"So they know."
"They know. Or at least enough of them that everyone will by the end of the day."
"Probably by the hour, Ms. Kyrie Voss. With the humans starting to also hear even if they don’t know what it ans."
So sort of growl rolls out of her throat that I want to question but she’s clearly doing that count to ten thing, with the way her eyes fluttered shut. I wonder what I said could have angered her?
"You seem nonchalant enough about this. Mrs. Lomdi."
I open my mouth to respond, then catch the extra syllabic nuance she used. Missus, not miss. Because I’m bound to her and she...
"Are we going to be petty about things like that already, Mrs. Voss? Nas too have power. The kind I am plenty anable to you wielding as you see fit."
With a handful of wipes in hand, I stomp over toward where I believe we started. To see if there is any sort of trail of... fluids.
Most inordinately, I fear that my chest could have leaked during all of it. It’s not like I could have helped it. However, it feels like terrible waste and like it might leave awful sll if it sets in.
"If you need to go by your last na, or want to use this legal culture’s hyphenations to combine ours - or even co up with so other neutral term for Fox that we both go by just so were both on even ground, that is up to you."
Being proud of my na and lineage was fine. When I actually was the Princess of a Fox Kingdom. I still feel like Citra - still feel like a vixen that recognizes a lot of what she was back then.
Yet, my son is a werewolf. She is one. This body is one. Trying to move on, move forward, change? It probably ans I’ll need to let go of so things.
> That’s what you do in therapy, right? Learn to let go? <
Snake priests and my mystic instructors always said the sa thing. Young just thought they were being callous.
Older knows they were, elsewise they would have asked the questions that got to the bottom of what was wrong with . Even if I ran away or misled them a few tis.
What sort of teacher gives up on a student just because they clearly don’t want to learn the lesson?
"If I’m going to be acting to stabilize your position and be more than your prize resting in this tower, I will take on so sacrifices. But I recomnd going with the ’brand’ na you already own. It’s just good marketing."
"I don’t want you to have to sacrifice too."
I wait for her to elaborate, giving those new eyes a deep look. Wondering what she is keeping secret from - almost feeling that she is doing so. Instead, she just stands up to walk toward the door.
"Luca is coming up soon. We have so ti to finish getting ready. I’m going to get so things to clean up by the window."
"I can-"
"Let . You go take your shower first. That way one of us is available to watch Asha."
Doesn’t wait for to agree - just slinks out of the doorway. I kind of wish she was mad, instead. I can deal with directness out of her, but I’m enough of a hypocrite that I don’t like her keeping things bottled up.
> Really, really don’t. <
I’m at the doorfra looking out at her heading to the kitchen before I know it. Looking for sothing to say. And the first thing that cos to mind is-
"I don’t know what your plans are from here today, but after I shower I’m probably going to butcher a bear on your roof."
She stops walking and turns to blinks those bright fire-opals at four or five tis rapidly.
"You’re going to what?"
"It’s taking up my side of our Stash and I need to process the at. For weaning our son. Find blades."
This ti I steal her whole... final word and walking away by retreating rapidly to the forr guest room’s bath. Now I’m the one bottling things up, but leaking them out a lot more clearly than she.
> Our. Our. Repeat it more, you clingy vixen. Not like she didn’t just mark you. Not like she doesn’t know what I can’t just co out and say. <
My hand hits the bathroom door handle and I’m imdiately stymied in my attempt to escape pressuring myself more. The handle turns, but the door stays where it is. Takes a few seconds to realize that the new thing attached at the top is so sort of extra latch.
"Child safety! Stupid wolf."
One grumble wasn’t enough. I find myself repeating that a half dozen more tis as I find that the interior of this little room has beco nearly impossible to navigate with ease. Everything requiring an extra step or two to prevent a curious toddler from being hard.
Even though it is not anything like a toddler yet. Just how forward in action and thinking can she be?
The shower water is hot, even under the circumstances we find ourselves in. Makes feel better, makes anticipate the sa is being done for the others down below.
Though heating so much water must be a strain. I really need to look into the infrastructure of the new world down below. Cannot be an expert on everything, but I need to know enough to not appear foolish. I always have.
"Just enough. To get by with respect. To be able to use my wit to beco unexpected."
Drying off and fixing my hair in the mirror, I think about how my grandmother’s journal always stressed that being a force in court required being enough of a theoretical ’jack-of-all-trades’ that you could talk with an experienced human bowyer with the sa level of confident, intelligent grace as an insect shifter general.
When I walk back into the nursery, I see that the pieces of loose carpet have all been swept into a trashbag in the corner of the room. And that a CEO of a modern tech empire is laying inside a playpen with a pup on her chest.
For a mont I feel like I really need my phone. To take a picture of this. I haven’t taken any in too long. I even look to the open door and think of sneaking out to get it.
But my feet take over to the center of the room. My legs clear the barrier, one at a ti. And one side of my hair falls on her face intentionally. Leaving the other tail to land on my son.
"Dreaming of being an infant again?"
Her eyes don’t open, but her mouth does. With a smile on it.
"You have a new scent to you, you know. Since you gained those eyes. You should probably stop using lavender products. Or it will hide it."
Getting onto my knees and taking my child from her, I hug it to my stomach while leaning over and stuffing my nose into her hair on impulse because of what she just said. About changes to eyes.
Clean snow, bloody iron. And...
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