A lot had happened, all within a short period of time. She was happy to keep some things unspoken, for while she could never lie to someone, to refrain from providing information was not the same thing. Seneca.. a lion that would go from a stranger, to being revealed to her as an adversary to the mire, as well as a king of his own territory. Thinking of him made her feel strange, a sensation of heat where he had touched her, the back of her neck tingling as if itchy. It had not been an experience she expected, her mother had painted it in such a negative and hateful light, further confusing Patchouli as to how she should feel. She had felt so desperate for any sort of affectionate contact that she had welcomed Seneca's attention.

Was she a selfish lioness to want affection? Was what she had done shameful, despite only doing as she was taught. Had she known who the lion was before, she knew she still would have relented to him. She didn't know if Alaric would be angry with her, when she was simply doing as she was meant to. He didn't need to know, she had decided. It had not harmed anyone, need not have consequences. Alaric had more to worry about now than the activities of a meek little lioness.

She would rather be there for him now, to show her empathy for his lost mate. He was sure to be grieving for her, but she had been hesitant to approach. How was she meant to help him? As a child, she had only ever been the one comforted. As an adult, she had always grieved alone, not wishing to burden others with her pain. Perhaps alone was how he preferred it, so she would keep her distance for awhile.

Earlier that day, everything would change for her. As a girl, she had been trained along with the other girls, trained to know the early signs of pregnancy. It was important to know, as a mistress was discouraged to have cubs with the lion she served under. Only the mate was meant to have his children, a mistress was left to either prevent cubs in the first place, or would raise them alone. Patchouli had seen the signs in herself, initial excitement quickly changed to cold dread. What would happen to children she gave birth to? Would they take them away from her?

She could not keep the encounter with Seneca to herself anymore, when her stomach swelled up and it became obvious, the others would surely ask who the father was. In a daze, she would force herself towards where she had last seen @Alaric, sitting down in the snow, oblivious to how cold it was against her paws. She would tell herself she had done nothing wrong, yet she could not escape the feeling that this was all her fault. Why should Alaric care when they were not mates? She didn't know that he would, but there was a feeling in her gut that he would receive the news poorly. He might cast her out into the cold, worst of all, he might come to hate her..

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there were bags beneath his eyes. exhaustion that weighed heavy on his shoulders, dragging him down as grief claimed him time and again. acting strong before his children, tucking away the emotions, leaving the mire to feel them -- finding her.

it had been a whirlwind of experiences and he hardly knew how to make sense of it all. hardly knew what to think or do except put one paw before the other and check the borders of his pride. doing so was what brought him across her, and he picked up on the scent of her anxiety.

"patchouli," he rumbled as he drew near, "are you alright?" a lot had happened since they had last spoken, and he had no idea where she had been during the war -- perhaps that was what was causing her distress.

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He would arrive after awhile, looking as though he had aged a few years since last she saw him. She could not help but stare at him, sympathy in her eyes, a frown pulling at the corners of her mouth. It pained her to see @Alaric like this, but she didn't know what she could hope to do to comfort him. What good would it do to offer condolences? He was probley sick of everyone offering him appologies, words would not bring her back.

It seemed the only thing she was good for was making things worse for him, the opposite of the role she was meant for. She wished she could go back in time and accept his offer to be his mate, at least then she might be able to do something for him. "I am so sorry Alaric.. I. Wish I could have done something for you. For her. When I got there, I brought herbs and wanted to help, but when I saw the violence all around me.. I was frozen." An excuse perhaps, she did not expect it was forgivable in the eyes of the Mire lions.

He would cut right through the greetings, her sad staring eyes finally averted from him. She wondered if she looked as ashamed as she felt. She wished she could just turn and run from this, could lie to his face and never bother him with her problems. "There have been.. symptoms.. signs that I am certain confirm it, even this early on. I believe I am pregnant." She would pause for only a moment, swallowing hard and looking almost sick with overwhelming dread, borderline panic at the thought.

"The lion.. he was a stranger to me. It was right before the war, during the coldest blizzard of the season. I was.. back where you had found me so long ago.. thinking on things. His name and scent didn't mean anything to me at the time. I only realized who he was after the war. We would have both frozen to death if we had not kept each other warm. He wanted to.." She paused here, feeling herself flush and skipping on past it. "..and I let him. I don't imagine either of us imagined I would carry cubs after the encounter." She would explain in full, but one important detail was withheld, the most important part even.

She would not even say who it was for another long moment, then, "Seneca." A name spoken quietly and reluctantly. It would seem he was an enemy of the mire. She was not afraid of Alaric's anger, but what he would think of her now. He may never want to even look at her again and the thought pained her more than anything else.

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At first there are apologies, and he wants to run from them. What good would it do to dwell on what might have been? She had come and she had frozen and he could do nothing for that. It would not benefit either of them for him to yell at her, to blame her for the death that had been unavoidable.

What, really, could she have done?

So he mostly ignores it, giving only the slightest dip of his head in acknowledgement of her rushed apology. She does not make him wait long to give further explanation, and he is... well... dumbfounded.

If Alaric had been given a thousand guesses this.... this would have not made the list. @Patchouli launches in to a story that becomes more and more unbelievable, thrusting the king in to silence as he mulled over all she had to say. Pregnant. So she had found somebody who did not care if the cubs were weak and clawless? Somebody who would not care if they did not learn to fight and defend their home?

Ah, but no, there was more to the story. Alaric arched a brow at first as she spun a tale of a hapless stranger, an unknown. Of all the things he had imagined her capable of a one night stand was not one of them. There was more, though, and he knew immediately that he would not like what was coming. The longer she held back the last bit of petinant information the more his impatience grew, and with it his frustration. His tail lashed at his ankles, and yet still he did not speak.

And then, there it is. His goddamned enemy. The very same asshole who had come and stolen away his members when he was fighting for his damned home. No matter that Seneca himself had not be the one to initiate the fights, that was just a matter of semantics.

"I see," he says, in a deadly quiet drawl, watching her squirm before him. Truthfully he does not know how to react, does not know what to think of this situation, and if she had come to him before the war he might have responded differently. He might have cared, then, that she had bed the Miroslav after all but refusing him. Now? With the gnawing emptiness in his heart, the Erna shaped hole that was left behind? Now he could barely be bothered to care.

In fact, he saw beyond the emotion and to the root of the matter, and the reality that this might work in his favour in the end. "So, what is it you intend to do?" Had she come to him looking for release? Did she want to go live a happily ever after in the Oasis? The thought disgusted him, and he had no intention of letting her leave. First, though, he'd like to see what she wanted out of this.... meeting.

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It wasn't as though she had wanted Seneca to do what he had done. She could have tried to stop him, but how might he have reacted to rejection? If she had known who he was, she still would have submitted, else she might only have suffered his aggression as well. She had not thought that he might respect her wishes and not touched her if she had made it clear she didn't want him to. It was never supposed to be about what she wanted, which was why she felt so confused and afraid when Alaric frequently tried to make her say what she wanted for herself. How could she choose correctly if she wasn't meant to be the one choosing?

There was an emptiness in him, not brought on by her predicament. It was as if part of him had died along side Erna. She had not realized he loved her so profoundly, the interaction between them never gave her that impression. It did make her feel foolish though, some part of her sometimes pondered if the feeling she had for Alaric was love. Clearly it could not compare, perhaps it was an emotion she had still never had for anyone if it was meant to be so powerful as to destroy you so completely.

She would muffle a anguished sob with a small laugh as he asked her what her intentions where. She should have known he would put this on her to decide. Patchouli was so afraid of what would happen to these children, desperate for any sort of guidence. Alaric only stood by, a cold and stoney statue. "I want to go home.. he needn't know I have them. He is a king.. he would only take them away from me, force them to fight for him." By home she meant the glade where @Alaric had found her, though even that place held memories of Seneca now.

She could stay here, but everything about the Mire had changed. It was a place of violence, filled with strangers. Even the king was a different lion now, or else he may as well be. She could not bare to see him like this, nor wanted to be any further a burden on him. She was tired of whatever this was between them, his pushing her to be something she was simply incapable of being.

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Home? At first he is confused, because wasn’t this home? Patchouli had lived in the Mire, under his protection and care, for long enough that he would hope she thought of it as home. “The Mire is your home,” he reminds her, a little more sternly than she might have hoped. Knowing she was pregnant (let alone pregnant with his known enemy’s cubs) he wasn’t about to let her walk out in the middle of winter.

“You’d want to leave? Raise them alone?” There is disbelief in his eyes, and perhaps a bit of hurt buried far beneath. He could not imagine her hunting for herself when she had brand new cubs, let alone keeping them safe from predators when she was doing so.

Alaric shook his head. “You won’t be safe out there, Patch.”

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Alaric would respond, his tone sharpened after it had been so blunt and hollow before. Perhaps there was still some of the old lion there. She was surprised by it, but she showed no visible reaction to it, save an unsettled smile that lacked any warmth. The mire had been her home, but it was not the place she once cared for. "I cared for the mire once, I truly did. I thought I might have even loved its king. I am a fool though, I ruined everything out of fear of not being good enough. This place is different now, it is full of strangers. I cannot look at anything, at the places of war, without seeing the hatred and the violence." She spoke quietly, a shutter running the length of her spine.

Did she want to be alone? No, she knew it was a foolish thing to do in the middle of winter, with her lack of hunting ability. Even so, between trying to survive out there, or putting her children through even a fraction of what she endured as a child, she would rather take the risk. "I don't want to leave you Alaric, but.. I don't want them to see this. I don't want them to be like your Mire lions.. this is a place of violence. They don't have a father here to protect them from it." Alaric was a good lion deep down, but he encouraged such behavior, one she was on conflicting sides of.

He would call her Patch.. for whatever reason it pained her, made her almost want to change her mind. "I have done something the pride would think shameful.. and the cubs I carry are those of a rival. If I don't make it, it would be no great loss to the pride." She assured, though she didn't actually care much what the pride lions thought of her. The mire was everything to @Alaric though, she did not wish to serve as a bad example of what a mire lioness should be.

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She speaks of love, of change, and he nearly wants to yell at her. It would be much like kicking a beaten dog, though, and so he holds his tongue. Somewhat.

"The Mire is growing -- if you cared for it at all you should find joy in that. We are increasing our numbers, and Violarum is proving to be an excellent Sovereign. We stood against our enemies and defended our home, the place we love." A frown furrows his brow, and he looks at her more intently. "Did you not tell me you wished for a place to be safe? Have I not kept you safe, Patch?"

His frustration grew, born largely out of a defensiveness for his home and the place he cared for. "We know how to fight, that does not make us creatures of violence. I value strength -- the very strength you should admire as it is what keeps you safe. You cannot shield your children from violence, this world is full of it, but what you can do is provide them with the tools and training to keep themselves safe and alive." Tools that they would not receive if she holed up in some den with them alone.

How, how was she so blind to the way of the world? This place was not her home -- there were challenges damn near every month, and already more than one war since even he arrived a year ago. "Nobody here is judging you, @Patchouli." Why he bothers to assure her he could not say. "But this is your home, whether you like it or not, and none of us would stand by and watch you leave to your death."

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Eyes were downcast as @Alaric spoke to her, defending the mire as she expected him to do. It did not change the way she felt about this place though. They had fought enemies and kept them at bay, but what happened when they all came back to finish what they had started? The one that attacked Erna so violently was not gone, Patchouli had seen her, marveled at the skill of a healer that could seemingly bring her back from the dead.

She should admire strength and fighting prowess? Patchouli only felt loathing and fear for such things. It was difficult to value what caused her so much pain and grief as a child. None had come forward to protect her mother from the kind of lions Alaric seemed to value. Learning to fight had not helped her mother either, it only made it worse. "My mother wished us all to learn to fight. She fought to protect us and this skill only resulted in her being badly beaten every night. If she would have only relented and accepted her place, she would not have suffered. I was witness to her suffering, my entire childhood." She didn't expect this to change anything, but she wanted him to know. She wanted so much for him to understand her, perhaps then he would be less angry with her. He could admire the strong all he wanted, seeing her children learn to fight would never fill her with pride, make her want to praise their efforts.

She could not defy his wishes without doing the very thing she loathed. He seemed to have made his decision, one that could end up with her children learning to fight, learning how they could defend themselves, but also get themselves killed. She could not look at him after this, not even at his paws. "I only came here to be near you, to try and repay your kindness to me. If it is your will I stay.. so be it." She relented quietly. Defeated and empty.

"May I be excused sir? I am sure there are duties I need to attend to." She would go on to question, a distance in her tone, one reserved for strangers. As much as she cared for him, she didn't want to be around him anymore, at least not right now. She could not leave this place and be alone in her wooded glade, but she could try and find someplace within the Mire where nobody would find her. She had never wished to be alone more in her life than in this moment.

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He softened -- it was impossible not to -- but still he found he could not move himself to comfort her. Too much had happened, too much had been taken, and he could not bear to take that comfort and closeness from her, now. "The men where you come from -- they wanted companions and softness but they chose to beat her?" It all made little sense to him, and he frowned at the thought.

"They were not good men, then. There is evil in all parts of the world, Patchouli. There is evil here in Amaryllis." Hell, she'd probably think him among the evil if she knew all the pieces of his history. "The lions and lionesses in the Mire are not evil." Was that truly what she thought of them all?

It seemed to come down to him forcing her to stay, and it left a sickening pit in his stomach. "I care too much to watch you leave and die, Patch. Stay until they are born, until they are grown enough to fend for themselves. Then, if you still hate it here so much, you may leave." If she had another pride to go to he might have relented sooner, but he knew well how hard life could be for a rogue mother, and he would not watch her suffer.

He did not excuse her yet, waiting for her response before he did so.

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