backdated to a week-ish after the birth, traveling to the Vale after the wedding
For Adonis, Yojimbo, Firebright, Prism & Halo ♡
but open to any members of Dawnbreak that would be traveling with them.

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Is this what motherhood was? A never-ending upheaval of expectations, and a continual moving of what she thought her limits to be?

Was it strange to be enamoured with the intensity of it, rather than overwhelmed? Finally, her heart had its purpose, and its soul had found its longing.

Whatever fulfillment the maiden had found in her starry storyteller, she found oceans of depth in the blurry, bleary, baby-blue eyes of her four children. They looked like him; they looked like her. It was mere insanity to look at them, and see an extension of herself.

Of her father.
Of Adonis’s mother.
Their tiny faces were reflections of ancestors neither of them would ever know.

The distance between the rainforest and the north was grand, but made far shorter with the use of the tunnels. Still, whatever rest Euphemia had found amongst the halls of Tianlong was undone with so much movement of her postpartum body –

however, soon her babies would know Frostfang Vale. Their home, secured by their grandmother and grandfather and nurtured in perpetuity by every aunt and uncle one could count. There, they would play with their cousins and make those memories that were so foundational to childhood.

But first, they had to get there.

The new mother blinked against the light of morning. At the moment, they beheld an array of sleeping, curling cubs, – but she knew that her aching paws must take to their accustomed path once more.

At the end of this day, was home. Soon, all would begin to stir. For now, they slept. They looked so peaceful, even Adonis, who was ever-calm anyway; and Euphemia felt a swelling in her chest that was impossible to put into words. It was incomparable to anything she had ever felt before;

so, she steeped in it like they were warm water and she were the herbs for tea. They drew out her essence, and made her more. Quietly, her tongue darted forward to swipe at one of the baby's foreheads.

She would want to remember these moments, all the smells and the tastes and the sensations, in the years to come.

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