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There is nothing that could activate a would-be mother into action, than a child in need. Almost immediately, the maternal forces within her took over, and Yue felt that this was the closest to loving something she had ever been before.

Of course, she loved every one of her lost children. They were forever imprinted upon her heart, the feeling of their tiny cold bodies pressed against her, but there was something about this tiny, mewling thing that spoke to her.

– likely that it was brimming with aliveness, and Yue had never held a living child save the nascent Lian and Fen. The Empress had been so new in her position that she had forgotten to memorize what it felt like to hold something so tiny and warm. At the time, she hadn’t been aware how this experience would be stolen from her, time and time again.

However, Yue felt no bitterness as she reached her forelimbs forward and under her chest, folding backwards to lay her belly on the ground and to clasp the tiny girl between her arms. Yes, yes, she crooned, feeling the pull to warm and wash the child with her tongue, but uncertain if that was the right thing to do –

It is I, the moon goddess.

Instinctively, yes, it felt right. But the Empress felt a pang of worry that she might be becoming too attached to something that had a family. It was her responsibility to find the mother and restore the family to wholeness.

Not because it would please Yue greatly to do so, but because that is what she hoped someone would do for her, if the positions were reversed. These were the basic kindnesses that built the fabric of their society, or at least, the society that the Empress wished to build.

So the woman lowered her nose to the girl with the intention to scent her, but she could not help but press her dark-leather nose into the crook of her tiny neck, and she breathed several times very profoundly.

Then, as if that was the normal way to identify a stranger, the Empress lifted her gaze to Batu, who stood so dutifully and curiously, to state She doesn’t smell like…anything. and then she tried again, nose-in-neck, but still failed to place it. The girl was apparently from nowhere.

Nowhere she knew, at least.

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