The raid had been hard on her already tired body, but that didn't stop her from getting back to work where she could. Still confined within the rank set aside for the siblings she felt stuck. What did she want to do? Sparring wasn't her favorite thing to do in the world, but was she good at it? She had won both her spars in the raid against the armada so she was feeling pretty good about that, but was it what she really wanted to spend her days doing? No, it wasn't. Widow loved to learn and while that included fighting to an extent, it focused mostly on plants and the other uses they may have.

Her time spent away from Habari was short, but she felt accomplished in that time. Already the plants she had harvested were planted in her garden outside. She hadn't traveled very far really, so there wasn't much worry about the climate, though she supposed she would find out what survived the move and what didn't soon enough.

While she had spent a lot of her time on her trip thinking, it wasn't enough. She still hadn't decided what she wanted to do with her life in Habari besides wanting to be the best she could be. With the loss of Kali, she felt even more responsibility to step up and felt foolish for taking time away only to return home to a raid. She wished that she could have been there for her mother when Kali passed, to offer her strength. While she would never admit to particularly liking her, Widow would never admit it and certainly wouldn't stop it from consoling her mother. There was some guilt that she felt, from that and being absent when the pirates attacked, so her mind couldn't rest. She wanted to do more for Recluse, for Habari, but what could she do? Clearly she was better at fighting and protecting their home, but that would take time away from her learning. What would learning do for Habari anyway? She was probably better off joining the other warriors, even if it wasn't what she wanted. Could she even say that though if she didn't know what she wanted?

Cleaning was the only thing she could do when her mind was this focused on something else. The sun had set hours ago and while it wasn't exactly normal for the woman to be asleep, there usually wasn't a shadow moving quickly from room to room. The place was dusty however, but just like her brain bouncing back and forth between her guilt and her future, she bounced from room to room, dusting one thing and moving to another room to dust something else. Maybe it's already been dusted, though, she's not paying any real attention.

464/1500

"Speech!"

Art © Ulfeid3 & Code © Skelle 2022

Recluse's other children needed her, and she knew that but it didn't make it any easier to feel like she could move on, it felt like a betrayal to be pushing Kali away in her mind to check in with her other children so she didn't become a blubbering mess in front of them. And Recluse knew she needed to check in with them, her older children probably had ambitions they needed to share with her and she wanted to check in on them after the raid as well. Widow had done exceptionally well in repelling what they'd all been left to believe was an invasion force. So today Recluse would make her way down to her daughter's hut. The woman took a deep breath when she arrived, calming herself and doing her best to make it look like she'd been getting anything close to a good night's rest at all recently, which she hadn't been but she didn't want to worry her children unduly. Then she gently tapped her paw on the side of the hut, she could hear movement from within but didn't want to just push her way inside, Widow was an adult now and she deserved her privacy if that was what she wished. Instead, the woman took the time to observe around her, her gaze being drawn to the garden that Widow kept. Her daughter had always had a sort of fascination with plants, of the less than kind variety if her memory served and she was impressed with what it was that Widow had managed to cultivate. She meandered over to look at the nearest growth, the soil here had been clearly overturned more recently than some of the other plants and Recluse wondered idly what it was that Widow had brought back with her, making a note not to get too close, just in case it only needed to be touched to cause adverse effects... And choosing not to pursue the inquiry into how Widow could have brought it home if this thought was correct, probably best not to worry that her daughter was putting herself at risk for a garden. WC: 358 (822/1500) speech think action

The raid hadn't gone over well in her mind. She had arrived late to their home being infiltrated by pirates and then didn't even last ten minutes before a grown man screwed up her left heel! Well, it wasn't that bad, but the bandage wrapped around it with the antibacterial salve pressing into it was enough to make her walk a bit funny. With the way her mind was racing and focused on what she wanted to do with her life and the way she frantically cleaned her hunt, though, she didn't notice.

Moving things from room to room in a way that hardly seemed to make sense, the place was hardly any cleaner than it started. If anything, it was just reorganized in a way that didn't look organized. Various papers with her attempts at writing on them, samples of herbs and liquids tucked into little vials, and even more things just stacked around. It was almost like she was trying to clean out a room before moving the things that belonged back in, only she wasn't focused on cleaning and only her thoughts. So instead, stacks and piles of things laid about that certainly didn't belong where they sat.

Had she not stopped to sneeze at the dist lifting, she probably wouldn't have her the tapping at her door. She blinked a few times before moving towards the front of the house and opened the door, surprised to see her mother standing there. Widow was anything but presentable at the moment, with dust covering her disheveled coat, medication and blood seeping through her bandage wraps, and her hut a complete and total mess. She was lost for a moment at the door, unsure of what to say while her mind drug itself out of her thoughts and into the present.

"Hey, Mom!" She was happy to see her mother of course, though to say she was happy to see her right now was a different story. Having not thought about who might be at the door when she answered it, she had simply opened it without a second thought of who might see the mess. "Is everything okay?" She asked then, wondering if there was a reason she had come to see her. Healing wasn't her interest, but it wasn't like she didn't know at thing or two. If something had happened, Widow would certainly step up, though she had a feeling nothing was wrong. So what had brought her by?

1236/1500

"Speech!"

Art by SkeletonDragoness & Code by Skelle 2022

Widow would not leave her waiting for long, asking if everything was alright. Recluse fought back the urge to scoff, she wasn't certain things would ever be alright again, but she knew that wasn't what Widow meant and so she graced her daughter with a soft, affectionate smile and she shook her head, though she realized that was not the right answer to the question as asked so quickly followed it up by saying: "Everything is fine dear." She stepped forward to gently bump her head in towards her daughter's chest, the young woman was much taller than herself now and the woman tried very hard not to start crying when she thought, not for the first time, that she would never hold Widow the way she once had as a puppy. She was still immensely proud of her daughter and nothing would ever change how beautiful she thought Widow was. "I just wanted to check in on you." It was a simple truth Recluse spoke as she stepped back so she could talk to her daughter without having to tip her head all the way back. "You sounded busy though, I hope I'm not interrupting." Recluse fought the urge to glance around Widow to look inside the hut, her daughter deserved her privacy if she wanted it. "Anything I can help with?" It wasn't that Recluse didn't have other things she could be doing, maybe even should have been doing, but some part of her ached to get to do something with her daughter, with all her children really, she'd learned the hard way that you only had so much time with them... Might as well try to use it. WC: 281 (1517/1500) speech think action

Her ears immediately flicked back as her mother shook her head, but she was relieved when she spoke and admitted to being fine and pressed into her chest. She wasn't sure how much she believed it, but she would accept it as the answer she would be given and moved on. She wasn't really in the mindset to fixate on something else anyway, so Recluse was perhaps a bit lucky in a way. Besides, her thoughts had briefly wandered to how large she had gotten. Swallowing that down, Recluse spoke just in time to grab her attention.

"Oh? I'm just cleaning, or reorganizing... or something?" She really didn't know what to call it since nothing really looked cleaner or more organized than it had when she started. At best she was just moving stuff around and stirring up dust, but even she knew her mind wasn't on cleaning either. Recluse knocking on her door helped bring her back to the real world, though it did little in the way of helping the mess she had inadvertently created. "Feel up to dusting while I put stuff back?" She asked, not even sure she knew where to begin with reorganizing tonight. Perhaps just dusting and putting it all back would make the space look at least a little better, plus she'd maybe get to spend some time with her mom without anyone else hanging around.

"Speech!"

Art by SkeletonDragoness & Code by Skelle 2022

Recluse stifled a chuckle as her daughter awkwardly tried to explain what she'd been doing, nodding as Widow asked if she was feeling up for dusting while she continued to replace things, she wasn't really she knew exactly what Widow would want but figured her daughter would probably be able to direct her if she wasn't quite doing a good job. She stepped into her daughter's hut and stifled a sneeze at all the dust that had been kicked up, she moved over to a shelf that Widow had removed things from, the forms of the objects visible in the distinct lack of a layer of dust and after a moment of consideration the woman brushed her tail over the shelf, she'd need to wash it after all this but a bath probably wasn't a bad idea regardless so she was willing to sacrifice her tail for now. speech think action