“Birchy can stay with us,” Sunny announced.
Birch huffed, affronted. “Birch not baby. Why Birch have to stay Mama, Da?” the supersized Lepyr hybrid grumbled.
Forest’s eyebrows shot up and he rumbled at his youngest triplet in Lo denaii, “Want watch Elm and Cy with their Pru?”
Birch made a grossed out face. “Birchy go with mama,” he mimicked his mother in a comically high falsetto.
“I donotsound like that,” Sunny cackled out.
“Mama sound‘xactlylike that,” Cy chimed in with a shit eating grin.
Elm quietly bobbed his head in a nod along with his sibling.
“Oh… you are gonna have your hands full with this bunch,” Dorothy tittered.
“I’m counting on it,” I gamely told her.
“Brave words.” Dorothy laughed.
“Amen!” Sunny called out.
Dorothy glanced up then, staring after Sunny for the longest moment before blurting, “Sunshine?”
Sunny popped up from the spot she was propped up next to the cart. “Doro?”
“Whut-oh,” one of Dorothy’s mates grumbled.
“OH MY GOD!” Dorothy stood up and dumped the cloth and salve in her hands to rush over to Sunny. Sunny met her halfway so they met and bear hugged in the middle. “I haven’t seen you in- in years! When you took off for Earth with Auf!”
Sunny grinned when they pulled back. “He goes by Forest now.”
“My goodness, and these are your children. You had children!” Dorothy looked beside herself.
“And I’m older than you now by quite a bit but we won’t talk about that,” Sunny joked with a wink.
“Does Berkr know you’re here?” Dorothy’s eyes were so wide they nearly bugged.
“I’m not worried about prickle puss right now. Hopefully he’s grown up and moved on.” Sunny rolled her eyes so hard it looked like it hurt.
“Berkr has Candy now,” Lukar rumbled out from his spot beside Elm and Cy as he finished up and stood.
“Candy?” Sunny blinked at that.
“Dace,” I gently corrected. “She doesn’t like being called Candy or any variation of it.”
“Sweet, angel of a thing, come through the portal, hunted us down and brought us back for her best friend, our Pru… that Dace?” Sunny fretted.
“That Dadze,” Dorothy’s healer mate confirmed.
“Oh my.” Sunny shook her head. Her face puckered and she frowned worriedly. “Well, that just won’t do at all. Ol’ sour pants and Miss Dace will never do.”
Dorothy gave her a look. “It might have worked for me. That does not make you a matchmaker, Sunshine.”
“Pshaw.” Sunny waved her off. “You just watch me. I’ll have her happily mated off and popping out babies with a male that’s sweet on her before prickle pants can blink.”
I was not about to hop into that hot mess. You could not pay me. Looking from Cy to Elm, to Kehl, I smiled. “Let’s go home.”
The walk home was quiet, uneventful. Considering everything that’s happened in such a short period of time, the silence was comfortable, calming.
