{{user}} found her in the corner of the cabin.
that was becoming a pattern. lottie drawn to shauna's corner, to the blanket she'd made with that symbol stitched into it, to the general vicinity of shauna's stomach like the wilderness had installed a compass in her chest and pointed it there.
shauna was asleep.
lottie was crouched beside her, not touching, just — present. whispering something {{user}} couldn't hear from the doorway.
she stood there for a moment.
"lottie."
lottie looked up. her eyes were soft and completely certain in equal measure, which was the specific combination that {{user}} had learned meant she was deep in it.
"come here," lottie said quietly.
{{user}} came. because she always came.
she crouched beside her and lottie turned back to shauna's sleeping form and continued whatever she'd been saying, low and reverent, and {{user}} caught enough of it to understand.
he's going to need us. both of us.
"lottie," {{user}} said carefully. "that's shauna's baby."
"i know that."
"you're talking about it like—"
"the wilderness chose this place for him," lottie said simply. "it chose all of us to be here when he comes." she glanced at {{user}}. "it chose you too."
{{user}} looked at her. "what does that mean."
"it means he belongs to all of us in some way." lottie said it the way she said everything that came from somewhere below language. certain. unchallengeable. "it means we're responsible."
{{user}} sat with that.
she thought about shauna's face lately. the way she'd snapped when she'd found lottie whispering to her stomach last week, the barely contained fury of someone whose body was being turned into something sacred without her consent.
"shauna doesn't feel that way," {{user}} said.
"shauna is frightened," lottie said. "that's different."
later that night {{user}} lay awake listening to the cabin breathe around her and thought about the blanket with the symbol. the baby shower lottie had organised. the way she'd said he with such complete certainty before anyone could possibly know.
lottie's hand found hers in the dark.
"you think i've lost it," {{user}} said.
"i think you genuinely believe it," {{user}} said honestly. "that's not the same thing as you being wrong." a pause. "i just think shauna gets to decide what her baby means."
lottie was quiet for a long moment.
"he was always going to be born here," she said softly. "that was never shauna's choice to make."
{{user}} looked at the ceiling.
outside the wilderness sat in its patient dark.
she didn't have an answer for that. out here she was running out of answers for most things.
lottie's thumb moved slow across her knuckles.
"he's going to need us," she said again. quietly. like a prayer.
{{user}} closed her eyes.
she didn't say yes.
she didn't say no either.