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Absolution (closed)

"Durban has been sending money to me to help her make an escape. I just don't know if she is brave enough to leave us all behind." Kitty said with a long sigh as Ashelin tried to get comfortable. "What am I ever going to do without you? You've been my best friend for 20 years."
 
"I know, my love. But you'll manage. You always do. Even if this was never all ideal... I've gotten to be with the love of my life, have a family thanks to you, and we've known some peace out here in the woods. My boys are becoming wonderful men, and your little girl... Our sweet Valentina, is absolutely blooming into an intelligent, adventurous young woman. I see more and more of it every time she comes home from Italy. I've had everything I've ever wanted. While I wish there was more time... I'm happy. And if anyone can say I left a good mark on this world, I'll be content with that and knowing that Warwick will see our babies to wherever they feel they need to be, even if he's having a hard time coming to terms with the fact that he will lose me. And he'll see you through as well."
 
“But who will look after him? Warwick has loved you for so long that I don’t think his heart will heal so easily.” Kitty said softly, knowing that Ashelin had made peace with her own mortality but the rest of them still struggled.
 
"I know it won't. We talk about it all the time, trying to figure out what he'll do seeing it's no longer a question of if, but when I'm gone. He's talked about going to Edinburgh to serve Brian and Marianne, seeing as they're such close friends. Of course, only after the children are set on their own. He's promised he won't leave til you can take Valentina home, or until she's of age and can make her own decisions. Honestly... I don't know if anyone can really look after him. He's always been the sort of man who just has to figure it out and pick himself up... as much as I dislike it."
 
Kitty reached over and too Ashelin’s hand, squeezing it tightly. “They’ll all be taken care of. I promise you that.”

“Mama?” Kitty glanced over as Kayla called her name, Valentina there at her side. “Can I stay with Valentina tonight?”

“Love, I’m not so sure. Ashelin gets tired easily lately.” Kitty said softly, watching the disappointment cross Kayla’s features. “What do you think, Ashelin?”
 
"You're old enough now to know how to look after yourselves and when to ask for help," Ashelin smiled gently to the girls. "You just might have to go to the boys if you need something. I don't know how helpful I'll be. So yes, love, you're welcome to stay." Despite her illness and how small and frail she seemed there wrapped up in her blankets, there was still energy and life to Ashelin's personality and a love and support for the girls' youth. She rarely deprived them of the chance to play together like the sisters that they should've been.
 
“Thank you!” Kayla replied cheerfully, hurrying off with her sister to play some more.

Kitty looked over at Ashelin with a small smile. “Thank you for giving her a chance to know her siblings.” They might have never told Valentina that she was the sister of the Ghis children, but the others treated her as their equal.
 
"It was nothing I did," Ashelin chuckled softly as the girls skittered away. "They all gravitate towards her. I'm not entirely sure Valentina doesn't know they're her siblings. She notices the similarities, and I wouldn't put it past Vincenzo to have explained it all to her. She's smart enough to understand. And she loves them all so much... She was strong about Durban leaving, but she was hurt as much as any of the others. She's better now that he's been sending her letters too."
 
"I didn't know that Durban was writing to her." Kitty said, a little stunned that Durban would be sending letters to Valentina like he did the rest of the family. "He was going to make his way to Vincenzo if he possibly could. I think it would do him some good."
 
"Maybe he'll herd sheep again," Ashelin smiled at the thought. Durban's sheep in Inverness had long since grown and been sold for meat thanks to famine, but Durban had never forgotten the gift his mother had given him in making sure he'd had them.
 
"I could only dream. He was always the happiest when he had some kind of beast to look after." Kitty said as she thought back on the life that Durban had led up until then. "Perhaps one day he will be a big success at herding. It would be something he could do even here in Scotland."
 
"He always struck me as a proper homesteader, the kind that can make or find whatever he needs and then some. And he's learning more every day, even if it wasn't under good circumstances." Ashelin looked to Kitty with a tired but content smile. "Things look dark, love. But I feel a change coming soon. Not years from now, very soon."
 
"I can only hope. They wouldn't even allow my brother to stay longer than a few evenings. That's the first time my family has ever felt unwelcome in the walls of Inverness." Kitty said with a sigh as Ashelin told her that she felt a change coming.
 
"It will all come to pass, and Tamblin will let go, one way or another, and let you all be happy. I can already see Brogan getting ready to become king, however it comes about. He's going to be wonderful." Ashelin closed her eyes as she imagined what things would be like, regardless of whether she was there to see it. "Maybe Durban will come home with some poor girl he swept off her feet from afar one day. Seamus will come bringing wine for the keep with his family... Martin and Lucina and Matthias will visit freely whenever they like. And Vincenzo will walk the Keep's halls freely with you, dance even when there's no music, and sweep you up without a care in the world. It'll be beautiful."
 
Kitty had tears in her eyes as Ashelin imagined the keep as it would be when Brogan was king. The lovely thoughts that she had made Kitty so incredibly sad. She knew her dear friend, the one who had helped to birth most of her babies and protected them all in times of strife, would never see that day. She might be lucky to see the next coming months.

"You, my love, were always the hopeless romantic." Kitty murmured with a catch in her voice. "Even when Tamblin was in his right mind, you always saw the best side of our life together."
 
"And yet you were the one who made the romance and love in my life possible, by pushing me to go after Warwick and make him see more than his work." Ashelin looked back to Kitty, her smile never fading.
 
"And I'm happy that I did. Both of you were stubborn, but you came together beautifully." Kitty said as the two friends talked late into the evening and Cole was tasked with taking Kitty back to the keep so she wouldn't have to return in the cold alone.
 
Cole saw Kitty back into the keep and to her room before heading home, and it wasn't long before Ghell came by to check on her as he did every evening. "Kitty," he said softly with a tap on the open door. "Selena received another letter from Abel. She's agreed for him to come and meet her in person."
 
Kitty let out a long sigh at that news, sinking into her chair and pulling her blanket around her legs. "Of course she has because she is a stubborn young woman who thinks she has the power to fix all of this by being miserable."

Kitty looked over as the wolf settled in the chair next to her. "Ashelin is dying. I'm terrified as to what that means for me, Ghell. Without her...without you...what happens next?"
 
Ghell sighed quietly, knowing that Kitty had been considering how she was slowly losing everyone she loved one way or another. It had started with Tamblin, losing him emotionally, and then Vincenzo, and then Durban. Now with the knowledge that Ashelin was dying and Ghell might disappear if Selena fled, Ghell knew it was too much for Kitty.

"I... I don't know, dear. All I can say is that of all of your children, Brogan will look after you best, and he'll pull things back together in the end. He'll be the kind of king the Ghis used to be before Tamblin's father, like his namesake Ingvar."
 
"I don't want this marriage for Selena. I might have had to marry Tamblin for duty, but I don't want my girl to be forced into this. It only ends in heartache." Kitty said softly, admitting for the first time that she didn't want Selena to go through any of this. "I had a lovely life in Skye. I wish that she could enjoy that kind of joy and freedom that I did when I was younger. She doesn't need to be in the middle of Wick, having child after child, miserable until the end of her days."
 
"That's why I'll continue to remind her that no one will blame her if she needs to flee... and just between you and I... I'm ready any moment she decides to go. I'm just afraid she'll never make that decision, that she'll be trapped by guilt." He shook his head with a sigh.
 
"Let her meet Abel and then we will talk. I won't break off the meeting in case it angers Lochlan. The last thing we want is to be forced into another war." Kitty said softly as she stood suddenly and made her way to the money that Durban had sent back for Selena. "Keep this safe for her. If she needs to run away, she needs to do it quickly and without raising suspicion."
 
Ghell took the pouch with a combination of relief that Selena would have something to get started, but also guilt that it had to be done in the first place. "I know I was never meant to be a part of this family... Just a bodyguard and nothing more... Regardless of all the bad that we've gone through, Kitty, I'm grateful for everything you've given me. And making sure Selena will be happy is all I can do to repay you."
 
"You have had a hand in raising all of these little souls." Kitty said as Ghell swore that he would protect Selena no matter what the cost was. "You are just as much their father as Vincenzo."
 
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