Charlotte had accepted that Safiya was dead long ago. It had been one of the only ways that she could cope with the abandonment of her mother: Safi was certainly dead. Primal Instinct had certainly hunted her down, taken care of her in whatever means possible. It had been Bermondsey that had eliminated that delusion for the she-cat. Safi had been out there, somewhere, and had had a second litter of kits. Charlotte had become attached to the duo and their softness; it reminded her of the cat her mother once was. But, even with their appearance, Charlotte had once again convinced herself her mother was dead. It kept the Shaman from looking for her, wasting precious resources to find a mother who did not want her. No, it was easier to reimagine her mother's corpse, no matter how much the very thought of Safi being gone really did hurt her.

It had been a long time since she had thought about her mother. It was simply better that way. Yet, on this particular fall evening, her mother was on her mind. The reason was simple: unbeknownst to Charlotte, she had caught her mother's scent. Of course, the Shaman had assumed the scent of the air, the way it smelled like home, was a trick of her imagination. Her imagination had been growing quite wild these last few moons, no doubt in part because the madness had begun to show up. She scented the air again. Whatever smelled like her mother, whatever brought back the painful memories, the Shaman would have to know.

She followed the scent for a while before she heard the noise. Her blood ran cold. That voice... no, it couldn't be. Her mother was dead. Yet, the feline found herself running in the direction. It wasn't until she reached the body, near a corpse, that Charlotte could see enough to know. She didn't have to see much of Safi to know it was her. It only took one half glance at her mother's flamed pelt, so similar to her own. Memories flooded back to her, and the Shaman let out a pitched gasp.

She was bleeding heavily, Charlotte realized with a hiss. They were far away from her stock, and the Shaman had no supplies with her... "Dammit," she snarled to herself, before giving her mother's body a good thump on the chest. Panic rose in her mostly blind gaze when her mother didn't react to the embrace, causing her to thump her again, this time with more urgency. "No.... no...." she found herself chanting, each time she nudged her mother's body. "Come on, get up. I can't help you here.... Come on...." Urgency clouded her tone. She could feel her mother's chest rise; she was breathing, but only barely.

"Come on, mom, please.... You.... you can't have come here just to die on me like this. It's... it's not fair. You... can't leave me like this."

Charlotte let out a frustrated hiss. There was a time and place for Safi's babbling, but this was not it. She gave her mother one last whack, this time for good measure and not because she was trying to thump the life back into her, before opening her mouth.

"I didn't die," was the first time that came out of her. No, Safiya had not cursed her to death. Instead, she cursed her with so much more, leaving her to rot in Primal Instinct. "I'm not dead, although god, sometimes I wish I was." Her tail flicked back and forth in irritation. At leasst if she were dead she wouldn't have to deal with the idiots of Primal Instinct. "Now, if you're done babbling, I'd like to make sure you don't die."

The Shaman's perpetually narrowed eyes seemed to narrow even further as she peered at her mother. "But in order to do that, I need your help. Reynardine isn't here to be my eyes, so someone has to be. I can by your scent and what little I can see that you are bleeding heavily. I need you to tell me where your deepest cut is. I also need to know if you can stand. It would be easiest to move you to my den, but if you can't move, I can... make it work."

Her ears pricked at the sound of the voice, and relief passed through her mostly blind gaze. She didn't believe in StarClan, or the afterlife, but in the moment, she felt herself sending a prayer of thanks to whatever was on the other side for the sudden appearance. She shifted away from her mother's near-corpse, offering a nod.

"We need to get her either to my den or..." Stress radiated in the she-cat's voice. Did they have time to get her back before she was dead? Suddenly, the fact that she was a do it yourself learn from youtube doctor was becoming a problem. Normally, she didn't care that her solutions had a 50% mortality rate, but the very thought of her mother's death clawed at her. No, she couldn't let that happen. She had to fix this.

"Are there cobwebs around? Moss? Anything that we could use to stop the bleeding. That should... buy us a few minutes to get her to my tower." Charlotte was known for her logical disposition, the fact that nothing seemed to bother her. However, the Charlotte that the League knew her as was not the Charlotte that stood in front of Rhiannon. This feline was scared, anxious, and looked like she wanted to cry. "Please, we can't let my mom die."

time skippy bc i'm too lazy to both respond to that and skip forward in the same post uwu

Charlotte had been eternally grateful for Rhiannon, something that was strange. They had only interacted in passing before that moment, but the other cat's presence in emergency had gained her Charlotte's respect. Together, the two had gotten Safi to her tower after the bloodloss had been stopped. Several hours had passed, and it was still unclear if her mother was going to make it, something that had sent a pang of sadness through her that was almost tangible. Still, she waited patiently, never moving from her side, ready for whenever the other stirred. She didn't like this game, the waiting game that she had found herself in.

She watched for a few more moments, as if her diligent gaze would necessarily cause her mother to wake up. Luckily for the Shaman, it appeared that it did; through squinted eyes, she watched her mother's own gaze flick open, the first sign of life beyond the uneven breaths. Charlotte let out a sigh of relief; this was a good sign. Safi may not be out of the woods quite yet, but at least she was concious again.

"Ma?" she asked quietly, trying to restrain herself from immediately diving into a million questions. "Can you hear me?"

"Don't strain yourself. You aren't out of the woods yet, and if you die on me, you'll be the first body in a never ending pile that I regret." Although her tone was no different than the tone she would use for most cats, her golden gaze swirled with relief. Her mother was alive, if only barely. Her mother was alive. She was here. She was breathing. She was alive.

Desperately, the Shaman wanted to fall into her mother, to curl around her, to let the tears fall down her cheeks. She wouldn't, though. She couldn't. If she did, she was afraid she would unravel, and she simply could not have that. There was still work to do. Yet, denying the kitten within her, the one that wanted nothing more than to throw herself at her mother's feet, hurt her more than she had anticipated. It had been so long since that part of her re-emerged, the child who was hurt and confused. She couldn't afford for it to re-emerge now. At least not yet.

Instead of moving with her instinct, Charlotte merely tensed for a moment, years of stress suddenly making themselves clear across her visage. Normally collected, she looked exhausted. This was perhaps expected; if anything was worth pushing her over the edge, this was it. She then let out a deep, heavy sigh, trying to focus on the part of her that had replaced the child. It was cool and collected. This was the part of her that she needed now.

"You're in Primal Instinct, the Shaman's tower of the mansion in particular. I found you bleeding to death nearly a day and a half ago. You were lucky that Rhiannon was there; I wouldn't have been able to save you on my own. You've had a visitor that has been in several times to check on you, but he didn't want to be here when you woke up." Her ear twitched. Of course, her uncle would leave her mother's return to her. Perhaps it was better, though, since techincally, she was probably pretty sure she didn't have the authority to just bring cats in the den willy nilly. "Since you haven't been concious, I haven't been able to do much for the pain. Here, take these," she meowed, pushing poppy seeds to her. "I don't have anything stronger right now, but I'm sure you're in a lot of pain."

"Don't think I was impressed by it either," she meowed with a shrug of her shoulders. Watching the confusion and sadness well in her mother's expression, the she-cat sighed softly. Her own gaze softened slightly; not enough to quite defrost yet, despite the fact that she had been waiting not-so-patiently for her mother to wake up, to respond to the treatment.

"I'm sure you have questions, so let me answer any that I presume you might have. Then, if you have a question that I've missed, please ask. The League moved territories several times while you were gone. I left it when they were still in the ruins, and I came back and they were in the city. Now, they're here. When I got here, there was no Shaman. I do not presume to know what happened to make that the case. What I do know is that in my moons away from Primal Instinct, I learned medicine, so I was invited back to fill a need." Her tail tip twitched slightly. There was a hint of resentment in her voice; there was nothing Charlotte wanted more than to be seven million miles away from this place and these cats. However, no matter how much she resented it, she couldn't leave; the siren's song was too strong.

"Your granddaughter is the Mage, Reynardine. I've instructed her to divert any and all attention from the tower to ensure that we have privacy. There are four cats that know you're here: myself, Rhiannon, Reynardine, and the Warden." Why was she tiptoeing around Bermondsey's name? Perhaps she thought it better for the tom to decide when his sister would learn that he was here too. "I suppose Chelsea might as well, but I haven't seen her around." Charlotte blinked twice. "Oh, and while you are awake, if there are any wounds you have bandages that need to be changed at any point I need you to tell me. My vision is very limited, so I might not notice unless you tell me."

She then paused, seemingly satisfied by her monologue. Only then did the Shaman move over to the other, putting her nose on her mother's head gently. "I'm glad you are awake," she murmured, the closest thing to affection that Charlotte was capable of giving.

When her mother embraced her, there was a part of her that felt like a child again. She had waited for years for the embrace of her mother again. It had taken Charlotte a long time to stop hoping that one day her mother was going to come back and save her, but in that moment, the hope was still alive. If you ignored the fact that Charlotte had done more saving than Safiya, her mother had come back to her. After all these moons, her mother had come back.

They sat in silence for a moment, Charlotte's head wrapping around her mother's claims that she had missed her. A bitterness rose in the Shaman's throat: if Safiya had missed her, why hadn't she at least said goodbye? After a moment of contemplation, Charlotte sighed. "Well, being that one of us was almost made into crowfood and the other hasn't, I guess I have been doing better than you," she murmured, for some reason wanting to validate Safi's hope. Technically, it wasn't a lie. Charlotte had been healthy and busy and had created a life where she was needed. But, it didn't feel like the truth, either. It had been moons since Charlotte had felt like a real cat; was that really doing any better than her mother? She blinked; she supposed it didn't matter.

Charlotte did not share Safiya's same weariness to her aunt and uncle. Even though she'd just quite litterally killed the assassin successor not too long ago, Charlotte had not interacted with Chelsea herself yet, and therefore, she felt no fear. Even if the two had interacted, she'd probably treat her aunt with the same passive distaste as any other cat unless she proved respectable, which even fewer than normal were proving to be lately. And as for Bermondsey, he was perhaps her only ally in this never ending hellscape that was being the doctor in residence of the League.

Charlotte blinked at the she-cat's question. "The warden knows who you are. He knows you are here. He knows I will slit his throat if he hurts you, although I'm not sure he would want to." Once again, she had deflected Bermondsey's name, not wanting to upset her. "As for anyone else, I don't think so. I can't... be positive, but I know most of the cats are long dead or gone." Charlotte let out a cough. "Evenie is in SummerClan and Moonblight is in NightClan," she then added, her ambivalence hiding a slight accusation. At least Charlotte's litter hadn't been the only one she had left - although Charlotte had always been convinced that her life would have ended up a lot differently had Safiya not left her in the smoldering ashes.

It was then that Charlotte's gaze lit. "Wait," she meowed, pulling away from her mother for a moment. "There is one. Bellamy. He's been slinking around here. He's old enough that he might know who you are." Charlotte had no idea how true her words really were.