Into The Mountains(COMPLETED)

Ch 3

Jennie POV

The children came running up, some in their wolf form, but most in the werewolf form that seemed to come most natural to them. "From now on you'll all be living in the house full time." I told them. "Lisa and I set up rooms for you today, and you'll all have free run of the house from here on out." "Does this mean we can't go outside anymore?" Tivald asked with a pout.

"You can go outside in the day, but at night you'll sleep in the new beds in the house." Lisa reassured him. "Come on, let's have a look." She said, and the kids ran for the house, even the skeptical ones. "How will we read stories if we're in different rooms?" Viyya asked, sounding downright anxious. "You said you'd read us a chapter tonight." Lisa led the way up the stairs. "It's alright Viyya, I'll read to you all together by the fireplace, and then it'll be up to bed with you all!" She said cheerfully.

It didn't take long for the kids to disperse to the different rooms, and in the process destroy the sleeping arrangements we'd planned for them. We'd set things up so the boys were separated into some rooms, the girls into others, and Holly had her own. Eventually they could all have their own, but we decided the younger kids might be more comfortable sharing space, and we'd been right. They did want to share rooms, just not with the siblings we'd thought they would.

As the kids argued over who would sleep with who I found myself laughing. It was the first honest laughter I'd felt in years. Of course I'd laughed when my husband had died, but that had been strange, maniacal laughter. This was an honest release. I leaned into Lisa and let out a small, pleased growl. This felt right. Tivald started coughing again as he climbed onto the bed he'd chosen as his. The coughing fit lasted more than a minute, and when it finally ended he looked tired and pained.

He let out a small whimper and laid down on the bed instead of joining play with his sibblings. "Tivald has been sick a long time." I said quietly to Lisa. "It keeps getting worse. I'd been hiding him from HyunSuk. I knew he'd send him to the woods to either get better or die. He liked to do that with the sick." Lisa frowned and went to sit next to Tivald, rubbing her hand over his forehead.

She looked him over a little more carefully, asking him a few questions as he did. Some sounded like they meant something important, but others were just filling, comforting questions. Lisa ended her questioning with a smile and a joke for the boy, and then hung around playing with the healthy children for a bit before ducking out. When out of the children's rooms she frowned at the wall. "I think Tivald is really sick, Jennie."

She said softly to me. "It sounds like something I've seen at home, and it's curable though." She added a soft smile for me. I let out a sigh of relieved breath that I'd taken in when she said Tivald was really sick. "Whatever it takes, I'll do it." I said, still worried. "I can't lose another one of my pups." A tear slipped from my eyes and I growled and wiped it away. "Is the cure something I can get in the woods?" Lisa came and hugged me.

Because of our height difference this actually tucked her against my chest, but she was still trying to be comforting. "I'm not a doctor. It looks and sounds like something a close friend of mine had. I don't know what went into the medicine that saved him, so I'll have to go back across the mountains to get it." She stepped back and rubbed my arm. "It'll be alright Jennie, I'll get him the medicine and he'll be fine." She grinned widely at me.

"I'll leave tomorrow." I had an initial impulse to ask her not to leave me, but I bit that back. I used to get happy when HyunSuk was going way. This would give me some time with the kids, and when Lisa came back she'd have a cure for Tivald. "Alright. Thank you, Lisa. Do you know how long you'll be gone?" She leaned against the wall and thought a moment. "Well I got lost getting here. I'll have to talk with Jisoo and Gd, but I should say a week at most." She said