Tiny hands tended to the wonky, fluffy-soiled garden that cushioned soon-to-be sprouts. Yui watched her beautiful daughter devote her morning to growing the next autumn’s crop through the kitchen window, smiling with pride as she peeled through a pile of their current supply. The old, flaking shutters tapped along with the wind, falling out of tempo with Yuki’s humming and whistling, but keeping perfect time with her long ears fluttering against the breeze. Yui brushed her own back from her shoulders. Rabbit kin didn't have the most convenient of features, but Yui couldn't deny the gentle treatment they had afforded her in some desperate times.

As for her daughter, with every year that passed since her birth, Yui’s pride could only swell more and more. Seven years. How it had flown since settling in the village. She set aside the peeled vegetables to soak in a pot until the rest of their meal was prepared. First, their dishes needed cleaning.

Yui hummed and scrubbed and watched Yuki hum and trowel. Far in the distance, the occasional carriage or walking pair passed on the dirt road that interconnected the village. The chief had a lot of land surrounding his home; it offered a wonderful view: green fields, mushroom-pocked thickets, and thatched cottages if you squinted.

She dried the last bowl and balanced it with the rest of their crockery. Two sets of each item, one for mother and one for daughter.

“Yuki,” she called, teetering on her stool as she stretched to her full height. She needed her voice to carry. “Come inside and take some tea, sweet pea.”

Yuki staggered up from her kneeling spot on the dewy ground at her mother’s call and slapped at her knees. Either waking them up, or brushing off dirt, Yui couldn’t tell. She turned away from the window to balance the tea pot above the fire and let it come to a boil. Patiently awaiting the whistle, she tapped at her tiny jars of dried ingredients and struggled to choose their tea flavour of the afternoon…

Yui blinked. The thick forestry had petered out with the full-pelt speed of the carriage. She had grown to feel at home in the woodlands, although she had only lived there a little longer than Yuki had lived at all. Now it fell back, unable to keep pace with the horses clattering up the road, and she longed to be surrounded by it once more. Safe under the cover of branches.

She blew out a strained breath. There was no reason to believe she was not safe - or wouldn’t be in the Capital. Not unless it got even colder. She clutched at her shawl over her forearms. Without the protection of the trees, the wind battered the carriage and chilled her through her thin clothes. She had no finery worthy of the Capital, that she had known when she left, but she was quickly learning she also had no clothing worthy of even keeping her warm in the Capital.

With nothing else to do but listen to the horses’ hooves and watch the outside grow less hospitable, Yui allowed herself to return to her daydreaming.

This time, the playing out of an old memory as though it were happening again in front of her. It exuded a different warmth to that which she was craving.

The village square, market day, and Yui walked her daughter along the stalls by her small, pudgy hand. Just a toddling babe with a tiny tail, she had been. And the villagers adored her. It really was Yuki that softened their hearts to a foreigner dumped in their midst.

It also helped that they could never be seen as a threat. Yuki took after her mother - a herbivore omega. Utterly unfit for conflict - and happily so. Herbivores did not approve of fighting, physically or verbally, even. Now, the artistic pursuits: cooking, painting, embroidery, singing and dancing - those you could find a herbivore celebrating.

The stalls were stocked to the brim in her mind’s eye, some with artisanal items, others with twisted-metal trinkets, and Yuki’s favourite seller: the wood carver. Perched on a wooden stool (a slice of a log that the man had cut into with seemingly random engravings - perhaps to test a fresh chisel) the wood carver worked while prospective customers perused his pieces.

Yui could not afford to buy any of his intricate figures or charming animals, but Yuki loved to watch him work. And often, despite Yui’s polite refusals, he offered her a toy. Before she could walk, it was a baton to swing around and make noise with or a wedge with wheels. Once she was on her feet, it was bricks to topple over and stack repeatedly. And when Yuki was old enough to be trusted not to put her gifts into her mouth, it became beads. Beads that she could carve into herself and create her own offerings for others. Of course, her first recipient was the wood carver. Then, Yui.

Clutching the wooden beads at her neck, Yui returned her consciousness to the carriage. They had slowed. At the halt, accompanied by a rock of the carriage as it adjusted to the lack of force, the driver dropped to the road with a ‘hup’ sound and pressed his cheek to the window.

“Would you like to step out for some air, Miss?”

“I’m fine. Thank you for asking.” She would catch her death out there. Inside was only marginally warmer.

The driver’s cat-like ears swivelled a little at her response, but he smiled politely all the same. He was a carnivore, but an omega like her, so his presence didn’t have her ill at ease.

Breeds and species mixed plentifully in the Anartier Empire; that had been her first surprise when she arrived. Her second was that carnivores didn’t eat herbivores like the ghost stories of her childhood - in fact, they even ate some vegetables! The third… Yui was still pondering what to rank next when the carriage took off again.

She withheld a sigh. What a waste of a journey this was. All the way to the Capital only to turn around and come back. But… the village had supported her and Yuki through all sorts, she owed them something in return. The chief, particularly, who had allowed them to live in the cottage behind his manor since Yuki was still growing in Yui’s belly. It was his daughter that the messenger had looked to first.

By royal decree, every town and village was to send an omega to be presented before First Princess Bellona von Sköll. And every single one would be rejected when a fine offer was made by a noble family with a child they wished to secure royal ties with. It was all a farce, and one filled with humiliation for all the omegas to be rejected.

There were hushed words that it was all a ploy to boost fertility in the Capital itself. All those omegas travelling to one place, all rejected and seeking the comfort of an alpha, most with a night or two booked at an inn before they made the long journey back home… That would not be Yui. She had a daughter to get back to and a quiet life to live. What she had was more than enough. No more alphas and their honeyed words and broken promises. Certainly no more unmated nights of passion.

“Yui, I can’t send my daughter there,” the chief had whispered to her. A meeting in the muddy patch between his home and hers; the moon high and the crickets croaking. “She is too young, too naive, and too sensitive. Either the rejection will crush her or that big city will.”

It had pained her to hear the sorrow in his voice. A father truly despairing for his child. “I’m so sorry, Chief, if there was anything-”

“Can’t you take her place?”

For a moment, Yui had struggled to catch her breath.

“Please, Yui, there are no other unmated omegas of age here.”

“I’m a herbivore,” Yui had blurted. That was enough to already make her unfit to be mated to a member of the royal family. The von Skölls had long since lost their herbivore branch of the family tree.

The chief had blinked. “I know.”

“And I’m a lot older than any other omega who would present themselves.” A decade older, she would bet. “Far too old for a freshly-adult princess!”

“She just ended the war,” the chief had reminded her bluntly. “And she isn’t going to take any mate that is offered to her at this ceremony, so why are you so concerned as to what she will think of you?”

“Because I could not be any further from expectation, Chief. In fact, I fear they may even take offence to my showing my face in the palace.” She had clutched herself, bracing not against the cold but her concern for her future. “I have already had a child!” It would be an insult to stand before the First Princess and pretend to be worthy of mating.

“Exactly. You know the desperation to protect our children,” the chief had pleaded. “Please, help me keep my daughter from the Capital.”

How could she refuse? The chief had put a roof over their heads, he allowed them to garden on his land, he had been the key to their pleasant lives out in the pastures - metaphorically and literally. He had welcomed them, and the rest of the village had followed in their own time.

Quietly, she had conceded. “I will put myself forward to the messenger in the morning.”

The chief had sighed with relief, a hand to his chest.

“But I must ask that you care for Yuki while I’m away.”

“Of course. She will live with us until you return. I wouldn’t let her fend for herself!”

Yuki had taken the news surprisingly well. Not that she was one to make a fuss. Yui had always been proud to have such a sweet and docile daughter. Now, she worried what that might mean for her all alone in a house of carnivores.

Yui rubbed her arms, warming herself futilely, and tried to think more positively. Her daughter was fine, she was in safe hands. The chief had always been good to them. Yui was in safe hands, too. She had a carriage to carry her to the Capital and a stay at a fine inn paid for by the chief. With the exception of the mate ceremony itself, she could treat it as a holiday. And she would be home soon enough.

Yui let her sigh out. All the forceful positive thinking in the world couldn’t stop the pangs of guilt and loss already digging into her at being away from her kit.