Tallulah's family gathered around her, mourning and crying over her decision. Many tried to persuade her not to go, but it was futile. She wouldn't be swayed, and the badger lord's words were as solid and unbreakable as iron. She would go.
After midnight, her brothers left to their own shared room, one by Sopranos ended up sleeping over, bringing blankets and pillows from their room and bedding down alongside the Altos. After around two in the morning, most of her sisters had cried themselves to sleep. Tallulah just sat on her portion of the padded floor, knees to her chest. Eventually, the snuffle and tear-laden breathing puttered out completely, leaving her the only one awake. That's why she jumped when anther voice murmured, "Are you scared?"
Tallulah spun to see Lyxa's black silhouette, interrupted only by the moonlight glowing on her white stripes, sitting on a stripped bed.
"A little." The tremble in her voice was all too plain.
Lyxa's voice was, as ever, soft and gentle, with an evident, underlying strength "Don't lie to me, Tallulah."
"A lot," Tallulah amended. "I'm scared; really, really scared."
"Come here," Lyxa said, opening her arms.
Tallulah slowly arose, careful not to bump and awake Mrue or Rhea, who had slept close to her sides every night since the beginning, and now slept closer still. Holding up the hem of her nightgown, so it wouldn't touch her other slumbering sisters as she stepped over them.
She climbed into her sister's lap, leaning into her embrace as the badgermaid wrapped held her like a baby and rocked her- Lyxa was the only sister big enough to offer that comfort.
"Little 'Lulah," Lyxa murmured. "Little 'Lulah. You're leaving us."
Tallulah wept at that truth, at the heartbreak in Lyxa's voice. Lyxa felt Tallulah's hot tears fell on her, felt the scrawny body shudder with sobs. Tallulah, her baby sister- the sister she'd spent a lifetime protecting-was crying in fear.
So Lyxa held her close and rocked her, whispering a lullaby.
"'If you hear a voice in the middle of the night
Sayin' it'll be alright
It will be me
If you feel a hand guiding you along
When the path seems wrong
It will be me
There is no mountain that I can't climb
For you, I'd swim through the rivers of time
As you go your way and I go mine
A light will shine
And it will be me...'"
Cradled to Lyxa's chest, Tallulah felt the vibrations of the badgermaid's vocal chords, the most soothing feeling in her world. The song, the comfort of being held and loved all soothed her fears and drew upon her exhaustion. She was asleep long before Lyxa could get out any other verses.
When she opened her eyes, she was standing in water, gentle waves lapping at her hips. It stretched on as far as she could see, but she could feel her footpaws secure on the bottom. There were no birds shrieking overhead, no fish nibbling at her ankles. There wasn't even a wind or a current to stir her fur. Just an all-encompassing calm that swallowed her fears and left her wonderfully empty.
On instinctual impulse rather than thought, she looked to her left. A mouse stood in the water many paces from her; he was much shorter than her, but the water still only reached his waist. "Hullo, Martin." She began walking toward him. "I suppose you have a message for me?"
The mouse warrior gestured to the water at her waist. "You're getting in deep now, Tallulah. Don't let yourself get dragged under."
Tallulah was confused- no matter where she walked, the water level didn't rise at all. And she could feel the bottom, solid under her footpaws. "There's no current to take me under, Mar-"
The bottom gave away suddenly, as if it had been ripped from under her footpaws. She fell, floundering and trying to get to the calm surface above. But she just sank farther into the dark depths, fear surging anew as the black water rushed into her lungs... But she cold somehow hear Martin's repeated warning. "Don't go too deep."
The song is "It Will Be" from Disney's Brother Bear 2
