Blackfeather Woods hello? is there anybody in there?

Maegi nodded slowly, casting her eyes slowly 'round. Yes. . .home. Unchanged, yet so different. But then, it was her that was different, right? All that she had seen and done, all that had been done to her. The girl on the verge of adulthood was not the same as the pup that had once roamed these haunted paths.

Sometimes, Maegi thought much better of the girl that was then the girl standing here now.

"Of course," she answered, a smirk blooming over her face. "The Woods belong to the Meloniis--someone will step up eventually, I'm sure. Perhaps Sascha," she said dryly, remembering the dark stranger's ambivalence. Not a chance in hell. But then, an insistent prodding at her shoulder, as if someone was trying to tell her something---

No Melonii will command this forest again. The name will end in blood and fire.

Maegi shivered, and looked away. The words, right on the tip of her tongue, were lodged suddenly in her throat, and she licked her chops to try and clear the feeling. Her hair was on end; she shifted her weight nervously, feeling dizzy and nauseous and. . .watched. . .

"Who knows what the future holds," she continued, though from her cracked voice and wary eyes, Relmyna must know it was a lie. "Unless the gods tell us, we won't know." Stupid. She sounded pithy, trite. But how could she spill the truth, knowing it implicated her and all whom she loved?