Fairspell Meadow there is no pain; you are receding

Whenever you're ready, darling <3

Her first reaction upon seeing the dark line of trees upon the horizon was to laugh.

Not a sound with any sort of genuine mirth. Just a weary, incredulous chuckle, a Shit, from the corner of her mouth. She sat down and her face fell once more. One corner of her lips twisted permanently into a devilish grin, the other drooping, mournful.

Comedy and tragedy: a perfect duality. Except the latter had been present throughout her life; the former, markedly missing.

Seven children had Maegi been given to raise, and seven children had she lost.

She winced, sucking in a hissing breath as she shifted her weight. She'd aggravated an old injury, the break she'd sustained upon her twisted right foreleg when the tunnels had collapsed. Not that she wasn't used to hobbling around on three legs—but it was painful, and it only compounded her complete and utter exhaustion.

They had to stop. But not here. . . 

They couldn't. As much as she wanted to. There were too many ghosts.

Maegi placed her head upon @Titmouse's shoulders, closing her eyes. Shutting out the sight of this meadow, of the woods yonder, of any sense but the comforting feel of his flesh and bones, the smell of him.

Well, she sighed, feeling like her own bones were disintegrating. Helpless. Should we go?

Starting over had been the plan. It had worked for a while too, with the pair of them finding solace in the hollow. Nothing ever did last - whatever had cursed Titmouse in this life followed him to the next; oftentimes he thought of the Daedra, but he had stopped asking Maegi anything about the old gods of the black forest. It only served to drive a wedge between them. Things were better when he kept quiet.

When Maegi stopped hiking through the meadow he paused too, watchful, knowing of the weight she often carried on her shoulders. When she came to linger alongside him Titmouse's tail drew across the grass in a little wave, then he braced himself as she draped across his shoulders. Little comforts were all that they had, now.

Back there...? He responded. That dark band of trees was so familiar to them both, but was it a home - had it ever been anything more than their shared crucible?

He seemed just as apprehensive as she felt. It was no wonder. The memories that lurked just beyond those trees— Plenty of good, but perhaps doubly bad. How could one place make her feel so strongly? Nowhere else on earth affected her like Blackfeather Woods.

I can't go any further, Maegi murmured, lifting her head and pulling back to look at Mou. Beyond the physical pain, the emotional strife of past days had worn her down. She might be able to drag herself to the woods, but beyond?

And it was too cold to stay out here. Not if they huddled close. . . But Sobek—

Sobek. The name lanced through her, an arrow to the heart; she winced as if the loss was felt anew. He'd frozen to death out here. And now two more children. . .borne of her and of Mou. . .likely burnt to a crisp;

Nowhere was safe. Nowhere could she escape her utter failures at motherhood.

We don't have to stay for long, she reasoned. Just for a little while. Just to get our strength up.

And then what? And then where? 

They were chasing ghosts (or were ghosts chasing them?).

He felt it. A tenebrous hold that snared his wrists and ankles, rooting him to the spot. It was easy to stand there and provide her the support she needed—physically and emotionally—but it was the sound of her voice that broke him down, little by little. He understood her trepidation as he held the same feeling inside himself. Titmouse looked upon the forest and saw the blackness of its body in the distance, saw it as a cancerous growth, and did not want to approach it any more than she did.

We don't have to stay for long, just a little while. Maegi told him. He nods, the puckered scar upon his throat feeling more prominent, though it was just in his head.

It wouldn't be forever. They needed somewhere to go that would shelter them. The gods knew of their sacrifice; the pyre that burned through their beloved. A home was what they were owed now but in lieu of that, shelter would be enough. He is silent as he slips away from her then—moving through the meadow like a soul in search of a body to inhabit.

Where had it been? Where exactly upon this cold, open tract of land had her son perished?

She wondered if she'd find the trees that had crushed Cassiopeia, had crushed Anansi. His tail. . .disintegrated, somewhere here. With Sobek's bones. Sakhmet—lost on the wind. 

Nirgali and Ninazu, gone to the soil. Never meant to live.

And now, ashes.

Maegi watched Titmouse wander off but stayed put, almost as if she were stuck in place. Her stomach was tight as a clenched fist, her teeth chattering—not from cold but from. . .

Not nerves. She'd done this homecoming enough times for it to be nerves. Barely suppressed hysteria? Funny thing about grief. It felt almost like a laugh reined back. Something bubbling near the surface. Sometimes she laughed and then cried; cried then laughed.

Because all she had left to do, when the tears were spent, was to laugh at fate's cruel hand in her life. 

Let's go, Maegi called out to her mate, lest she cackle once more. There was time enough for hysteria. The woods would permit it.