Boartusk Heights upon waiting;

a small hovel near the entrance to la muerta was what agrippina had chosen for herself. scraped from shallow earth, its one comfort were the feathery grasses which felt like silk beneath paws which she believed would never be smooth again.

her mother had been educated to take a place as empress. she would have not wanted this for agrippina, but where was she now? fata obediam.

for that too, had been one of her mother's lessons.

snow began to fall, killing any hope of finding flowers to strew beneath her bedding. reeds would do as well, but the sirviente found herself almost distressed for reasons inexplicable.

sitting down hard in the entrance to her simple home, she fought the pain in her throat, trying to swallow tears.

She reminded him of the woman in the water, and the sight of her filled him with the same unpleasant feeling she had left him with. Diego watched her from the thinning trees, before he stole towards her with silent steps.

Fog shrouded La Muere in a frigid haze, woven between the crumbling summer and thread bare branches autumn had fashioned in hasty array. It settled around this sirviente in fitting form. Forlorn. Wreathed about with a heaviness Diego was learning to be comfortable with, distress thick on the air. 

The darkling paused his advance before he reached her and there, he settled to his haunches, fog still obscuring her finer features, and his head tiltled with a blinking stare.

she was not to be left alone with her grief.

palming moisture from her cheeks, agrippina glanced at the child. she was aware the matriarcha had her own brood but did not know if this was one of them. better to be safe rather than sorrowful when retribution came.

"may i help you?" she asked in a polite monotone, wishing she had water to wash the stains from her face. vulnerable, experiencing a sense of foolishness, agrippina waited.