Hushed Willows eat your heart out

With Warbone returned to them, Tavi felt more comfortable with leaving the den and stretching her legs. She no longer felt the cramping of her body against the stones, and could freely depart whenever he came near. He was probably quite annoyed at being handed a babysitting gig (and what sort of sitter would he be, she wondered? But she was never around to find out), but Tavi had needs, and she would not always put her son first, even if that was the right way to do things. On this day she had left the baby boy before Warbone had shown up, knowing that the crook was heavily frequented by others. In her mouth hung a rotted chunk of something, although time had worn away its shape. The smell of it seemed to lure a few birds back from the emptiness of the world; as she moved, a pair of crows circled overhead.

Tavi found her favored tree after about an hour of searching. They all looked the same now. At the base of it she put the remains of her first born, but did not immediately cover them. It was like some kind of morbid ritual, except she had no such training. Tavi's goal was to clean out the whelping grotto before the stench of the rotted child's head became noticable, and this was her first shot at it. But once she placed it down, like some kind of seed, she saw a bare glimpse of the boy's tiny, bloated face, and felt a tiny sound break forth from her.

This boy that never was.

Tambourine could have had a brother.

No, it didn't matter - she grit her teeth and sniffed hard, blinking away a mist of tears which had sprung up across her vision. He was gone, like all the others. Like Ukko, like Reek. Tambourine was the only boy in her life now, and he would stay that way. Her son would never leave her, not like — she was mad, Octavia realized. Her mind had been whirring about all day, and now seemed to muddy to the point where she'd notice. She swallowed her thoughts and turned from the remains, ready to leave, to let the crows have them.

But then her belly rumbled.