Noctisardor Bypass is the rise of an eastern sun going to be good for everyone?

Like a sea calming after the storm, the torrent of emotions that had racked Maegi's mind for the last two weeks had smoothed into quiet, empty nothingness. She was tired. Simply tired. And she knew she ought to feel guilty, for letting her body decide what was worth thinking about--in this case, nothing at all--but she couldn't control it. Couldn't control her eyelids constantly drooping, the ache in her young muscles.

Blackfeather had lost the war, and they had fled. Those two things were of the utmost significance, at this point. The details had been lost in their swift flight, and the exhaustion that ensued. Lethargy had wiped from the forefront of her mind the terrible images the budding priestess had lain eyes to in the war. But the respite they now found at the Bypass had not erased the fact that beloved wolves had died, or were missing. The dark forest was spattered in blood. And now, the once-mighty pack retreated north, licking their wounds, homeless for the first time in seasons.

She stayed close to her brothers, for the most part. The three youngsters each looked haunted by what they had seen. And she knew that the adults, too, were chased by their own demons, whether they had won or lost their individual spars; they all knew Blackfeather would be indelibly marked by this conflict for many moons to come.

And when Maegi wasn't with Ramsay or Euron, she stayed close to Kove, and was drawn to his side now as the howl went up. Cicero was likely dead, and her older brother quite distant. The others were not near enough to her heart to merit her company. She felt as if Kove was the only adult wolf who truly understood her.

She had been practicing, too. Kove would be pleased. She had mouthed prayers as they had traveled, the words tumbling through her brain the only distraction to the horrors they had witnessed. The gods, who were so high, were, interestingly enough, the only things rooting young Maegi to earth. Sithis, Mephala, the minor Daedra. . .they were more real to her than the corpse she had seen--her first of many, in her life--or her battered, bloodied packmates around her.

Being so tired, Maegi resisted slumping against the northerner's side, instead trying her best to listen to the angry rhetoric pouring out of her brother's mouth. She was proud of him. . .but scared, at the same time. She saw Ramsay's face pull into an expression she couldn't quite place, and her own mouth twitched, unsure.

Not being conflict-minded, she missed a lot of the finer points of the discussion, but she understood that the creepy man and his creepy uncle--their names escaped her, for now--were vying for leadership of the pack, and that Vaati absolutely would not back down. Blood was important to her, and she sided with the head Melonii, naturally--but she did worry, for a moment. What if others were so shaken by the war that they chose this ghoul as their commander, rather than Vaati, who had led them to defeat? Could Blackfeather be on the verge of a civil war?

Vaati spoke of blood and death, mercy and punishment. Blood and death, she finally had been subjected to. . .but the latter two things, she knew only on a spiritual level. Perhaps the girl would grow cold, heartless, when she saw them in living, breathing action.

The numbness finally overcame her, and she suddenly felt nothing, simply nothing, as she stared at the debate, bicolored eyes fixed flatly on her older brother.

Would grow cold and heartless? Perhaps she already had.