Blackfeather Woods the black star

It wasn't often that Titmouse explored the woods; he had been a sedentary fixture ever since his arrival, rarely venturing to the borders and too nervous to go anywhere near the caves. But that had been before, he thought grimly. That had been Mou that had the issues with the caves. One would think, having been returned to himself, Titmouse would be filled with dread for being in the heart of Blackfeather Woods in its entirety. I am the sum of my parts, he thought as he stared at the dully glowing mushrooms lining the walls; my parts are scattered in the wind, but the pieces that I have are...

He was roused from his odd thinking by the sound of music. Maybe not music, exactly. It was a voice and it was light, whisp-thin and eerie as it crept through the dark and met his ears. He turned to greet the approaching body with his singular eye, curious of the pale figure. Titmouse felt his heart lurch in his chest, tha-thump tha-thump, but the warmth he'd experience upon seeing Maegi did not radiate through him this time. The cold was there instead, along with the dark.

And when he saw her face he thought, I don't know this face, and for a split-second he thought he was seeing a glimpse of Maegi as a child; lithe and pale, eerie but unblemished. Then she said, Hey, bird, and he came back to reality. Or, as much of reality as he could handle — which morphed this Maegi look-alike in to her true form, the Ghost he thought he'd seen.

Was she haunting him? Ah you hhhantin' meh? He slurred, putting a little too much emphasis on the breathy notes so they'd come out right, but in the end it wasn't clear if he was saying haunting or hunting. It really didn't matter.