Sunbeam Lair As he[a righteous man] breaks, so shall it [hell] break

Even exhausted and constantly nauseous, Taki still felt the pull to explore. In fact, she possibly felt it even more now, at least at times, as she constantly sought any distraction that could keep her mind from dwelling on how sick she always felt or how much she missed her family. With every week that brought her closer to meeting her children, her longing to see her family again grew. Today, Taki had picked the peak to the north of the lake to explore and had set out on her own to hopefully find some peace. As she climbed higher up the mountain, her thoughts drifted towards this morning when she had caught her reflection in the water and was surprised to see the slight curve to her abdomen; it was a very subtle change, probably only noticed by those who knew her, but she had seen it right away. She had lost some weight over the last couple of weeks as she had been unable to eat a lot of things, but she still expected her larger frame would hide it for longer. She worried slightly about how many babies were actually in there.

She was suddenly pulled from her thoughts by an alarmingly familiar scent. She froze and inspected the scent again, unable to really process it at first. Sia. Had he come back? A wave of many different emotions hit her then, but what was most confusing was how strongly she could feel anger and relief at the same time. Almost unable to believe it to be true, she tracked the scent through the snow until she found him. She froze a short distance away, the swarm of emotions stealing her ability to speak for a few painful moments. Then she drew in a steadying breath.

Sia? The word hung in the air between them as she waited for him to turn.