Arrow Lake and over seas to look upon her face

blodreina's gaze softens as aure speaks, mulling over the pale slyph's words, lingering on the 'not moping' bit of her small monologue. once upon a time, that was exactly how the wanlida would've seen this: as aure moping; due to a distinct lack of the ability to understand and sympathize. her views on family and on love, once so starkly and strictly black and white has changed marginally over the course of both her pregnancy and her blossoming relationship with ingram. both ingram and praimfaya have impacted her life and changed her in ways that she'd never expected. this gives reina the ability to take a moment and try to put herself in aure's place. to be so enraptured and in love ...only to be left. blodreina knew abandonment well enough. first her siblings and then her parents and then, the most painful of all, heda's abandonment.

and to imagine ingram following in the footsteps of those she's loved in the past was more painful than reina'd care to admit. even the thought cut her sharply and she gives herself a brief visceral reaction. you're allowed to be wounded by vercingetorix's departure, reina assures aure a moment later. when i am not bound to this den i will hunt him down and demand to know what his problem is myself. and aure could count on it.

their conversation shifts to praimfaya and blodreina listens and formulates her response to aure's question as it is posed. i'm not real sure how it happens as i was never a fos goufa but i know if heda is dead and if there are more than one fos goufa's that a sadgeda must take place. a fight to the death. the victor is then chosen by the past commanders but ... blodreina was, obviously, out on the loop of who's risen to become heda in antumbra's stead. last she'd known there had been two fos goufa's in line — which would mean that praimfaya was simple another in line. maybe. if i am seen by my people as natrona then there is a good chance that even if she were chosen by a or the spirits of the commanders that she would not be recognized.

and with ingram and i — everything is ...different. i can not give her up and disregard her as my daughter even if tradition demands it. a sharp contrast to the traditionalist she'd once been. but antumbra did not follow the tradition of the heda's before her ...and maybe this, all of this, was the spirits of the commanders guiding me to a new path. the rise of wanheda and the new traditions we'll make together as ingram and i teach and raise her. a combination of something old and something new. her admission to aure is not half as blubbering as it'd been to ingram the night of praimfaya's birth but reina's pregnancy hormones have ( thankfully ) begun to regulate back to normal. only time will tell, i suppose. but for now reina is content to play mother above all else.