Blackfeather Woods all in all, it's just another brick in the wall

Not a happy story, either. Maegi's face grew somber again as Moonshadow told it. Obviously it still hurt, for she was very brief in the telling, and fell silent once it was finished, with no follow-up questions. No charming anecdotes. It gave her somewhat of a sense of further kinship with the woman, to know that their childhoods had been similarly filled with angst.

Do you remember Cicero? she asked, abruptly changing the subject. Or Potema? They still lived here, before the war, when you first came. Those were my parents. . .and they were siblings. She swallowed, stomach churning with sudden nausea that she just managed to keep down. Potema hated my brothers and me and wanted us dead.

Maegi let out a puff of air through pursed lips, a brief sigh. So, I get it. I'm sorry that you were cast out. Her eyes traveled over the three pups assembled at Moonshadow's belly. Three. . .just like her and Ramsay and Euron. But these three would receive the love from their mother that the twisted trio had not. And from their pack, too.

We'll give these children all the love we didn't get and more, she promised, still looking at them. . .but smiling again, now.