Blackfeather Woods when churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out

through gunked up eyes does he regain consciousness long enough to see a blurry figure steadily approach, before shutting in defeat once more. vaati had no energy left to care who exactly it was, nor if they intended to finish the job nature began. it had felt like he lived an entire lifetime already, and submitting to the quiet void of existence after death was not something he would protest to. as she spoke, he felt the warmth of reunification within him, leading his mind to believe that this feminine presence was indeed the mother of his children; any holes of doubt was promptly filled with exhausted delusion. "cass" his tongue let slip, hushed and feeble in comparison to the confident baritone his vocal chambers once bellowed. "i told you... never apart, not for long." had he not recited that very sentiment atop the storming cliffs so long ago? all his memories, they all seemed so strange to recall -- like they belonged in someone else's subconscious from generations past. rannoch, hydra, alya, redhawk, the screeching one; had it all even happened? had he truly done those things... become that man? he begins to feel the tide of slumber wash over him once more, and struggles against, for his sole question has not yet been answered.

"the pups... they live?" fragments of sentences is all he is able to manage as he drifts from memory to reality, struggling to find a foothold in either. he had never been sure that his seed had taken, for he had not seen the elusive woman since their union and had been left only to wonder of their existence. perhaps they had never come to be, and the purpose of his returning journey was now half-split of its cause. but if the ominous feeling shrouded over every step he took was to manifest in his path, the status of the potential offspring was enough to usher him calmly to his grave.