Arrow Lake the sprinklers came on and doused me

She was unprepared for this. Taki was no stranger to great loss; she had lost family before—had lost an entire home to the visciousness of mother nature. But this was different. Her despair was deepened exponentially by the fact that she had to watch her children suffer from something she couldn't shelter them from. How could she possibly replace their father? She couldn't, and she wouldn't want to. But how could she fill that void in their life? She would do literally anything to turn back time, would give her own life in exchange for the life of their father, but that was impossible no matter how many times she offered it to whatever powers governed their fates. 

She felt helpless as she watched her children deal with a grief they were far too young to process. Stag seemed to be a completely different child. He wasn't playing or speaking or eating, no matter how hard she tried to get him to do anything. He seemed lost in his desolation, and she didn't know how to pull him from the depths of his dark and poisonous anguish.

And Monarch was so very angry. She accepted no offers of comfort or distraction, lashing out at anyone who tried to interact with her. And when she wasn't consumed with rage, she seemed to be in the grips of a deep depression, sleeping for long periods of time in the place where her father had met his gruesome end.

She worried about Mesa just as much even though he appeared to be going on as normal. But that was what had her concerned. He acted as if nothing had changed, and she feared he was just choosing not to deal with his feelings regarding the untimely and traumatic loss of his father. Whether or not it was conscious on his part, she wasn't sure, but it didn't seem like a healthy way to deal with things.

Ego's disappearance had been an additional blow. Once again, she found herself endlessly searching for missing family, constantly wondering if they were even alive. But this time, it was her son, her child that she was supposed to protect. She felt like part of her was missing right along with him, and she knew that hole would remain until the day she saw him again. 

And after all of that, there was hardly anything left in her to deal with her own grief. Sometimes, she was overcome with anger that fate had dealt her family such a hand, but mostly she was just overwhelmingly and hopelessly sad. She was so tired of losing her loved ones.

She visited Stigmata's grave often, partly because she was searching for some way to still feel his presence and partly because she knew she might find at least one of her children there. As always, she was assaulted with flashes of memory when she first arrived. Particularly, she was forced to recount Stigmata's bloody lifeless form and the way her daughter clung desperately to it. And whatever child she found there, she would sit quietly next them for as long as they would allow, hoping to at least make it known that she was here and understood how they felt. She didn't know if it was helpful or right, but it was all she could think to do.