Shadewood and you, o blessed goddess

I am the same, she replied, and she knew it was true despite the small doubts that whispered.  It had been so long since any place held her heart, but no matter the place, Rosalyn's path would lead where her family's did.  There was a time she'd have allowed restless wandering to carry her away, but those years were long past.  She could call herself pirate all she liked, but she'd hung up her sails the instant she'd become a mother.

Retirement was not what bothered her.  Conflict was not what was missing, she knew that.  Rosalyn was silent a moment, considering it.  I think, maybe, it just doesn't feel as though it is ours.  Not in the way other places have.  She finally confessed.  She had been struggling with how to put it in words, and this was perhaps the closest approximation she could find.  Ironsea had been hers.  She'd left her mark on the culture, on the crew, all of it.  Rusalka had belonged to Caiaphas, and the witch's hand had wrought the pack that Aningan still attempted to uphold.  There was nothing of theirs in the soul of it, and she'd like to see that change, even if it was only some small way.  Something they could make, together.