Moonspear The truth is, walls guarantee no one's safety.

They strolled with no particular direction, well away from prying eyes and ears. And when she spoke, he listened with no judgments to cross his thoughts, perhaps finding it a bit too easy to shelve all his worries in favor to listen to what had become of her in the time that they had been parted. It was a story that he had not expected—he was truthfully surprised that she had been willing to be a mother again after the first time, but there was a certain ease in the way she spoke of her daughters that put his wonders to rest.

“You were right to leave,” he said when her story had lapsed. A selfish statement, but nonetheless true. He would not have turned her away, not then and certainly not before; his bond with his siblings was perhaps one of the only unbreakable things he carried with him. A bug whizzed past his ear, and he flicked it reflexively. He did not blame her for uprooting and seeking him out, in fact it appeased him that she had managed to find him at all when he had not quite been forthcoming as to where he was, or what his world entailed.

Now with her and Keres both there, he felt many of the secrets he had kept to himself were torn asunder and laid out for the world to see… and yet Hydra did not judge him or begrudge him of the things he had held privately. It had been the opposite—their ties, however distantly related or close they were, did not matter to her. If anything, he thought her pleased by it, and his thought crossed him and passed on to the woods around them.

“You’ll be much happier here, as will they in time. Moonspear won’t let anything happen to them,” he went on after that brief lull. “We may have our own issues to handle as they come, but the children here have never wanted for anything. They’re well looked after, always fed too. Hydra and I have worked hard to keep things safe, though I admit she is more proactive than I. I’m glad you sought us out than worry for an inevitably.”

He did not know what to think of Mahler now, but it was a tattered affair to consider. Even he was prone to temptation when the time came, as were all men in a sense to him, but he had not crossed Hydra in that way. Nor had she opted to share him, or he her. It was a strange thing, ill-suited for his sister to endure.