Blackfeather Woods a distant ship smoke on the horizon

The ghost took a long breath, feeling his limbs stretch out despite not moving, his toes bleeding in to the grass and the grass rising up, growing in to his fur in turn. He blinked his lone eye a few times and soon found himself staring up at a crooked Maegi, unaware of how he'd gotten so close to the dirt. It hadn't been a fall so much as a melt; but he was here now, couched between her and the grass, listening. Feeling her voice through her ribs.

Do you miss the island? Weaves a question in the ether between them.
Sometimes, he sighs. In that moment as Titmouse tries to remember what the island is, he is swept up in the smell of dry grass and the stormy petrichor of empty space; he expects to hear the calling of sea birds in his memory but he only hears the wind in the trees. He closes his eye. Miss home. Miss... The kids, he almost says, but chokes it back in time.

As he peers at Maegi's shape through his remaining eye, half-lidded, Titmouse feels very deep sadness, and wallows.