Noctisardor Bypass I can't turn back around and doubt my destination

It was with heavy steps that Laurel returned to Rivenwood. Many times she had told herself she wouldn't return. What was once a place blossoming with a second chance, now everything here tasted of ash and death. There was an anger boiling inside of Laurel when she thought of what had happened to her. A humiliation, she had told Mahler, yet he clung on to a tattered past rather than wishing to truly step into the blossoming second chance with her. This place was supposed to be her second chance. Now, Rivenwood no longer felt like a place for her, and as this veil was lifted upon her return to its lands, she did not understand entirely why she had decided to follow any of Mahler's instructions. What a fool she was; once more misguided by a man, rather than following her own path.

The only explanation she could think of was that maybe, she had known in her heart that she would run into Merrick's daughter and that she would see her finished at last. That one the children this Wintersbane put into her womb would share the blood that Laurel had freshly on her teeth.

Praimfaya's scent was surprisingly absent from Rivenwood's borders now. Laurel was surprised and wondered if anything had happened to her.

There was a limp in Laurel's step as she made her way into the territory, and her face was covered with caked blood she hadn't managed to reach to wash off her face herself. She had several wounds; the ones on her face hard to see underneath the blood, but a few gashes along her right front leg, shoulder and neck were present enough. Even though she'd been gone for weeks she did not stop at the borders. This was her home, and she belonged here, even though Mahler had stabbed her in the back so badly. Her Indra needed a place to grow strong in, and though she no longer held the connotation that Rivenwood and the Bypass were a second chance for a picturesque fairytale ending to a pretty shitty life — what a fool to believe such things — she knew that Mahler would offer her children a safe place to grow up in, if not only out of guilt. Well, good. Let him feel guilty, he should.

Laurel limped into the territory, towards Birdsong Lagoon, the large lake in the Bypass, a weary look on her bloodied face. She should probably call for @Mahler, she thought to herself, to look at her wounds. Her pride kept her from it though, and as she reached the lake Laurel moved towards the clear water to wash her face there. The cheerfully chirping birds and the sun above her did not match the way she looked nor the whirling storm inside of her head.