Redhawk Caldera shine on, you crazy diamond

They walked together as a unit. He wanted to think as a family but that hadn't been right; it felt more like a funerary procession to Mou. Himself the ferryman, the children a collection of lost souls on their way towards life — that made more sense. Alongside him was the creature wearing his wife's face and he could not even look at her. Somewhere among them all, the shadow that was his brother.

The sight of the Caldera from further afield had reminded Mou of his own body. His gut dropped, his mouth went dry. His attention briefly roamed the silhouette of the mountainside as it grew and shifted in scope, and when the wolves reached the edge, his attention dropped back to the children. They were each processing things in their own way.

Mou watched Blueberry for a minute, then Vesper, noting their differences and the intensity of his attachment to them; unrivaled by anything that he had felt before. He did not look to Maegi; his ears pivoting to the sound of Phox's voice, and then the shift of his tired expression towards the approaching shape of another: Towhee. She need not have introduced herself; he could remember the feeling of her teeth at his throat and the taste of blood salt water dirt death —

Looking away from her abruptly, Mou catches Maegi's expression. She introduces them all: the roster of lost souls.

He says nothing. There is an ache in his chest. The dry-mouth sensation has descended down his throat and to his gut, hollowing him out.