Neverwinter Forest Now turn off all the stars.

Towhee stayed strong until the time came to leave the island. She wasn’t sure she would ever come back. She wasn’t really one for visiting graves. There were just too many of them at this point. Towhee didn’t want to spend what was left of her life with the dead. She would join them sooner or later.

As she walked along the coast, then turned inland toward the great mountain, she could still feel his last breaths on her cheek, the same one she’d pressed to his ribs so she could feel his final heartbeats. Towhee had stayed strong for @Heda and the kids, though as Caracal’s final moments replayed in her head for the nth time in the past several days, she finally let the grief hit her.

She made it as far as Neverwinter Forest, which was ironic. It was where she’d run after losing Leona. Was this even the same pine? Was this the same scream tearing out of the deeps of her? If @Killdeer materialized, Towhee wouldn’t even be surprised, though she hoped he didn’t for both their sakes. She could not handle telling him his best friend was gone forever.

That thought sent her sinking against the tree’s rough bark, one foreleg braced against it as her head dropped. This time, tears came as a great sob wrenched loose on the tails of an inconsolable wail.