Wheeling Gull Isle [BOO!] stage 5: acceptance

Where once a pit of black was set in his face, now two golden eyes glowed. The white of fear and the graying of age had left his body; he had no body anymore, and his spirit retained the look of Titmouse in his prime: clad in gray, with a dark mask unmarred by time or wound, black ears, and those brilliant orange stains along his ribs. It was as if nothing had ever happened — no maiming, no attempted fratricide, no fishing net to scar his haunches.

Beyond that, a clearheadedness. The years of poppy abuse no longer addled his mind. He remembered all of it; every bad trip, the ravens of the blackwood slaughtered around him, every flashback - but none of it mattered. The gods he feared so greatly were not here. The mortals - his family, the Cerberus, the Bear - gone.

It was just Maegi now. As it always should have been.

I feel better. That much was obvious. Smiling, he pulled away from her in a reluctant manner and breathed deeply of the seaside air, knowing he wasn't really breathing, but finding comfort all the same. They had eternity together, now.

The waves continued to crash, and to glow.

Some ways up the beach lay the remains of Titmouse Redhawk, pulverized by the stones at the base of Ravenshook Cliffs, battered by the sea, and left behind here upon the beach - his throat gaping wide after having landed wrong upon a jutting rock; his skull cracked and spidering from that empty socket; seaweed netting him in place.

Titmouse, the ghost, walked up the beach now with Maegi at his side.

Let's go find the kids.