Honeyed Pasture agamemnon returned to his wife

where a fierce determination had possessed her as she fled bearclaw valley, trying to shield tzar from the horrors that she witnessed, from her belief that his father and siblings — her husband and children! — had met a similar fate. there was nothing else to lead her to any other conclusion: only that she and her son, who slumbers soundly now tucked in her protective embrace.

the sounds of the haunted woods fall upon her deaf ears; her own grief mute as she allows it to wash over her in body wracking sobs. if tzar hears them, he does not wake. she peers down at him with grief twisting like a knife in her heart, almost envious of him. too young yet to grasp what has happened.

she wraps herself tighter 'round him and stares blankly at the shadowed dipped woods.