Greatwater Lake I spend my night dancing with my own shadow

Screech would never be over the events of that night - the entire event had left him with a deeply seeded resentment and no matter how many times he claimed to be alright, he wasn't and likely never would be. The loathing he felt towards Hydra and her sisters would one day encompass anything affiliated with Moonspear; while he did not know it now, it had spread beyond even that, leaving him feeling only a hollowness for the dark-pelted girl that stood before him. It was superficial. He should not have felt so cold towards Cassiopeia, but she reminded him too much of the sisters, feeding his growing xenophobia.

Her question wasn't one he entirely expected, but it snapped him out of the circular thoughts he had started to cultivate. At first he was silent, sullen, detatched, unable to answer her simply because he couldn't understand why she would pretend to care about him at all. They had been friends — or if not friends, survivors, together fleeing from Blackfeather — and now all Screech could see was yet another black-faced head of the Cerberus. How long before she demanded a piece of him too?

Safe enough, he finally stated. He could have explained that he'd been found by a pair of kind wolves in a forest, that he lived by the coast now, that they rescued him and nursed him back to health. Regaled her with stories of his exploits (the good, the bad, the ugly) the way he might have done months ago, when being an obnoxious warrior-wannabe was the pinnacle of his dreams. But he couldn't do that now. Screech felt his jaw tightening with words left unspoken; when he did finally murmur something, it was quick: I can't go home. They'll kill me if I set foot in the valley.

It hurt to admit this - his tone pitched, caught, and died as soon as he spoke the words, and then it was Screech who looked at the soil.