Blackbeak Bluff with all these memories bittersweet

She didn't know where she was meant to go, and supposed it didn't matter.

Nyx had camped out near Grimnismal's borders for a number of days since the frenzy that drove her to kill her brood, but she did not dare cross through the sequoias that had once been her home. Despite months of longing to leave the coast behind, the golden Ostrega found herself rooted once more - though this time for a very different reason.

The boy who lived was hers but not hers, and she held the vivid image of his tiny, blood-spattered pale form in the eye of her fragile mind. She knew it was wrong to want him, that a large part of her didn't, but it felt wrong to abandon him completely. The entire scenario was upside-down and inside-out, her muddled feelings rendering her stupefied as she foolishly hung around, unwanted, on Caiaphas' doorstep.

Finally, when the realisation that the coywolf would have her head if she found her skulking just beyond her shore, Nyx resisted the pull to mother her son. Heart heavy with the weight of her enormous guilt, she let herself acknowledged the pain of never seeing her baby grow, the pride that would surely brighten Lycaon's eyes. She'd killed the others, but fate had spared the puppy whose name she'd likely never know.

A sight for sore eyes, the rugged Ostrega did what she knew best: she wandered with no intention of turning back. She would trail far from the coast, far from the life of her child that would be a million times better without her. Lost in self-pity, with her lead and tail low, Nyx noted from the corner of a dull yellow eye the figure of another. Eager to continue along her own way, she made no move to engage him or even make eye contact; instead she pressed on, keen to escape his judgement.