Wild Berry Meadow Gentle Giant

Wraen paid attention to Maegi's speech in stunned silence. Fate had been merciful to her and in her eyes the world was good and great. She had known about bad things happening to other people through stories, through rumours, but not even in her wildest imaginative journeys she would have guessed, how dark the origins of the girl had been. There was nothing she could say that would not sound as blasphemy. Maegi's experience was not her own, she could sympathize, but would never be able to step in her shoes.

But the girl was not asking for pity, she would probably feel offended, if Wraen offered such, therefore she focussed on the last part of the speech. About Anansi's death being totally random. "I think that the fact that you loved him and remember him is the most important," Wraen said after a thoughtful pause. "To the world he was just another cub, who did not survive. It's that randomness you mentioned, but it would be far worse, if he had left this world with no one to care for him. Without having a single day of his life, where he had felt needed and adored." 

"In the big scheme of things we are nothing but specks of dust in the chaos. But the individual matters and makes a difference," she mused. "I have never met my grandparents or the myriad of aunts and uncles I have out in the world, I will never have a chance to do so, but my mother's stories have kept them alive for me. My mother is dead now and in this very valley, where she spent most of her adult life, there is no one left, who remembers that she even existed. But she is alive for me," her voice quivered a bit, because even a year later it was sometimes so hard to admit that neither Osprey, nor Dante were in this world.

"There is no way that will make your pain less acute than it is now. It needs to be felt. But I healed, when I told myself stories. I would be alone and speak to my mom and remember everything we had gone through, recall the favourite moments and I told her, how much I loved her, how I missed her, how sorry I was that we never met each other again," she spoke, now looking down at her paws. "Over time I realized that my mom is neither in paradise, nor in any other world. She is here with me. You see, it is not a "why" that is important, but it is love that makes the difference. If you have truly loved someone, they are immortal."