Wheeling Gull Isle [M] hey, Blue: here is a song for you

It had been wrong to hide from the newborns and from Maegi. He did not realise that he was even doing it; patrolling where they camped, arriving when called for the sharing of a solid  meal with his wife, then away again. The man had no role to play with the rescued children until they were older. He couldn't look at them - in them he saw his dead friend Niamh and sometimes, the dead family he once had, or the bloodline that denounced him.

The shouting drew the ghost from hiding now. All he could think was that the children were hurt, that something was wrong - Maegi's voice was a jumble of emotion on the wind, a torrent of it. By the time Mou reached her and ducked his sharp face in to the den things were quiet.

There was blood scent; others which brought to mind the cesarean he had conducted. Mou hummed a low note of worry but it was more for himself, to halt the catch in his throat demanding he vomit. Scattered remains everywhere - a broken body, a sobbing mother. Movement from one bundle drew his good eye and he zeroed in on that.

The child had more life than any others combined. Their little body became a blur of grey-white as Mou's eye filled with hot and thankful tears, his legs going out from under him.