The Heartwood do you remember, how it felt when we were young

Hydra's ears turned backward as her brothers spoke their exchange, and the Queen herself bristled. A darker shade passed over her features as she remembered all that had come to pass in his absence, all that he did not know. Looking over her shoulder, Hydra corrected him: you are not banished, Revui. Do not be so thick; listen with your ears, not with your pride. Hydra hardly wanted to call him brother, and was half-inclined to do so no more. She wondered if he had a terrible fall when he had left, but she did recall how dim he could be. Hydra could have made him more.

He reduced himself to less.

She had half a mind to inform him of their mothers passing. In fairness, she knew she ought to—but he had never been fair to her, to Arcturus. For so long they did not know of his own fate! ...and only because he had been found did he reveal himself. Hydra held great doubt in Revui and his loyalty; she imagined that now, he might go and cling to Korei Julia, or Yami, or anyone else for lack of understanding. The estranged, the disappointments of Charon's loins; proof that he was not all that perfect, though they had all thought him to be prior to Speedy—

Speedy. Hydra blamed her for all of this, too. And she imagined Revui finding her, then, and the children she might have bore; she imagined his loyalty shifting to her, despite all that Hydra would do for him. Soft, warm, accepting, and stupid—the final trait something the two of them shared, as Hydra looked to him now.

Return when you are better than you are now, and prepared to have the decency to let us know when and where you run off to. Leaving was never the problem; it was leaving as you did, and then never coming back to let us know you were alright at the least. If you wanted to explore, fine; you know that Alya has, and I have, gone scouting. Alya has even run with Easthollow. It was terribly unfair of you to let us think you dead when you knew we would go to the ends of the earth for you. Only when you are truly ready to do the same do I want to look upon you again, she maintained all composure, voice cool despite the angry heat licking at her belly. She could not believe that each day that passed in those seven long, hard months he could not once have made his way home; that to avoid that, whether he meant to or not, he had trespassed! She refused to believe he had not meant to; she had raised him better than that. I will not leave you wondering: mother is gone, too. With father.

Let him understand more, if he could, of what they had endured while he ran free. His time as captive was brief in comparison to the time they had all mourned, suffered, tried to put the pieces back together that had been left behind. It had not simply been mother and father to her, though; it had been mother, father, Revui. Three losses, three graves—a soulrending bludgeon striking thrice!

If only her mother and father could have surprised them, ripping themselves from their resting place as Revui had. She would have preferred it; they would never have left her, never. Wholeheartedly Hydra had believed that only death could take Revui from her; it was a terrible thing to learn this was not the case. It would have been easier to banish him as she had with Yami, with Korei Julia—those that disappointed you were ever bound to disappoint you again, and it was better in her experience to build an unbreakable wall that even a beserker such as Revui could not break through. But she built no such wall. Not this day.

But every day that passed, stone and steel and iron would come to collect and rise. Every month that went without his return would mean her stripping him away from her; so much of him was gone already, but the remaining love she did have for him was her decider this particular hour. It was with a heavy heart that Hydra turned away and headed to where home always had been... at least for her.