Blackbeak Bluff you'll feel reborn,

he thought that was it - the end of his suffering - all in the palm of a conch.

yet he felt no better for this ritual on maman's grave. if anything at all, he felt worse for it -- for now he had found something beautiful that she would never see.

val wandered southwest. mireille had gone, leaving him troubled. new life may have buzzed around him, but it was old lives and old memories that drove his feet down the shore with his mind miles away.