No.
NO NO!
It couldn't be that she was all alone.
Never had she been more afraid in her life, not even when the sharp-clawed monster had plucked Larus out of the ground of their own home, she had not seen his chubby figure clenched upon the lynx jaws, he had not seen the worst of it. She had stared at the feline straight in the eye but that didn't even compare to the monster she was facing now.
Solitude.
The barren enviroment of the Glacier got colder without Tuwawi's flame to ignite it and warm it up. Maera was a simple candle next to her, a candle, whose spirit was blown out by the harsh winds of reality. She was alone.
Completely and utterly alone in the place they had claimed to be their home.
And what a home did it turn our to be.
With her shivering form still coiled up against the floor, Maera finally allowed tears to come streaming down her cheeks and into the dirt. While she sobbed she felt a strange disconnection of her limbs from her body. Then fearing that she too would disappear into thin air as her beloved siblings and mother had she jumped to her feet, jagged breaths cutting through the air as she looked down at her feet.
She was still here.
With a choked whine of relief she took off running, hoping that she could escape the oblivion that had engulfed her relatives whole. If she must disappear there was only one place she'd like to do it in.
Her paws moved almost mechanically to the beat of her racing heart, taking her to the place she had taken as refuge during the crash and burn of the Sveijarn family.
![[Image: girl_gang.png]](https://image.ibb.co/b82KNa/girl_gang.png)
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The news she'd just got were far from being good. Her heart felt heavy, as if the loss had been her own. Tuwawi had been the one to give her a place to rest when she was most fatigued. Tuwawi had been the one to feed her when starvation threatened to take her life. She had been the one to give her a push when she was just about to give up. And Arabella wouldn't forget those things.
But it wasn't her who suffered the biggest part of it. Maera, the princess kissed by fire was now alone in the world, left by both her parents and grieving the loss of all of her siblings. It had been too much. And hers was such a small body to hold all of it inside.
Arabella ran to the Sveijarn den, looking for the girl, she needed company, maybe a shoulder to cry on. But most importantly, she needed to know she wasn't alone. Mae?
she barked at the entrance, heart racing. Maera?
she called again, but there was no answer. It didn't surprise her. It was just the reaction she would've expected from her, but what she didn't know was where the girl could be. Or did she?
She took off. She ran as fast as her thin legs let her heading to the place that - besides Maera - only she knew about. And there she was. curled inside the trunk, her face washed in tears. Oh honey...
she said as she laid her head inside the hole that served as an entrance. Arabella would never fit in there, she was too big. But it was like a palace for Maera. You know I can't get in there, Sweetie. Don't you want to come out here?
she said with the sweetest voice she'd ever used. Do you want a hug?
The strong odour of the wet leaves covering the log's floor, and the dense humidity wrapped over her as she sunk into her own little world. She shut her eyes tightly as she felt the phantom hug of the cold autumn breeze, hoping that it was now her turn to follow on her mother , and all of her other family members, footseps. Maera wished to be locked in a permanent slumber, because she had learned that it was only in her dreams where she could see all of her family together.
Unfortunately for her troubled heart, her eyes were not yet meant to be closed forever. She could not hold back the violent sobs and whines erupting from her chest, but she could strive keep the fire in her heart alive -- it was all on her now. Though it was undeniable that the situation she found herself if was more than any four month old should ever handle, it was her reality, and in one way or another she would have to react to it. Now she could choose to lay here in her one-member clubhouse and breathe in her defeat, or she could rise through the ashes left by her mother's departure.
She had what it took to make it. Against all odds, Maera could rise again -- she just needed a sign to show her that not everything was lost, that if she happened to burn out someone would care. That would be her salvation.
And then, as if the stars and the fairies had heard her pleas, a gentle voice cut through the gloom, shaking off the darkness Maera was enthralled in and bringing her little head to rise. "I can't" she rasped, feeling that all of her energy had been drained off when she had wished to be gone for ever. "There is nothing there I want" she whined while making her best effort to push herself closer to the edge, so Arabella could at least stretch her neck and pull her out; though in reality she wished she couldn't because if she did, she would just take her back to the ruins of the Glacier -- to an empty bed Maera did not want to return to.