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She stood there with her heart heavy and her soul on fire. There was so much she now considered, in that moment, and so much she wished to change. Perhaps she should not have been so cruel and held on to her family more. Perhaps she should have taken out the bastard woman that had destroyed her first home. Perhaps she should not have stood idly by and held back tears while the first man (the one whom she had all but blocked out of memory) had taken her childhood innocence. Yet these things had happened, one after the other, and shaped her into what she was. A terrible monster, a barghest condemning her family to death, this was what she was.
Now as her sister came into view Aurèle felt that shadow within her soul flicker and once more demand action. She could not move. Her feet had turned into blocks of iron and sunk her deep into the earth, down into the muddy ground where she had buried the girl that had never felt cruelty in her heart. She hesitated. As if waiting for this the crow landed on her shoulder, as much a harbinger of this terrible news as she. The weight of him was enough to reassure her and give her back her voice.
“Tayui,” she spoke in a voice that sounded as if it should belong to the bird. The rough croak was unexpected, and it made her ears twitch, as if they themselves did not recognize such a thing. “Noir is dead.” Blunt, as always. Blunt because she could not soften the loss of a child, because she knew what such a thing felt like.
She held out the faded stuffed animal as if to prove this and found its weight staggering.