gotta keep going

Her trip through the lands of Alacritis had done little to completely cool her anger and anxiety over the confrontation with Neios, though her encounter with the silly young man at the end of it had forced her to tamp down on it. She'd made her way back north, but once more bypassed Imperium lands to head to the battlefield. She wasn't ready to see Valen and the kids, wasn't in the right frame of mind to treat them the way they deserved to be treated. Maybe she just needed to work off a bit of her roiling emotions in a fight.

But from the moment she entered the bloodwatered field she was aware of their presence. Children, too young to be on their own and yet here alone. Abandoned? Or runaways? At first she skirted around them, out of sight so they would remain out of mind. But it didn't take long before she turned back toward them.

Why? Maybe it was the way her own recent abandonment echoed the one in her childhood, dredging up memories of fear and loneliness she wished would stay forgotten. Maybe it was the way the boy took such care with the girl, something she'd never had and never would with a brother like Neios. Even before he'd gone off the deep end he was possessive, not caring. Not like this boy.

So she found herself before the pair, and she slowly lowered herself to her belly to look less threatening. "Are you all right?" she asked, keeping her voice low and soothing as she often had with her own children when they'd gotten into some scrape or other. "This isn't a good place for children to be. Do you need help getting back home?" Yeah, right. If they had a home would they be sitting in the middle of a battlefield?