In the evening hours, as the sun bled it's last bit of light and the day shifted into the ever creeping dusk, the crickets would begin to chirp and the cries of a mother could be heard. The warm night air ushering from the den she'd rather call a prison. Paws brushing blades of grass and she'd soar to him, her boy.

A billion dozen twinkling lights lit up the deep indigo sky, and the woman's pale eyes caught sight of them. Wondering if he rested among them now, but no, his body now belonged to the earth, a hard thing to come to terms with. A sharp pain blossoming in her chest and Haylyn did her best to stave off the tears that wanted so desperately to cascade down her cheeks.

She reach the garden, now significantly cleaner than it had been the day she found him. All the herbs were back in their rightful places, growing and healing. How she wished that could be her. Everything so pristine and clean, like nothing had ever happened. Life moved on without him, and it wasn't fair. Why would you want to be here? He's here. What do you ever see here? His memory. That doesn’t make you feel worse than you do? She cracked, just barely and a tear slipped down her silvery cheek.

Containing a sob, the mother press onward. Blue eyes staring at the now empty den where her boy had spent his final moments. In the low light of night, it was peaceful, quiet. With only the sound of the crickets, and the glow of the fireflies to keep her company. The broken woman moved forward again, a paw gliding over the grass. He was here, this was where he was. As if she was reliving it all over again. Her breath hitched in her chest and her body shook with a tremor of a sob. "Mama loves you, s-she loves you so much." Claws digging into dirt and the sobs hit one after the other. "I'm so sorry, Mama's so sorry, my sweet baby." Things she'd never get to say to ever again. Let these cries be a lullaby.

He had spent the evening searching, and as twilight hit the silvery healer had found what he'd been looking for. A single white flower — a white arum. Alone and swaying by the lakeside. Inaria's language of flowers was a unique concept to the former Saboran, one that he hoped to adopt. But... a lone arum seemed... empty. It spoke of loss and grief and nothing else.

(he had wished there was something more than just grief when he had sat alone and hurting)

Carefully, Anglachel took the lone white flower and weaved its stem with dozens of lilac jacaranda flowers into a small wreath. A part of him knew where to find her when he was finished — he thought of a worried expression written across mismatched eyes when tending to a sickly son. The love and the fear, thick and tangible at it weighed in the air most nights. He imagined the blue mother would be no different — her face had been fierce with grief and pain and get away. But Anglachel could not listen to her at the time. He had interrupted her mourning and for that he was sorry.

Delicatly, his slender formed weaved through the growing garden — and there, with starlight coating her pale fur in shades of silver wept grieving woman. The healer stood back as her cries and apologies lulled over the garden in a lullaby of grief. He waited until her words were no more than an echo before gingerly moving forward, placing the wreath of white and lilac beside her. It wasn't quite traditional, but the child she had lost had been Inarian — it felt ill fitting to not place shades of purple down as well.

Stepping away, Anglachel would turn and begin to quietly work as the mother grieved. He would wait until her sobs slowed into near silence, even if hours passed and the moon perched high above. The healer would wait before approaching once more, his expression soft a soft one, silvery locks framing the ruined scars across his cheeks. "Walk with me.." It's not quite a suggestion, nor is it an order. Just a simple statement, hung carefully in the air between them.

He's not here anymore, left threaded in his words, unspoken.

He was quiet like the night, and she turned ever so slightly at his approach, it jarred her to her senses and made the woman remember she wasn't alone. A tear stained face and weary eyes looked to the male then, shadows casting across his scared face, but the moon above and fireflies helped illuminate his brilliant colors. A star, wrapped in the red dust of space, with flowing locks.

She remembered him if only vaguely, and the memory wasn't terribly fond. Lips pressed into a blubbering thin frown as she glanced down to the wreath he had rested by her feet. Tears spilled freely and she blinked them away with a sniffle as the ex-queen attempted to calm herself. "D-did, you make this? For him?" Came a sadden woman's soft voice, clear watery eyes focusing in on the sole white flower nestled in a sea of purple.

One of a kind, just how he used to be.

"T-thank you." Her voice small and hoarse, as sobbed once more wished to cause tremors throughout her body. They waited in the stillness of night, and when her eyes dried and her sobs had quieted, she heard his voice beckon her forth, she looked at him then. This mangled healer that she had barked at before, and she felt her heart twist. "I-I c-can't leave him-" She turned then back to the empty den, no body, no boy, and she'd turn back then to those dusky red eyes as if she was trying to make him understand.

There was a communicated silence between them however, one that answered her with a cold comfort, and the harsh sting of reality all at once. Your boy is gone, it hurt. But tentative paws pushed her forward, shakily. Her heart wept 'no', but she silenced it in that moment.

As their walk began, a breeze rustling the boughs of the trees, scattering blossoms of purple into the wind, she glanced at him. "I want to apologize, for- For how i talked to you that day."  Voice softer than the wind that whistled between them "You were only trying to help, it was uncalled for, and rude of me." She tried her best not to focus on his scars, or the limb that he was clearly missing.

"Did you know him? My sweet boy? Were you one of his friends? He had so many, he was always such a sweet likable lad." A melancholy smile tugging at her lips.

He keeps his respectful distance as he worked in silence, red and blue stardust drifting around the silver moon, shielding her from the eyes of any who may be wandering by. It is his duty, in some ways, to guard her here in this moment. To stand by as a quiet sentinel as she grieves and mourns in the tranquil garden. It's a form of healing, a type that Anglachel can do little to assist other than to grant time. And so he does.

D-did, you make this? For him? T-thank you.

Her soft voice pulls wine reds back to her, and the doctor nods with the slightest incline of his head. "Yes. For you as well." Anglachel murmured, dropping his gaze from her star kissed tears, not wanting to stare. She cries for a while longer, her sobs echoing throughout the too still garden, causing small shards of ice to dig into his chest.

(He tries to shield a piece of himself then, draws the curtains closed around a room that only a golden wolf with turquoise eyes held the key to.)

I-I c-can't leave him-

"I know." He gives her a soft, wistful smile, and despite efforts to completely shutter his heart away from these too gentle — too kind Inarians, Anglachel always had a tendency for wearing his heart on his sleeve. Pieces flicker through the cracks, a hairline fracture of pain weaving across ruined features. I know, but you have to. He's gone. Anglachel takes a small step back, beckoning with a tilt of his head.

(He watches her tear stained features, the remnants of twinkling tears that rolled down her cheeks like falling stars — his mind wanders to a scarlet jungle and for a moment Anglachel is a little boy again, idly wondering if his own mother would ever make such an expression. He sees her slender frame, curled around tiny spotted babies, again and again. And the runaway Saboran prince wonders — did she find it yet?)

She rose from her throne of grief, and Anglachel turned to lead them from the quiet garden along a winding path covered in moon kissed Jacaranda petals. The silvery blue woman takes a moment to apologize, and the doctor's surprise is evident in the slight stutter of his pace (but perhaps could be merely written off as a result of his limping gait). Apologies, such a simple thing, and such a foreign thing to the Saboran born. The woman had not been in the right state of mind, and her reaction had been perfectly understandable — expected even. "There's nothing to apologize for... I don't blame you..." Anglachel settles for after a moment, and there's no hiding  how unaccustomed he is to something as mundane as an apology. His scars burned, the sharp sting of blame burning like acid against mutilated flesh. Kashmir's cold, imperial gaze. Oriana's pleading apologies, returned to her time and time again as though they might burn. Sorries always so ready upon his own tongue, and rejected the one time it had been presented to him...

Anglachel looked at the silver mother and hesitated, flecks of red tattoos and tattered cheeks burned. "But ah... thank you..." The medic finally whispered, his soft voice tight with something he didn't fully comprehend.

(What a small thing. What a profound thing. His lungs feel just a little lighter.)

Did you know him? My sweet boy? Were you one of his friends? He had so many, he was always such a sweet likable lad.

The healer returns her melancholy smile with a small wistful one of his own. "I didn't know him." He admits gently, and then lays an offer into the night air — an opening for the kind woman to speak lovingly of her boy. "But I would have liked to." 

She frowned as he dismissed her apology as merely being something blameless. Though an exhale allowed her to steady and steel herself. "Even then, in that moment... it wasn't right." She said softly and simply. Being in a state of mourning and shock didn't exclude her from being civil.

Haylyn would come to find out that he was quiet, something the pair had in common as of late, but even then he tried to speak and genuinely wanted to help. "You would have loved him, I'm sure." Everyone did. As the wind whistled through the trees and the crickets continued to chirp, Haylyn would glance up to a star speckled sky. The moon large and bright, surrounded by its little clusters of heaven. "This feeling, it won't ever go away." She mumbled softly, sure that her family was suffering some kind of curse for transgressions long since past.

Watery blue eyes would glance to the healer's marred form once more. "No parent ever wants to outlive their child, it just... it just shouldn't happen." Her voice wavered, but the tears were held back. "And life, life will go on without him. We'll still be here, while he's gone." The familiar ache returning to her chest. "Life in Inaria has been anything but easy, we can only be so strong when everything is ripped form us and we CONSTANTLY have to build up again. Like, like nothing ever happened at all." Her expression twisted between sorrow and anger.

"As a mother, I could have been there for my children so much more, I wish I had been. I was always so busy." There were many things in Haylyn's life worth changing, things she could constantly look back on and now with 20/20 hindsight, it made all the difference. She was a woman who knew and acknowledged her faults, grew from them, but was also chained to them no matter how hard she wanted to forget the past. "The crown was a heavy burden, one I'm glad to be free of, but I think it's too late." An untrained queen, a young single mother. "You know, when you're young, you have such big dreams and hopes that are all your own, but now looking back on everything... none of it turned out like how I would've hoped it would." Pain radiated from her voice.

The kingdom had expected great things from her, her children did as well, and yet, she had failed both.

She speaks of right and wrong, and such things are still such foreign concepts to the runaway Saboran prince — he can't help the airy half-laugh-half-sigh that escapes him. Doleful and not without a trace of something close to yearning. What would it have been like? To grow up in a place like this, amongst mothers like this? He doesn't say such things, of course, for it's not the time nor the place. Such musings are saved for ears half a world away.

Instead, Anglachel nods in quiet agreement — Haylyn is right, he probably would have loved Wheatley, for the silver haired healer always cared so quickly and so strongly. The prince had been well loved. A good man, the Inarians he met were always good.

(His mind idly drifts to a little dark spider, scars burn but he turns to face the glow of moonlight, allowing silver light to wash over his ruined features)

This feeling, it won't ever go away.

"No. It won't." He murmurs softly in agreement. "But it won't always be present. It'll come a go." There is no hiding the tightness of grief in his voice, nor the strong stab of guilt that weighs leaden upon his tongue. It is in this moment that Anglachel realizes full severity of his choices — the implications of abandoning little stars in that jungle. He knows the chances, he knows that very few from litters survive well into adulthood in Saboro. The jungle is a death sentence, and his children may very well be dead.

(Was it wrong? To had fled from such a cruel inevitability? He may try to justify his choice. He may weep into golden fur. He may try to make up for his sins by caring tirelessly for the Inarian people. But nothing will ever make up for it.)

"The crown was a heavy burden, one I'm glad to be free of, but I think it's too late. You know, when you're young, you have such big dreams and hopes that are all your own, but now looking back on everything... none of it turned out like how I would've hoped it would."

She is a better parent than he ever was. She is a better mother than his own parents ever were. The silvery healer turns away from the moon — abandons his thoughts and self-hatred and grief, for there is someone in pain beside him and damn it all, he will do is job. As both healer and fellow weary soul. "You are a good mother." Wine reds bear upon the pale royal, his voice firm and matter-of-fact. It was not an opinion. "You did your best, and sometimes that feels like it's not enough but you tried." He knows the words won't ever be enough to soothe her aches, but he hopes she'll find some semblance of comfort in them. "And... it sounds like you've tried for everyone except for yourself." Anglachel paused, glancing briefly at the veil of stars above before resting his gaze upon grief filled blues, his expression gentler this time. "Life did not turn out the way I had hoped it would. I have so many regrets... But I think I'm healing here. I wasn't born here but... Inaria feels like home." The flecks of intricate scarlet burn — but washed almost lilac in the silver light... they seem to burn a little less.

Perhaps... Inaria was Harlyn's Saboro.

"Healing..." The healer began once more, the suggestion waits at the tip of his tongue. Cautious... but Anglachel is certain it needs to be said,  "I think healing takes time, more time than we allow — and sometimes it takes distance too." He offers her a small smile, wistful but encouraging. "It might be time to try your best for yourself, Haylyn."

It wasn't the answer she wanted to hear, but it was the realest one she'd receive. The world was full of hard truths and just know it wouldn't go away, it wouldn't get any easier, it twisted her heart and Haylyn pulled a pained face at the thought. It doesn't get worse, it doesn't get better, you just get old, it lasts forever. "I don't want it to, I don't want it to feel like waves." The moon pulls on and on, but there was some part of her that had grown used to this pain.

"But, I'm afraid of the numbness that would be left in its wake." How long had she felt like this? Her eyes flashed to Ang to see if he understood her meaning. Her winter was not over, it would lay dormant and spring back just like the seasons. All she wanted was a change of hers, this depression was eating her alive. Sapping any and every bit of life she had in her. "I'm tired of fighting." Did the lows really keep her alive?

She gave him a pained smile, melancholy as her heart gave a pained tug. Did she really do her best? "I don't know about that. I hid away, I was so lost in myself that I couldn't take care of anything or anyone. I hurt a lot of people and I can't take any of it back." Jaw clenched to keep from wavering. "I thought that I could do what my brother was trained to do, raised to do. I was... young and stupid." She whispered, glancing to the medic then, eyes clenching shut at the sudden rush of memories.

His voice soft and prodding her to understand these feelings that had been ignored for so long now needed to be felt. Blaise would never let her forget what she did and didn't do, and that reflected upon her, perhaps everyone felt the same as he did when it came to her? They were just better at hiding it, all that internalized self-hatred and regret, not for the act, but for the way it was done. In that way.  "I single-handedly destroyed a family, and they will never be the same. That's my fault, and I... I have to live with that." And the price was my little lucky stars.

Eyes flickered  to the night sky and then back to the man's marred form, expression mystified by his words. Haylyn wondered idly what his struggles had been, life clearly had been hard for him, the ex-queen could only imagine the mental strain it had on him. He must have been strong, incredibly so. "I don't want to pry, especially if you're still in the process of healing." Not knowing if reflecting on the past could possibly trigger anything, it did for her in the very least. "However, I'm glad you can call Inaria a home, there's good people here." A lot who had been subjected to painful events, trauma was a wheel that just kept spinning.

The look she gave him was one of uncertainty, nervousness that bubbled in her stomach as if she was afraid to ask this simple question, embarrassed to not know this answer. It'd been a long time now since she was so carefree. She shifted uncomfortably. "H-how?" A stammered reply came finally, searching his face as if it'd give her the answer she so desperately sought. "How do I start? I want to, I just, I just don't know? I don't remember what I used to be like, who that person was. They're stranger." The pale woman inhaled sharply. "I want to heal."