Normally there was nothing more annoying than having to pack when it was raining. It made it difficult to keep things dry and folded properly. Keiyra just couldn't bring herself to give a flying chrove erse about it. She felt free and alive and almost ridiculously happy. Keiyra was going to be travelling again, on her own steam and with someone that was... Well, he was Jerzy. There wasn't anybody else like him. She didn't need the words when the feeling sufficed.

Keiyra walked outside, ignoring a slight drizzle and looked at the kint she had shared with her mother. She was going to miss her terribly but it was time to move on. She felt assured that she could come back now, whenever she wanted, and her daoa would still be there. She still felt the grief, it was never going to go away but the anxiety had ebbed.

She could do this. She could move on now.

Taegan was enjoying the day. He'd spent time with his best friend, and Calli. He'd spent time with Giana, enjoying her company more and more. He'd even cuddled Clarabelle and had the bruises to prove it. Slightly drunk and more than giddy with the whole St Grumble event, he wandered through the festival, watching people pack. It was sad that it was ending, but new pastures awaited.

A flash of pink caught his eye and he did a double take. The blonde froze, mouth hanging open, blue eyes wide. He should keep walking. He should just turn and go away. But he couldn't. Searching around the witch, he tried to spot any child running around the area that could be his son or daughter. Perhaps they were asleep. A sudden fuzziness warmed his chest at the thought of a child, his child, possibly sleeping in the kint just ahead of him.

"Keiyra?" He spoke quietly, unsure of how else to start talking to the girl he'd fallen so deeply in love with. The girl he'd probably pissed off beyond belief. But he had tried to find her, he really had...

Keiyra felt like she was drowning, all the air fell out of her lungs like cherries from a bowl. That voice was one she'd not heard for years. She'd blessed it, cursed it and given up on it so many times. She turned, hoping not to see him but there he was. Taegan.

She watched him for a moment, mouth agape. Taegan, still blond and vital and so like her daughter that it ached to look upon him. She felt as though she was never going to move again, frozen by shock and the weight of the years pressing in. He looked so much like her now, when she'd once thought her daughter looked so much like her da.

The icy fragility thawed and in its place was terrible anger.

"You son of a whore." She said, in estuan, voice clear and strong and no longer enthralled by him. "How dare you show your face here now."

Now, after all this time, after losing her child and mourning her. He had never even gotten to know the baby he had abandonned. What did he want? To swan back in and take a peek now that the hard yards had been put in to raising their child? Well, he would have no such joy there. He had missed his chance and part of her felt sick glee at that. He would never get to ruin their daughter's life the way he had ruined Keiyra's.

Taegan deserved that. He knew this much. Holding his hand's out to placate her, the blonde boy stepped closer.

"I know, I'm sorry alright. I didn't...I shouldn't have done what I did. I should have stuck around and helped you, been a man. But Keiyra, I was a kid, we both were! I didn't know what else to do. And I came back, really, I did. But your whole camp was gone...then I sort of...got caught up in this circus and in the end, looking for one Crow in all of Anaxas is like looking for a sewing needle in a pile of hay!" He paused, trying on his most enduring half smile, a dimple in one cheek.

"But hey, you look really good! Tattoo's...never expected that out of you, but its a nice style. And the piercings...thats...well...you look good!" Stepping a little closer, he was treating her like Clarabelle. Dangerously cautious.

"So...what...what was it? A boy? A girl? Are they in there? Can I..can I see him? Her?" The tamer asked gently.

It was like an arrow through her breast. Keiyra was still from the shock, the pain that coursed through her like blood. She stumbled forward, gaining momentum. Her fist moved on its own, speeding towards his cheek. The crack sounded like her retribution. Loud and harsh in the rain.

"Tsuter vreska!" She shouted, hot tears now coursing down her cheeks. "Hav'kda!"

She was choking on the words. They caught like toffee in her mouth only so very bitter. How dare he ask now! Now of all times.

"Where were you?" She screamed, voice getting louder than she'd known it could, hoarse and hurting. "Where were you? She needed you and you weren't there, I wasn't... Oh gods... My baby, Lillah. Couldn't..."

Keiyra cried. She'd mourned her daughter before, felt the tide flood and then ebb. Seeing Taegan brought it back again. Even the knowledge that she could move past this again, had moved past it, did not make the grief go away. She would always miss Lillah. She would always wonder what would have happened, had Lillah lived.

Here was Taegan trying to slide back in like always. Positive that his charisma would take him where he needed to go. He couldn't go back in time. He should have been there. Blame was so very easy.

"I hate you. I hate you!" Keiyra spat out, fist coming down on his chest, tapping, tapping and then stopping.

Taegan's head reeled from the violent explosion of her fist on his face. Stumbling slightly, he swore and rubbed his cheek. It took him a moment to realize Keiyra was still yelling.



The blonde youth frowned. Lillah? Was that their babies name? Their daughter? Why was she so upset?

"Keiyra? Keiyra, what happened? What?! I couldn't be there, I couldn't find you. I'm a kenser, I know! I'm...I'm sorry okay?"



Gently, carefully, he took her by the shoulders, holding her back so he could look at her. His cheek felt hot and one eye was slightly closed.

"Keiyra. What happened?"

Keiyra's sobs slowed, leaving her throat seizing and aching. She breathed deeply, in time to her cries, each exhalation like a jagged sigh. She swallowed down the salt that had seeped into her mouth and gaze Taegan a wounded look.

"She died in the riot." Keiyra spat, hating that Lillah had shared so many of his mannerisms, his expressions. "She was burned when the magma came down."

Keiyra pushed away from Taegan's hands. Wanting Jerzy to come and comfort her again, to hold her and make her feel right again. She could see the shades of the love she'd felt for Taegan but it was poisoned now. Painted over by the knowledge that she should have known better.

"There's nothing for you here, get out." She said coldly, she didn't want to speak to him anymore. She wanted to think. She wanted to speak to her daoa, recieve comfort and absolution yet again. "Ye could have found me at any time, if ye'd asked but ye didn't. Yer a day late and a tally short, like always."

Keiyra spat on the ground between them, eyes like coals, clothes damp from the rain. She looked small and hunted and so very, very dangerous.

It was like a bullet to the chest. Taegan's face fell and he found words were lost to him. His daughter had died? Already?

"But...but..." He didn't know what to say. The child he didn't know, didn't ever meet, was already dead?



The blonde stumbled back from her, tears of his own coming to his eyes.

"I'm sorry Keiyra. I just...she..." Covering his blue eyes with his hand, he tried to stop the quiver in his lip. Taking a deep breath, he removed his hand to look into her hateful gaze.

"If I get the chance Keiyra, I promise I will take out every galdor in Vienda for her. For you. I know you don't care, I know its too late. But.." He nodded, leaving it at that, too shocked for words.

Keiyra wanted to strike him again. Damn him. Acting as though he had any right to be upset, he didn't even know what... who he had lost.

"Dze, too late. Damn fucking right, too late." She hissed, turning away from him now. "I never want to see you again. I'm moving on with my life. I am shacking up with someone else, someone nicer, someone better than you!"

That last part was pure spite, or rather purer spite than what had come before. She wanted to hurt Taegan even more than she had. She wanted him to know what he had lost. She wanted to know that she was worth something more than how he had treated her.

"Come near me again and I'll clocking kill you, tsuter piece of chrove shite." She shouted, stalking away, towards her kint and her mother and the future she so desperately wanted to start now.

Taegan let her go, standing still in shock. What could he do? What could he say? Turning numbly, he began walking again, all good humor gone from him. He needed time to think, someone to talk to. Vaugly, he turned in the direction of the circus, looking for Dorian.