In the darkness she found comfort; it enveloped her like a womb (not half as treacherous as the NightAngel's), warm and salient, returning her to the amenity of youth, the calm complacency of summer days wasted wondering about the complexities of life and her own far-tossed future. How naive she had been as a girl, so set on saving the world; couldn't she understand how hopeless her cause was, how rashly innocent her convictions? The world had been so simple, and her foresight had been so devastatingly clear—but now things were more intricate, and her creed so less simple. In her own womb a warrior's seed had been planted, and a child, whose existence brought Huyana more joy than she could express with words, was brought into the world, another casualty to add onto the list. Did the rain wash all her aspirations away, gone forever into a sea of oblivion? When would this tireless cycle stop? She was no longer the rainchild, so honest and determined; she was Death's wife; the Persephone to the Reaper's Hades, and she had eaten more pomegranate seeds than her mother could help her with. The Haruspex would have it no other way.

Fighting back the unease which came with the sultry darkness, Huyana wandered further into the black, any trace of luminescence dying and sputtering behind her as cleft hooves clipped stubbornly onward, leaving her ruminations in the dark. It was like drowning, dwelling in this lightless world, but that was the reason Huyana relished it; it made her livid, lucid, awake, like a fever dream eating away at her spinal cord while she slept a restless sleep. Every step brought her further into the abyss, further and further from familiarity. For the first time in what felt like a lifetime, the blue lady let herself be lost, both physically and mentally, and every second adrift felt like droplets of rain on a sweltering summer's day. Here, she could escape ruined dreams and lost convictions, forget about responsibilities and obligation; here, she was again the girl, pining for her father and for peace and for wholeness and never getting anything but sadness.

There was a sort of poetic triumph to her life, the blue lady thought, the ugly duckling becoming the swan; Snow White finding herself becoming the very Queen she had run from. Dreams of pacifism were lost, and now she worried about her child, her husband, her occupation. Did she become the very thing she hated so reverently, or was it just growing up?