You climb back to your mountains, to the melting snow and to the pines, to the comfort of home, gray satin folded to your chest. Your heart is not so heavy this time, your body not so exhausted, having gone down to the meadow where your daughter rests to place flowers on her grave, to tell her of the beauty still in the world, to remind her that you have not, could not have, forgotten her. You are not so lost this time, because it is the first time that Birdsong has brought hope instead of only death for you.

Carefully placed within the folds of the fabric there is just an egg, and within that egg is just a creature. You had known from the second you saw it what it was, understanding enough of Helovia to know that companions come from eggs no matter what they are, and that they are special because they bond to a single soul to become one with its chosen. You hadn't, however, ever thought that you would be one of the ones to find one.

You had never truly given any of it much thought at all.

You find him along the lakeside, still as the mirror before him, your mind too clouded with questions mostly coming down to what now to recognize the triumph and victory where there is usually (wrongfully) only defeat. Your steps are at first long and sweeping, bordering on the edge of dance as you go to him, slowing only as your eyes pass from the place where a man had first fallen, following the boy's gaze to the shadows, to the resting place of a lifetime of memories, of dedication, of an era—of your king and his father.

You stop near him, forgetting for a moment of your discovery and all the things you want to ask, to say, suddenly trying to bury the guilt of having not been able to do more than stand and watch, for once not crying, trying to be his strength while he was crumbling, breaking, when he had none himself, swallow against the lump in your throat (for what right do you have, standing next to him when he has lost, lost and lost again?), cling instead to the pride that bloomed within you that day; smile softly as you reach to press your lips to the curve of his shoulder in greeting, offering quiet support, mindful of the delicate bundle that hangs against your breast. It is only as you pull from him to look at the satin slip around your neck that you notice something familiar resting against his legs, round and white and wonderful, nothing able to stop the giggle that bubbles from your chest as enchanted as you are.

"Erebos, you have an egg!" It comes nearly breathless, your timid smile widening into something altogether joyful, the gloom of the morning melting away as you lean closer, gentle in your movements, for once extending a glance to the kitsune spun from indian ink and night, shoving away the questions of what it means for him, for the both of them, knowing that Erebos wouldn't simply cast the beast aside, too entrapped to recall of him ever speaking of a heathen with one gold, one white.

Before long you lower your head further, pooling the slate-colored material against the ground before gingerly shaking your neck to loosen it from its position. "I found one too." A smile before you sober, blinking once in pause before nudging the soft material to uncover the smoothness of a shell, not fully grasping the delightful coincidence of you both finding one.

"It was beneath my daughter's tree, nestled in this. I had thought that maybe someone left it, but no one ever came." You do not speak of the way the object had tugged at you to your very core from the moment you had laid eyes on it, the way that something in you shifted and you couldn't leave it, even when you had tried, of your childish thoughts of things meaning to be and that you were somehow meant to find it, as if it had been something from her, your nose brushing the material as you move to briefly admire your treasure again, finally looking up to your lionheart.