They're all shouting, but the girl can't hear them above the roaring in her ears, the heavy sound of grief which crashes like a tidal wave against the floodgates of her mind. She is aware of the stalwart body of Nyx, her companion in rage, but takes no comfort in the camaraderie. She is alone. She can only see her anger, a bright pinpoint of fire surrounded by so much dark, darkness that grabs at her with greedy hands, darkness that threatens to throw her into the abyss and leave her there to burn, darkness that devoured her family once and now returns, hungry and greedy, for what little remains.

Copper figure shivers, ripples of movement vibrating the child from head to hoof. No.

But before she can speak, further voice her rage in pointless cries, a body descends from the silent sky and familiar tones break through the roar.

The girl is frozen.

Kaj?

"What do you know of grief?" she wants to shout, but the words are strangled by the tightening of her throat. Slowly the Fire Dancer shifts her weight and gaze, attention and anger leaping to the new fuel offered by this familiar but distant piece of her past. It honors him? A grave, a pile of rubble surrounding an empty corpse, unmarked and abandoned in the towering woods? She wants to laugh in the stallion's face. Lace's body ought to have been burned in dragon fire, his ashes spread across the loam of the Edge. He ought to have a procession, a memorial. Being home would honor him, being with his family!

What does Kaj know of honor? she feels herself think. I know what you did. Invading the Falls. Where is the honor in that?

She thinks it, but she does not speak it. At her hooves, Natraj softly whines.

Kaj steps toward her and the girl jerks back, a cruel motion, a rejection of one who only ever offered her care, who stood by her mother, her cousins, her aunt. Tandavi is blind to history, lost in her loss- he was never there for her. None of them were. They all left her behind, ran away in the dark, abandoned her with nothing but her fear. They all left, all of them, all except Lace.

She owes him her life. It is a debt she will never be able to repay.

She listens in silence, seething, endless eyes fixed on Kaj, the only thing she knows. She refuses to look at it, the monstrosity now being justified by this behemoth of a girl. Insects will benefit she wants to say. What about their feelings? Their lives? Did you think of that? The woman speaks in a dispassionate voice, and Fire Dancer finds herself more and more enraged. How dare she discuss him like so much dust on a highway! Treat him as a wave, a passing storm. How dare she make the choice of what is to be done with his body, his memory. His family should have made the choice. It should have been an act of love, not one of... whatever the hell this stranger feels. She calls her creation unique, as though it were alive, as though her rocks were to be defended.

Lace was unique, and strong, and brave. These rocks are just debris.

She chokes out words through gritted teeth. "You had no right." It's low, quiet, dangerous blue fire flickering in the coals of her eyes. Her gaze remains on Kaj. He's the only thing she knows.

"You aren't his family. You did not love him. What right had you to decide what should or should not become of him?" She is shaking now, trembling, anger rising until it can rise no more, ascending and steaming and streaming and all at once, gone.

Until all that is left is emptiness, and pain.

She stares at Kaj, and the tears in her eyes beg him to understand. "He was all we have left. The only one who stayed. He saved our lives. And now he's gone, and we can never repay that. We can't even save his body."

At her hooves, her brother howls.