The silence is tangible. Sticky, the way it clings like grease to the senses and distorts everything. The house feels larger now, without the press of bodies within it to add warmth, without voices and laughter to fill the rooms with life. The floor is cold under her. How long ago the fire in the hearth had gone out she doesn't know... a day, maybe three, maybe a whole week. When had it happened? How had the monsters gotten in? Why had the luxere not come this year? Questions were pointless, really. There would be no answer, and even if she found out the how and the why, what did it matter? It was too late now. Maea had seen it before, had grown up knowing that this might happen. That it did happen, only never to them. Bad things happened, but somehow she had felt safe anyway, becuse they were always careful, always prepared and in her heart she had believed that the worst would never really happen.
Now it had. Even as she cried Maea felt more resigned than sad. Of course it hurt, oh gods how it hurt! But she couldn't curse, couldn't rage or place the blame on anyone, because who's fault was it? The monsters? The gods? Her family's, for failing in some crucial part of the preparations? Or... hers, for not being there to scream and fight and die along with them? Because they had, of that she was sure. Noah would not go down without a fight, not would Lin let anything happen to her children without doing everything in her power to stop it. And the kids...
Oh gods, the kids.
Drowning. She was drowning in the madness of it all, and Nathaniel's voice was like a glimmer of light that reminded her of the surface. This way to rise up. Drawing in a shuddering breath, she shook her head in response - no, the was not hurt. Not in any physical way at least - but her voice would not carry to say anything, and when the silence dragged on he muttered about the animals and left, boots scraping against the wooden floor.
Maea wasn't sure how long she sat there. A long time, probably, because when she looked up the shadows har grown longer and her hands were numb with cold. Long Night was over but Flowerbirth had only just begun, and there would be many cold nights to come yet.
The animals. She should look at the animals. Find out where Nate had gone.
Stiffly the colorless girl stumbled to her feet and went outside. Only a little light remained, the sun already set though some light still lingered, and the touch of red over the clouds cast everything in a strange rosy hue. It was beautiful, really, and it seemed horribly wrong that she would think that, when something so horrible had happened.
Nathaniel har left footprints in the snow, and the followed them towards the sheep shed. As she came closer, Maea found that this door too was broken, with signs of disturbance on the ground outside. Snow had fallen since and almost erased the tracks, but not completely. Inside, she could hear a dog whimpering, and that pitiful whine alone gave her the courage to look inside.
MAEA Sometimes darkness can show you the light
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