Luna hobbled drunkenly into their shared home, stumbling through the doorway she gazed around the open area.
“Haelun?” The elf hollered, a light frown forming on her face. With no answer she moved sluggishly towards the stairs and stumbled down them. Something familiar twisted in her gut, and despite the alcohol she felt her head clear somewhat as she stopped before Arabella’s door.
“Haelun?” She tried again, trying to open the locked door and failing. With a resolve she forced the door open, and froze in her tracks.
All of a sudden she felt alone. Lost in a way she hadn’t been since that monster broke into the windmill. Lost as the time she had been when she had lost both her ear and the innocence only a child could have. Lost in a way she hadn’t felt in over a hundred years. Her stomach twisted and lurched violently, and suddenly her legs were moving without her consent. Terror and bile crawled up her throat yet she somehow managed to make it to the bed without throwing up.
Luna moved her hand towards her mother’s face, then down to her neck to check for a pulse. Not finding any, the elf collapsed to her knees. She stared at the still warm corpse of the only constant in her life, and for the first time in a long time, she wept.
Later, when the other members of the family would return home- they would find the oldest daughter of Arabella staring numbly at the matriarch’s body.