#and: this is still all just my own worldstate based hcs to be cleardndjf hope im not making it sound.. definite? i guess

[rivilu]

''One night she.. simply walked into the moonlight and never returned''

I've been thinking about my Mahariel's mother a lot lately.

And my personal headcannons about those events in general. Particularly the concept of ''Mahariel is only alive because Marethari as the new keeper used blood magic to heal(?) their mother after she and their father were attacked''.

[I dont put that level of hypocrisy above her. After all, she herself is not above having shady dealings with dangerous powers, despite ousting and ostracizing her own for lesser offenses in that area. And given actions such as 'using the old magic to heal you'.. of the blight? Which you're then sufficiently recovered from until you make it to Ostagar on foot, the phrasing of 'your mother held on to life long enough to give birth to you'.. It presents a rather haunting image even when looking at it through a charitable lens. It's not like Marethari HAS NOT shown a pattern of counting certain lives as more valuable than others. And not wincing at the blood price of 'helping' them.]

In any case, in terms of Mahariel's mother.. the clan failed her. From the very start when no-one stepped in to stop the keeper getting involved with a young woman whose clan disapproved, to the very end when no-one stopped her walking off into the moonlight.

I just have this picture in my mind of her as the lone survivor, questionably alive even, rose tinted glasses shattered and reckoning with the horrors of her situation she hadn't fully recognized until that point.

The differences in age, in power. The reasons why her elders did not approve the match. Yet there's nothing to be done now.

He's dead, she's with child.

She can't go home, but the idea of staying is a nightmare.

No happy ending could ever come of this.