Her throat clenched and she gave a few more strong flaps with her wings to rise a little higher. She didn't expect Jayberry to believe her. How could she? She looked nothing like what the wolf had once seen as her mother. Not the same shape or color, crying instead of murdering or giving her ferocious commands. She didn't really care if she ever convinced the wolf to believe her or not, but...she wasn't going to just fly away without another word. She was safe here, too far above for Jayberry to reach. She could say a few more words.

"I'm not lying," she called down, voice quivering. "I can't...I can't remember you completely. Something's changed me, erased my memory, but I know you. People have looked into my past with magic. They saw...saw you a-and a moose. And I saw myself a hybrid with four legs and wings and a blue stone on its forehead. There was a time...when you were hurt, right? Impaled on stone? You used to look like a normal wolf. The moose saved you and O-Oliver helped you too."

It was spilling out without her meaning too and she flew a little higher, as if distancing herself from Jayberry would separate her from the memories. She looked supremely unhappy as she stared down at the wolf. She felt heavy, weighed down by all these things. All thesee awful things that had happened - to her, to the wolf, to Oliver...And it's all my fault. "I'm sorry," she whispered, just loud enough for Jayberry to hear. "But I really am her."

@Jayberry

A memory, erased. Bodies changed. Could it be? Her own body had changed, she'd seen others, too.

But memories? Could it be? She'd seen magic, cast her own. Could such magic exist? If only she knew it, could cast it on herself, tear away the memories of her family and remove her shame, but she'd never, she needed to prove herself to Mother, but she could remove them from the others and give them all a new start, maybe maybe maybe.

And the bird, it knew her, all the things Oliver would have known, could have told her. And she was ashamed for what she had done, before she was lost she could have considered Oliver a friend, almost, maybe maybe maybe, but she'd turned on him when it had all gone wrong, tormented him and tried to rend his flesh with her fangs, and he'd never forgive her, so why would he tell the goose of those things?

"Crazy bird!" she snapped, though the sound was weak, "Liar bird," but the images were running through her mind--caught on the gemstone, agony racing through her as Papa pulled her off of it, Oliver hurrying to help.

And that stone on Mother's the goose's neck, maybe maybe maybe, that was Papa's, but if that was apart from him then that meant he was dead, maybe maybe maybe, not just missing, not just gone from them, but gone from them forever, and that their family was forever torn, would forever be missing a piece no matter how hard she worked to claw them together, maybe maybe maybe.

Mother never apologized, and Mother wasn't white, wasn't white-pink-red, Mother was black-grey-red, and she snapped her jaws even as she wobbled, shaking her head, the pieces coming together, maybe maybe maybe, there was the curve of Mother's neck, the arch of her wings, the turn of her feet, things only a daughter would know, maybe maybe maybe, and she gave a broken whine, sinking onto her haunches, only her tail keeping her from going to her stomach, "Please," she pleaded, shaking her head, and she'd never been one to beg, "Tell me it isn't true." She reached for the fungi in the ground, the ones like those that she'd woven into their nest but those, too, abandoned her.

@Nameless

Oh the despair in her voice, the whining pleading that this wasn't real, that she was lying pierced the goose so far into her heart that tears sprung to her eyes as she looked down at the wolf below. She couldn't forget what she'd done, that she'd been horrible and a murderer and she'd hurt her best friend in such a way that he never truly recovered. She'd been the worst (or best?) of her children when the goose, too, had been terrible. She didn't want to say it, she didn't want to voice it aloud, because she still didn't want to convince herself that it was true, but she found herself saying it anyways. "It's true," she rasped. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry you don't have a mother anymore."

Should she even be sorry at all? Should she feel any shred of pity for this wolf? After what Oliver had told her, the answer was a hard no - she was cruel verging on mindlessly evil and she would never in her right mind have anything but disdain for someone like that. But...she had been her mother, once. And she knew it because just looking at the wolf and knowing who it was brought up so many different emotions she didn't know how to shift through them all, which ones were new or old or what.

She was just so confused.

@Jayberry

'Mother doesn't apologize. Mother didn't apologize. Mother never apologizes. Mother never apologized.'

She moaned, low in her throat, looking up at the bird, maybe maybe maybe, the crest of her wings, the way she moved, something of her voice. Maybe maybe maybe.

And... and she was being denounced again. A low, keening sound tore from her throat, and she ground her face into the ground until her horns dug furrows, wished she could dig and dig and dig until she was in the ground and never come out again, vanish into her chrysalis like her Nettlepup and never wake up again, never have to lose or be lost again.

She didn't even realize she was speaking until the words had torn from her throat, looking up at the bird, "WHAT DID I DO?" she shook her head, moved to stand, dropped back down again, "All I've ever done was try to be the best daughter I could, try to make you proud, try to be the best Bloodberry, the best Moosegoose. And then, and then you left, and I tried to bring us back and you hated me, hated my pups! And, and I tried to fix it, I tried to be good, but, but you were gone." she shook her head, gulping down breaths, bordering on hysterical, "Are... are you happier? Happier now that you've forgotten us?"

She wasn't sure what she wanted the answer to that to be.


@Nameless