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The white sleeping gown was a harsh contrast to the darkness around. The sky above was a deep ebony broken by a few scattered stars. Twin moons provided just enough light to make a path across the terraced balcony to a bench. As strong winds blew in from the north, the bite of coldness and the smell of snow that they brought were unnoticed.

The petite figure in the gown sat motionless on the bench staring at the item clutched in her hand. It was a gift, a gift she had yet to open. By appearance it was an apple and to those not gifted with an intuition to the arcane it was just an apple. She knew otherwise. This was no mere apple. It held power, power she could use to achieve something she desired. Two somethings if the witch’s belief was correct.

Still she stared at the unblemished apple. She couldn’t make herself do it. Was she afraid? Some, though she suspected that was normal. The words kept playing in her head. His words. “You always find a way. I guess I never really considered the option that it might never happen.” Was she lying to him and everyone else, including herself? True she had not ate the apple yet, but she had long ago stopped taking the preventive teas she had been taught to make. She had actually expected to have conceived by now. Was the magical abilities in her body somehow working with her subconscious preventing conception? She really didn’t think so.

A small calloused thumb strokes the side of the apple. She had been prepared to cut it and eat it with him tonight.. and somehow everything went not how she planned. Nargun himself could not have orchestrated better chaos than what she felt inside right now. The thumb pauses slowly. Maybe Nargun did organize it, but her heart didn’t care. Slowly Evie curls up on the bench on the roof, her white gown still flapping lightly in the breeze every so often. She has a perfectly good warm bed just down the stairs. The two people she loves most are there, yet the hand holding the apple is tucked under the cushion of her bench and she closes her eyes. Up here she feels adrift from the world, exactly how she feels inside.

The first light of morning was harsh, bringing Evie awake to the awareness of the biting cold. Slowly she sat up and realized the apple was still firmly enclosed in her right hand. Sleep had not been peaceful or plentiful. A dozen different nightmares had chased her from one dream to the next. Flashes of happy memories that all eroded into nightmares. Some of them mimic’d things that had really happened to her, others were just her private unspoken fears coming out to play. Her free hand rubbed over her reachable bare arms as she got up and walked stiff legged to the ladder.

The fire Uhuru kept going in the fireplace, slowly thawed out her chilled bones allowing her to move more freely and dress to venture out. Nargun certainly was laughing at her. The first person she encountered was Brawn.. saying goodbye. He was set to move and nothing she could do or say would stop him. It was not her place to help or save him now, though she considered him a friend still. The whole dynamic between him and Pierre made much interaction near impossible. It was her own fault. Guilt again waged a war inside her as she waved to Brawn as he left. She followed Uhuru shortly after on a hunting excursion but her heart wasn’t in it. There was no joy in hunting today. And so she returned to town, and to her roof, gazing broodingly off into the distance. So many things echoing in her head. Did she want to have a baby? Why had she not eaten the apple she had once again tucked on her shelf? When would she get her magic back? Magic always seemed to make her feel whole. Was she using the child to fill the need? If she was, would that make her a bad mother? Was she wrong in denying Pierre a child right now because she was scared? Did Pierre even want a child or did he simply want it because she wanted one? Did she want to have a baby?