"Watching people leave is hard, but it's harder remembering a time when they promised they wouldn't."
In the dark of the March night, a young mother found her way home in the fading light. Her ginger locks were snapped to utter imperfection from her night of crazed actions that had lead her on a series of events since then to what she'd do now. The door opened silently as she entered the home that would soon no longer be that of a family but only of a confused and broken man. She crept across the dark den of the first floor, swiping her hand carefully across the bookshelf across the room before she pulled loose a notebook. The young woman tore a page from the book as smoothly as possible- waiting a long moment until she knew that noise had not woken the others of the house.
She slowly removed a piece of charcoal from her skirt's pocket and slowly wrote two words in shaky Common before dropping the coal and drifting away like a rushed spirit- up the stairs on quick feet. She paused at the bedroom door, placing her hand on the knob before pausing and leaning forward to listen to the door. The Claith stood there a long moment in wait before pulling back- uncertain if the occupant was awake or not. She dreaded finding out and inside of chancing it, she fled further up the stairs and past the empty bedroom of her daughter. The woman entered the second bedroom of the upstairs, pausing in the doorway to gaze at the child asleep in the room.
The boy snored quietly in his sleep, thumb stuck in his mouth, unlike his sister who chewed on her whole hand. A brief laugh escaped the mother as she watched her son rest before she muffled it with a raised marred hand. The woman slipped into the child's room and pulled open the satchel she'd scooped from the downstairs. She quietly swept the boy's clothing into the leather bag. She gathered knick-knacks from the room save a few left for the man in the room below. Before long, the ginger woman turned and stared at the toddler a moment more before drawing near to him and slowly lifting him into her arms.
The boy pressed against his mother, sighing briefly in his sleep and not arguing as she carried him slowly from the room and down the stairs. They drifted past the room of the woman's husband and the child's father- continuing down the stairs to the first floor with the short letter. The woman lifted a small cat into her arms as she drew to the door, resting the feline in her satchel before escaping out the door. Merina fled into the night at the pace of a peaceful stroll. She was running away from the issues she'd caused- whether truly or only in her own mind. Cadwen, Merina's eldest son, slept on as he was carried on through the streets of Regalia at his mother's shoulder in the midst of the night- unbeknownst to him that his father would wake in the morning to pure grief and panic of his beloved mother's actions.
"I'm Sorry," read the note in the den of the dark household.
"I'm sorry," Merina echoed quietly as she approached the carriages- looking for one to take.
The lie fell easily from her lips.
