Chapter Text
Morrigan awoke to darkness, and the noise of a great rumbling like she had found herself in the belly of a great beast. She thought, for a moment, if she had died and this was the sound of her soul being taken to the better place, although she wondered if Cook had been wrong about some things, as she definitely didn't feel warm or safe like she always described ‘ascending’ to be. Maybe the opposite was happening, she was being pulled down, down, down into the depths where she’d never be able to get out.
But those sleep-filled thoughts were quickly dismissed as a drop of cold water landed on her thigh, seeping through the fabric of her stocking, jolting her awake. She blinked away fuzziness from her eyes, rubbing one with a slightly-numb fist as she quietly groaned and stretched her legs, standing up as the blanket of sleep fully slid off. Careful not to bump her head on the ceiling of her makeshift-shelter, she tucked Emmett back into her coat pocket and slung her bag back onto her back.
No, she wasn’t dead, but she felt like it.
Morrigan didn’t even know where she was. Looking around, she could tell it was some sort of underpass, an abandoned one, with the amount of trash bags piled up around her and- eeew was that what she had been using as a pillow?
Quickly setting the newspapers she had used as a makeshift mattress aflame, she slunk out from under the underpass like a stray alley cat, her tracks quickly being covered up by the snow that was falling hard and fast.It was a rather nice morning, the sun peeking through the clouds and snaking through the tall, tall buildings, but the air was still brisk with the chill of winter. She buttoned up her coat tighter around her as she made her way out, climbing up the hill that sloped deep into the abandoned street she had found her sleeping place the night prior.
The streets were quiet. She knew it must be early in the morning, and that somehow she had made her way to a less-populated area of Nevermoor, but compared to the bustling streets she had known for three years, this neighborhood was like a complete stranger. She watched as a couple of stray dogs, ribs sticking out of their bodies like they were just skeletons with a tight cloth tied onto them, pushed over a trash can and ripped into its insides, barking at eachother and fighting over the scraps.
A drunken man across the street laughed at them as he stumbled past, turning a corner into one of those oppressive brick apartment buildings that were packed around the neighborhood like sardines in a can. She could hear someone’s radio playing from one of the open windows, and Morrigan smelled something earthy coming from another. It was strange to think that there were so many lives in each and every one of those buildings, people she’d never meet and maybe people she would one day.
She grudgingly wondered if she was related to anyone in there as she continued on, shaking off memories she didn’t want to relive like how those strays probably shake off their fleas.
Morrigan, admittedly, didn't know where she was going. She just knew that she had been on her own for a couple of days now, floating about each burrow like a ghost of a girl, always blending into the crowd. She wondered if she was supposed to be mourning something, feeling something, be afraid or even angry. But the fire that had warmed her so deeply only a couple days prior, the roaring fire that now sat desolate in the Deucalion’s fireplace, was gone now.
She felt cold, Morrigan blew hot air onto her fists but it did not stop the trembling that constantly seemed to be there now. The trembling had started when she had ran, ran like a caged unnimal out of the hotel and into the darkness of the night, and it hadn’t stopped since, like how the bones of a soldier still shake even when the fight had long been over. She had won the war, had she? So why did she feel this way?
Was Morrigan mourning her family or herself? Was she mourning something she had never known, or something that had been taken away from her that she had never noticed?
The snow underneath her crunched, as she continued to walk, feeling more of a shell of a human than an actual human. Underneath her coat she still wore the clothes she had had on her back when she had ran, and even though she probably smelled rank, she felt too tired to change them. Her hair had more knots in it than ever, and as she caught a glimpse of herself in a someone’s window she grimaced at the bags underneath her eyes.
The Darlings would probably mistake her for a vagrant or beggar if she ever showed up at their house, and her pride was the only thing stopping her from returning to home the hotel. Maybe if she had a good wash or something- she could return to their home, not her home just yet, but then make it into hers.
Maybe one day, but not today.