How is one supposed to steel themselves for the viewing of their own child's body - no, corpse, carcass, carrion. No longer a body I suppose. Should I think of Ehiyeh? Prepare myself for the blood, the misery, the rage and despair? Should I think back on the day they told me Moteuh had gone to Iromar? When nobody could find the body? I think of all these options as we move along the paths, winding and dancing closer and closer to something I never did expect to experience.

Just as I am sure Asriel is not ignorant to it, I smell another in the air; I breathe them in, trying to decipher the notes hidden behind rain and time. Even if I do not know them now, I have no doubt in my mind I will know them if I ever meet them. I will be sure of it. I wonder, then, if Asriel thinks the same? His face shows little. It is...easier, I suppose, to think about Asriel than the truth of all this. It is only when his eyes snap to me that mine truly descend to gaze upon what once was Moteuh...

And in that moment, I understand. I move towards the body slowly, my brows furrowed into a deep frown; I sniff at her, beyond the blood and dirt, and yet even her scent is wrong, different. I stop, standing over the top of her, looking through the blood at her fur - the same but wrong. Her legs...wrong. Her body...wrong. It is as somebody created a wolf from the briefest descriptions of her; the body is brown and white, with four paws and a body that could have been strong and yet, it simply is not Moteuh. It is not the girl who would have grown to be fast and strong, graceful like her mother, rich in hue and bright eyed. When I come to, I find my lips pulled back into a sneer, disgusted by the thing in front of me. Twisted, gnarled, like a rotten limb of a tree. Yes, I understand. Something so...this could not survive. Should not have survived.

"Asriel." I say his name slowly, stiffening my body as I turn towards him, one final lingering look on the body before I find his eyes. "Moteuh died when you were young. Aranck savaged her and drowned her in the waters of Iromar. Whatever this was, whoever came out of that water, was not Moteuh. It could never become her either." My lips are taut, the words bitter to say and yet, I wonder how true they were. I was not here, after all, and yet... even if I had been, would I have done the same? "Your mother..." I pause, knowing my son well enough to know that the mention of Zeltzin would...illicit a response. "You and I are the only one's who need to know about this body."

I do not expect him to stay though and I give him the option to leave, a twitch of my muzzle indicating the passage home if he so desired. But if he does stay, then we will move the body. Yes, we will take her to the deepest part of the river where she ought to have stayed and she will return to Glorall, pass through the river's mouth, and enter the realm of the sea where she should have been years ago. It is...the only way. Moteuh died years ago. I do not know this body, cannot know it, and so I must put it back where it came from.

Yes. That is the only way.

Moteuh died. Years ago. Ah, should I question why my son killed a stranger? No. It is best not to. We will just move the body.