The sole benefit of owning a house with a nice backyard: no one was going to bother her as she vented her anger and despair by throwing empty bottles at the side of the house. She’d made sure to leave Sanskrit inside, not wanting to risk him being hurt. And at least until someone called the cops because her sobbing and bottle breaking was keeping them from sleeping, Bindhi had a fairly good outlet going.

Throwing back her head to slam down another vodka cooler, the tall blonde didn’t bother trying to stop the tears that coursed down her face. It all figured, didn’t it, her mind brayed loudly and drunkenly at her. First mom dies, then Ares vanishes, now Zirconia’s gone. Haven’t heard from Ida or Hver in a long damn time. Mintaka lets herself be corrupted. Ava doesn’t want you anymore, Amytis doesn’t want you. Her life of one long string of Do Not Wants. It all made such glistening, perfect sense to her vodka soaked gray matter.

This time when she threw the empty bottle, she let out a wounded animal scream and flopped bonelessly to the grass. Hands covering her face, Bindhi tried her best to cry quietly, but knew she was failing. She could hear the gulping sobs echoing around in her head. What was so wrong with her that the people she cared about kept abandoning her?

After several minutes had passed, Bindhi managed to gather herself together just enough to realize that leaving broken glass in the back yard was a Bad Idea. Stumbling drunkenly to her feet, she began to clean it up, kicking off her own sandals as she shuffled around hunting. Better for her to be hurt than her poor dog. Or the neighbor’s cat. And while she eventually got all of the glass picked up and properly disposed of, her feet and knees were bloody messes.

Sighing, she hobbled into the house, grateful for the lack of carpeting on the floor and made her way to the bathroom. She could tweeze out any bits of glass, clean herself up and use her entire supply of Ninja Princess bandaids. It’d be great. Really.

It was only much later, as she was sitting curled up in her chair with Sanskrit snoozing contentedly in her lap, that Bindhi realized just how quiet it was without Avacyn around. And it was the sort of quiet she didn’t in the least like.

“Kind of lonely, isn’t it, baby boy,” she murmured as she tickled the dog’s silky ears. “Gonna be like this for the rest of our lives, probably. I’m not used to it just being us anymore. I keep thinking she’s gonna pop out somewhere and tell me it was all a shitty joke. And right now, i wouldn’t care if it was. I miss her, buddy. It hurts how much I miss her.”

Quieter sobs broke the silence as Bindhi broke down and one little dog whined in confusion and tried his best to lick her tears away.