the secrets that you keep are at the ready

((RP MODE))

Nostalgia hits at the oddest times, and for the oddest things. I miss Lumindor. Oh, it's still there, but changed beyond recognition--I miss it as it was. I miss the trees. I miss my tree. I miss the sithen, and the sound of wind through leaves, knowing some of those leaves would shiver and turn odd colors at the touch.

The thought of trees going away...saw to trunk, and the protracted slow death of such long-lived things...it shudders my soul. I can't bear the thought of it.

Mostly, though, I just feel loss. Hollowed out from the thought of it, from the feel of such...absence, from the land.



I'm hollowed out for another reason, these days. Coming into winter with empty branches of my own, so to speak. When Lilit heard of the transformation that befell Valruna--again--she brought me out, controlled and barricaded, to see what had been wrought.

When she returned to Hell, I decided enough was enough. I found a mage who wished a bargain. He made one with Lilit. The wording was simple, and woefully foolish on his part: one task, and she'd be free.

Of course she accepted.

We did that one task, our paired hands moving, the world grey for me when it wasn't red. And when we were done, when I raised dripping hands before my face, I felt her leave me.

And I was alone, only myself, for the first time since my young demon hatched his upstart plan.

My first thought, of course, was my Raven. I returned to the lands above to find news I'd never expected to hear: of his death in far lands. To this day I do not know what happened, or how he fell.

But he will not be returning to me. And the lad from the East has vanished to each and every trace I'm capable of casting.

The Court is shattered. Valruna is lost to me, and all in it. Lumindor...I barely recognize, denizens or dells. And Taupo increasingly feels like a dream, fading.

Alone in the world to make my way. It's not the first time. But it will be far from easy this time around, precarious balance hard-bought, Lilit's practicality removed. Oh, I can still wear her form, and I think I will never lose the hunger, for certain things.

And I still have the tentacles...though they begin to fade.

But I am not her. And I must find out where in this world, there is, for me to be.