He’d heard, or been told once by his grandmother, that dreams could be windows. Not always of course, sometimes a dream was just a dream and a nightmare didn’t herald certain doom come dawn. But sometimes.. sometimes they showed your heartsong when you needed it most. Perhaps that was why he’d been seeing Ahlain so often in his sleep of late. “Or mayhaps I’ve sat you on a pedestal you didn’t deserve.” He winced at the sentence even as it left his mouth. Brutal truths bruised. But truths they remain. Five years worth of time- four if one considered a year of bare acknowledgements- and he’d mourned twice that. That was five years longer than any rational miqo’te would have lingered on a memory, especially a moon veil clan. Veils were meant to be lifted, after all, even when it hurt. He turned the rosary over in his fingers, the worn shapes smooth from years of such touch. He’d never really asked what prayers were offered on each of those beads. It’d seemed too personal a question. Ishgardians seemed to take their faith with such a painful solemness it made it hard to watch. He’d learned of Halone’s halls and refused to ask of more. Miqo’te didn’t belong there. Not his kind, at any rate. His people lived and died and joined the soil and slipped into the veins of the earth to be reborn again and again. Their ephemeral existence was an old cycle, one where everything connected and blossomed from the same running stream. If Halone collected her children like so many twinkling stars then there really was nothing to hold on for. “I.. forgive you for going so soon. If Halone is as just as you said you’re already there. But if my grief kept any of you here.. I’m sorry. I release you Ahlain. Moon guide you home.” He paused a moment, fingers tightening around the rosary beads before he opened his hand and let them slip from his palm into the cool, deep, stream at his feet.
