#project metalsea

The battle marched on full force, seeking to bring Avelyn to her knees. Her concentration was strained to the point where she could barely distinguish the voices, noises, screams, and clashes from friends to enemies. She kept her will straight, however. The precise movements had eaten themselves into her muscles, but she needed to use her intent to slide her feet in the right direction, her arms into the perfect angle. She felt her exhaustion around, guiding the used golden energy back into their bodies. 

Darmon danced the same warpath, in a perfect synchronicity with her. Avelyn trained her eyes to not flinch when the blackened figures clearly aimed to march towards them. Drehana flung her whip at two attackers, Syon slashing them down in a well-managed teamwork. On the other side, Bra’aka roared as he fought back a handful of Zheva’s army, side by side with his draar unit. They circled Avelyn and Darmon like a protecting ward, never stopping, never faltering. 

Sweat drenched Avelyn’s forehead, the constantly coming, and going, taken and given energy cramping her limbs into a neverending motion, leaving behind aches and a drain that made her grit her teeth. She focused on the used-up golden energy, glowing brightly in the air, twirling from every single magic-touched individual. Feet forwards, slow spin, hands up, then slowly down, fingers stiff then softly drawn back. She stepped as she was taught, a cacophony of chaos devouring her. 

Her eyes followed the trail as she poured as much energy into the sagging Bra’aka, the armoured lot trying to close around them. Avelyn blinked away a feverishly hot drop of sweat and aimed at the next person. 

A raw yell cut through her concentration. It resonated in her chest, unlike the rumble of battlecries, the clashing of swords, or the slashing of flesh. Her blood ran ice cold, as her feet missed the next step, eyes searching frantically on the battleground. 

No.

Through the ring of defence, Cronyl lay in the dirt, a spear bursting from his chest and the golden life energy escaping him in an alarmingly rapid manner. He did not move. 

No.

Avelyn’s fingers began to shake. 

No. 

Her gaze roamed through her friends, exhausted but still going. Darmon stepped before her, guiding a big chunk of energy into the girls, then into Bra’aka. 

“Go,” he said over his shoulder, eyes forward and red from the building fever from overuse of power. 

Avelyn took off. Small stones like needles under her feet cut into flesh, but she ran. She ran, and ran through the armoured fighting, shoving an already stumbling enemy into the centre of the fight. With it, she slipped, falling on her knees and seeing a blade tower over her. Eldnar stopped and pushed back the enemy in the next moment, going for its neck with his spikes. Avelyn swallowed back her terror as she began to crawl to Cronyl not far from her anymore. The ground was an opened bleeding heart underneath. She ignored the thick pool under him as she crawled into the blood and pulled herself into a kneeling position. Around her, the slaughter did not stop for a moment. 

No. Avelyn tugged Cronyl into her lap, coughing out a sob, and dirt. Her skin was red-hot compared to his. He had his jaw broken, eyes staring upward, chest punctured through, then dragged open by the weapon in it. No.

Avelyn guided every golden trail into his chest, pushing her hand to his wound as if the proximity would make a difference. She grabbed them all, the movements clumsy but enough. Yet, it did not last. However much she channelled into him, it evaporated back into the open air. His body did not hold the life essence. 

No.

Avelyn’s chest tightened into a knot. Her breath quickened into a rhythm not even the driadlin masters’s movements would match. She gritted her teeth, hot, angry, desperate tears streaking through her burning cheeks, and she moved her hands up with the crystal-solid intention of draining everything she could. The golden energy wiggled, and twirled, thrashing like a wild animal as it ran — was snatched away from their enemies. She couldn’t take away something they did not use up, she could not take away a life; but she could grab the energy the moment it left their body.

Avelyn pushed her hand deeper into Cronyl’s open wound, blood bubbling between her stained fingers. She shuddered and trembled from the hollow film that settled on his once intense gaze. No. Her face contorted with the deep cracks that kept shattering her heart. She leaned down to touch her forehead to Cronyl’s, screaming as she pulled everything she could from around herself into his form. 

The world warped and blurred. Her skin felt like it would burn off her bones any minute. She heard every noise as one, her sore voice coming from outside herself. Avelyn kept her flaming fingers on his chest, crumbling under the pressure of so much life energy. She kept channelling, and screaming until the air was too thick to inhale. 

And then it stopped. 

The terrible noises of the battlefield, the maddeningly spinning world, the feeling of others’s essence eating at her insides just to burst out into another bout. Something snapped, and Avelyn was deaf, breathing raggedly, while her tears kept drenching her face and Cronyl’s cold forehead. No more energy ran through her body — there was no more to find. As if all life had disappeared, she was alone. 

It took a long time to lift her head. 

She was in a room, a blinding white nothingness that had no depth, no sound, no direction. She found no weight within herself, or on her knees where Cronyl’s head still lay. The blood that was oozing, and drying on him vanished as well. 

And his eyes were closed. 

Avelyn put Cronyl on the ground softly, standing on two shaking feet. Even though weightless, the vastness — the endlessness of her surroundings tried to bury her under. She wasn’t going to let it, however. She straightened, taking a step forward. 

With that, she felt the morphing within, and the depthlessness decreased. The sensation of having walls around, as if standing in a room rushed at her. She looked around, not seeing anything, but the feeling did not disappear. 

She stepped forward again, and she could make out a barely perceptible slit on one of the walls. With caution, Avelyn walked to it. The closer she got, the sharper; the more real it got. Nearly up close, she found it wasn’t a slit — it was a crack on the wall, that had an uneven piece missing.

And through that missing piece, Avelyn saw Cronyl. 

He was a little boy, playing with other draar kids in a flower field. The scene played out before her eyes like a moving painting. The way they smiled and laughed, and then as Cronyl later found himself surrounded by other driadlin kids, beating him up because of his draar friends. He didn’t cower, nor give up. He clawed and fought, but he was smaller than the others. When he pulled himself into a groaning, sobbing ball on the ground, the scene re-started. 

Avelyn staggered back a little. She dragged over her gaze and found another crack, with a different scene. Then another, and another. As she turned around, the room materialised before her eyes, reaching into the white nothingness, revealing its cracks running through its surface. Avelyn turned, and turned around, slowly spinning until her head began to buzz. She breathed heavily, a stray tear still running over her cheek once or twice. 

And every crack had a missing piece, displaying a moment of Cronyl’s life. As Avelyn looked through them, she recognised many of the cracks’ shapes. With a thick swallow, she walked closer to one and looked over the edges that curled exactly like one of Cronyl’s scars. Avelyn knew his wounds like she knew her own palm, and she saw every one of them around herself, the memories marked into it like an infinite dream. 

She was standing in the gallery of his pain, and she found why she couldn’t heal him. The cracks let the energy seep out, some of them pulsing with it, some of them losing it. Avelyn’s stomach churned in agony. Most of it kept it and tried to absorb it. 

Except one, that reached under where Avelyn stood and was lost into the empty white sky. It seemed like it split the whole place in two, and the missing piece’s shape brought out a shuddering breath from her. 

It was the contour of Cronyl’s exile tattoo. 

Avelyn walked up to it with heavy limbs but with a determination in her bones. The crack that belonged to it refused to keep any of the golden life energy inside, almost even pushing it out, rejecting it as if poisonous. 

The scene it held was different from the rest. It did not start, or end. It was a simple, constant picture of a child — Cronyl, kneeling before two laying figures on the ground, frozen in blood, and fire blazing all around him. 

“Save them,” a weak voice whispered from somewhere. A child’s voice. 

Avelyn didn’t think twice before she placed her palm over the scene’s surface. There was no need to push, she could easily step into it, the heat of the burning house hot enough to melt, and the air suffocating from ash and death. Her eyes watered from the sting of burning skin. She put her sleeve before her nose and dived deeper. 

The two figures were rigid on the ground, throats slashed open by a clean cut. Over them, the child knelt, wailing hoarsely. Blood dripped from his lips, a fresh, raw cut tearing through his top lip through his cheek and left eye, up until his brow. 

“Save them,” he sputtered, eyes disappearing under the heels of palms that sunk into them. “You need to save them!” 

Avelyn crumpled to her knees beside the child. She choked on the scratching air and the sorrow that snaked upward her throat. However she looked at them, she knew she couldn’t do anything. 

“SAVE THEM,” the child screamed. Avelyn heard the crack widen. 

All the sorrow, all the pain — she could heal wounds, but she didn’t know how could she fix this. The only thing she could always do was to take upon others’s hurt, yet she didn’t know how to have his. How to… 

The child’s skin began to disintegrate into golden specks and absorb into her fingers when she tried to touch his shoulder. His wails softened only a little, and the cracking stopped. Avelyn couldn’t absorb the pain, but she could carry the memory. 

Without a moment of hesitation, she pulled herself closer and embraced the child. 

Her chest began to burn, hotter than anything she ever felt. She wanted to scream from the utter agony that touched her soul, and what kept coming and coming, drowning out everything. The shards of the memory, that cut so deep she felt herself bleeding without being wounded. The details, the parents, the…

A hand grabbed her wrist gently and pulled her off. 

She gasped, sobbing uncontrollably, disoriented. Her head spun, and buzzed, her chest trying to rip apart. She felt like her heart grew into a stone, weighing her down to never move. 

But her eyes cleared when she looked up. 

“You can’t do this,” Cronyl told her. He was fully grown as she knew him, without blood smearing him all around, squatting beside her as he used to. Both his eyes watched her, but they didn’t seem to struggle. His voice was firm, and her tears rolled forward from the touch that felt real on her wrist. 

“I must.” She smiled softly. “You can’t die on me just yet, so I must, and I will.” 

“No.” Cronyl kept her gaze as the house around them creaked and stumbled, burning. “He’s not yours to carry.” 

“But…”

“He’s not.” It was a whisper, a tender but unquestionable statement. Avelyn found herself almost giving up. Her lips trembled like the child before her, and she closed her eyes to take a heavy breath. He caressed her cheek and swiped away her tears. “Go, Avel. I’ll have him.” 

She opened her pleading eyes. 

“I will have him,” he repeated, firmer, “and I will come back to you.”  

Without another word, he pushed her hard, and Avelyn stumbled back on her knees, falling out from the scene. Before her, the wailing child kept his bloody palms in his eyes, but this time, he wasn’t alone. Much like Avelyn before, Cronyl embraced the boy who then began to dissolve. The crack shook, torn between opening further or closing in, and the child’s echoing screaming slowly quieted. As if finding a home between Cronyl’s arms, he relaxed and wrapped his small, fading arms around his torso. 

Avelyn scrambled to her feet, and she felt the whole place crumbling. The scars seemed to make it already fragile. But, her worry was in vain as the scene morphed and warped before her eyes —- the burning house collapsing down, the bodies disappearing and to their place, two gravestones growing on a meadow. The child faded into Cronyl, and he stayed kneeling in front of the graves, a solemn smile on his scarred lips. 

Yaran’s Mid-Summer Festival held such a strange version in its glowing belly.

Avelyn smiled at Cronyl, suppressing a sigh.

The grandiose bonfire crackled in the centre of the desert, people dancing and singing around. They ate, drank, and celebrated in a way that could nearly convince Avelyn that life wasn’t fully known back in her home. Bra’aka could lure even Cronyl to the dancefloor, teasing relentlessly about his make-believe inability. They did not last too long, yet the ghostly touch of a smile still rested on his lip when he walked back to her. Since then, they sat on the two sides of this rough stone table, watching the lot, hands touching on the top just enough to feel the other’s presence.

Avelyn should have wanted to dance with Cronyl. Every couple did that. She, however, was overwhelmed by another feeling. She loved to be around Cronyl, she wanted to be around him. But tonight, for the longest time perhaps, her mind was not focused on him. Tonight, she looked at the colorful, gemlike fire lamps and saw herself as a kid, reaching for them to grab it; just like a little one did the same thing not far from them. Tonight, she noticed the rigid little stumbles she and Syon made, when they practised the required siblings dance — exactly like two little ones on the edge of the dancefloor. Tonight, the sweet-scented desserts on the tables have made her see herself nervously pulling on Father’s clothes to get his attention and let Syon convince him to buy them some. Just like the Shar-Dlin twins did, doe-eyes watching the desserts intently on the food table.

Tonight, Avelyn realized this Mid-Summer Festival wasn’t so much different after all. If only this epiphany could have filled the hollow that a home being out of reach has left.

“Shall we?” The voice of crackling fire asked, earning her attention.

Avelyn looked up to find her sister standing before her, one delicate hand extended forward. Her features bore the same calm confidence she used to see in her in their entire life. Yet, she could also see her shoulders slump in a way that others might have missed. But not Avelyn.

Not her.

Avelyn accepted the hand. It was a strange feeling really, her hand in Syon’s. Something she rarely experienced, even in their childhood.

She rose from her seat and was about to turn to Cronyl so she could inform him — or ask for reassurance of her decision. However, he was already walking past Syon’s back. One, metal-focused eye glanced at Avelyn and a slight nod made her feel gratefulness bloom in her chest. If someone, Cronyl knew way too well when to be on his way.

With that, Avelyn stayed alone with her sister. Syon held her hand carefully, but firmly, leading her onto the dance floor. Only then, did Avelyn notice how the gathering settled and slowed down. The fire still flickered and blazed at the centre, but there were very few people standing. The music died out, so the only melody came from the djanvaar’s gentle humming. Fluttering, playing starbugs conquered the dance floor, tiny explosions of their small stars lighting up even more. She wondered if the old tales had been right; that wild starbugs only did that if they were happy.

Syon stopped them in the middle, equally far from everyone and everything. She then turned to Avelyn and slid her hand over her waist. Such a strange feeling still. Avelyn did the same, noticing her movements being more rigid than relaxed. It wasn’t something she was used to. Yet she wanted to stay.

So she lifted her gaze to look into her sister’s eyes.

Bad idea.

They were staring at her as well, both of that unusual tinge she only saw on warriors. Syon never failed to seem intimidating or let her gaze be just a little less intense. That was one of the reasons why Avelyn never really locked eyes with her.

“It’s strange, isn’t it?” She didn’t mean to speak, but she couldn’t stop herself either. “This festival. So strange. I mean, what they did with all these plants as decoration and the djaanvar as some kind of musicbox. It’s eccentric the least. Can you imagine what Mother would think?”

Children laughed in the background, their voices turning small but just as full of joy as before. Syon scoffed, yet a genuine half-curve painted her face softer instead of the humourless smile she always gifted people with.

“She’d be out of her mind. But she’d enjoy the dance, if Father would ask her for a round, that is,” she chuckled, and Avelyn needed to swallow back a surprised gaping. A similar giggle left her throat, as unintentional as unstoppable.

Their bare feet tapped the warm ground close beside each other, Syon’s presence ruling their dance. She guided Avelyn’s movements just like she did when they were small. Those lessons were one of the most challenging in their childhood. She remembered clearly because they were a spectacle back then, the peculiar siblings who were not easy to forget.

She felt a gentle push on her back, looking back into Syon’s eyes.

“Do you remember our dance lessons?”

Avelyn opened her mouth, then looked at her feet that almost stepped on Syon’s accidentally. Her feet avoided Avelyn’s as proficiently as always, smoothing out their performance the best she could. Yet, no force was in her anymore.

“I’m sorry,” Avelyn started, trying to lean back. Syon let her. “Clearly, I do.”

Another chuckle joined the humming of the djaanvar.

“You’re doing great, Lyn. Dance Master Liona would be proud. She’d even forgive all the headache we gave her.” They turned, the flames coming to Avelyn’s sight, outlining Syon’s form like blazing fireflies in the night. “She might never forget us.”

“Not much sibling pair made her nearly quit. We could thank Father’s soft-spoken charm that she stayed — that’s what Mother told me.”

The memory came alive in the fire’s flickers, Avelyn’s eyes following their little forms sway to one side and the other. Rigid hands touched, a gaping distance laying between their child flame-figure. Too much distance. “Closer!” and “Act like you’re siblings” faintly echoed in her ears.

She held Syon’s sparkling crimson eyes and found herself smiling with her.

Her body remembered the tension of those touches. Of being so close to the girl who shared the same blood with. Of fear, terrible fear from dancing with a sibling that was no more than a stranger.

“I’m so sorry, Lyn,” Syon whispered, yet it could be heard loud and clear. Confident. Genuine. Avelyn kept the scratching feeling in her throat at bay, forcing herself to keep looking at her sister. To keep listening to her. “I know I’ve been always farther away than I should have been. There is no excuse for that, though I had many. You tried to come close, yet I did not let you. I believed you chose the Temple only to pull yourself out of the noble betrothal misery. At some point, I believed you did it just to let every responsibility of our house fall on me, and me only.”

A feather touch weighed on Avelyn’s back, asking — begging to come a little closer.

She did so.

“I’m aware that was foolish,” Syon continued, voice softer than Mother’s night song. Softer than Avelyn had ever heard. “You might have had a shard of that reason, but I know you merely wanted to get away. From Mother, from Father… from me. You need connections, I realise that now. People to be close with, to be open with. You care so much, it’s frightening. Especially for someone like me. I felt threatened by you, I confess. I envied your ability to read people the way you did; with ease and compassion. And that made me bitter, because compassion I lack, even still…”

“No.” Avelyn’s voice was but a whisper, but nothing had sounded clearer. Syon smiled, her eyes misting the most subtle way. “You do not, sister. I was just as selfish, only more of a coward. You faced your duties and expectations with valiant grace. You had every right to…”

“Lyn.”

A delicate finger, tangled with Avelyn’s, swiped a single teardrop away from her cheek. So kind. So close. So tender. Hearing the kind little nickname Father gave her constantly rolling off of Syon’s lips made her own quiver. All the memories of the lonely girl practising dances in her room alone faded, longing for affection withering away. A glance, a joke, a smile. Everything her soul starved for from a sister out of reach. It twirled in the fire, slowly blending into smoke, and joining the cooling air around them.

Syon embraced her, when Avelyn dared leaning over her shoulder, cheek pressed in the crook of her neck.

“Let me have my regrets, and I let you have yours. Both of us learned and changed, all right? And oh how you did so. I regret how I pushed you away, how I abandoned you, but I am exceptionally proud of who you became, little sister. It was and still is all you. I can only hope you are to forgive me, so I can keep watching your path of becoming an incredible woman even further.”

Words crackled in her throat along with the fire’s flames, hands holding each other so close, that Avelyn found it hard to believe. A soft, silent hiccup left her lips when she felt a distant wetness on her shoulder.

“Not only me. I wanted to become like you, sister. Your memory gave me strength when I used up mine. Even if you couldn’t give me affection, you gave me strength. You gave me will and a role model. I regret not being able to stand beside you when we were little, but I am grateful for a bastion in need,” she breathed, losing herself in the swaying.

A throaty giggle made Syon’s chest resonate, making Avelyn smile along under her closed, drenched lashes. A bastion in need; Father’s attempt to be romantic with Mother. Their only humour source from their childhood.

Huddled beside the fire, Avelyn could still feel the chill that slowly settled onto the horizon, but she was not cold in the embrace of her sister. They stayed tangled, close as never before, until the fire began to flicker. Syon hummed with the djaanvar, yet not the same melody, but an old song they used to sleep to. Avelyn couldn’t help, but join, feeling a weight so profound crumble. She might have been a great distance away from home, yet she did not feel the absence anymore.

Avelyn awoke with a start. 

She became aware of her sleeping state immediately, her mind still standing in the door of Amorellan’s room, but her mind registering how she was laying in her bed. Her body weighed a lot, and her limbs did not move. She slowly seemed to drift back into the dream, the figure’s presence turning sharper. 

No, she resisted.

Her eyes peeled open as she used her sense of wake to force them obeying her will. A heaviness lingered over her eyelids, yet she kept them open. Slow blinking for taking in the world. 

The tree leaves’ shadows like dancing claws wiggled on the ceiling. She could hear the wind that ruffled them evenly, making them look like a too long fingered palm.

The last time she had such an experience was so long ago, she couldn’t really recall it. And still, she had a lingering dread in her bones, one that felt way too familiar. 

Avelyn kept staring at the ceiling.

Her eyelids moved heavy and slow, the dream’s luring sensation evenly snaking out of her reach. She shivered under the fur blanket, even though the cold had no room to sneak under it. Its touch, however, was able to keep caressing her face, and helping her break the unnerving spell of another dreamwalk. 

The trees’ shadows danced, but their shape softened. They did not seem threatening anymore, and the wind’s wandering breeze turned more refreshing. She could finally breathe evenly, her eyes not jumping from one corner to the other anymore. The weighing shards of a scattered nightmare lifted from her limbs. She could finally move. 

“What was that?” she muttered into the soundless night, sitting up slowly. She didn’t expect to hear an answer, of course, yet the words rolled off of her tongue anyway. 

Soft dread sat on her shoulders, as she straightened, exhaustion hanging heavy from her eyelids. There were moments, when she would awoke during the night, but this felt different. She had nightmares before, yet the after effect was nothing like this time. Avelyn wasn’t even sure she could have called it a nightmare at all. 

Yet, the unease remained. 

She stared at her blanketed legs, awareness of the nightgown’s touch on her body slowly reaching her. Cold air swirled in the room, sneaking in through the open window. The tree’s shadow waltzed on her blanket. 

Avelyn sighed, taking in a deep breath before deciding to stand up. 

It was an awfully quiet night. 

However much she saw of the shadows, and smelled the sweet scent of winter blooms, she felt more as if she woke in frozen time, as if the cold would have stopped it. Every smell was tainted with the tempering touch of snow, muting it into a barely noticeable sensation. 

Perhaps it was the night that brought her such thoughts. 

Avelyn shivered, when she slipped out of the warm embrace of furs, leaving her veil on the nightstand as she approached the window. She tended to like night time, for the world turned as black and white for a short time as she ever saw it. In these hours, she could belong, as if the world was a place she was a part of. That must have been why she was never afraid of the dark before. 

Why was she hesitant to keep herself awake then? 

Truly, that dream was strange, but it was only that; a dream. Nothing she should have been frightened of. The details blurred in her memory, but the feeling still lingered, however faintly. It was the dread of a nightmare, unsettling Avelyn into a frown. 

She pulled her clothes tighter on her chest, when she looked out from the window. Foolishness lay in her worries, so she forced herself to take her mind off of it. Instead, she focused on the bold Phravani wind that softened into a gentle caress. 

Outside the world showed her the view of a snowy scenery, the mountain’s various mounds reaching upwards. Every top has been blanketed with white glistening under the moonlight. Almost the same way as the other abodes’ rooftops, the covers of every bud in their gardens, and the Temple itself.  She couldn’t remember seeing snow falling, yet from the amount of it, it should have been falling for days or maybe weeks now. 

Or, well, in Evalon it should have been. 

Perhaps it was a common thing in Phravan. Indeed, as Avelyn’s tired mind slowly recalled her brief studies, she could remember some pieces mentioning the frequent snowing. There was a reason why they wore such thick clothing after all. 

What she drank in with growing awe, however, was the scenery itself. The neatly arranged abodes beside the Temple, that stood proud and tall under the Moon. Its glowing orb seemed to be the building’s own reflector, the shining light nearly turning it into a flaming sensation in the dead of night. As if Veilnieve herself would have been present, so even nature dressed up for her arrival. 

Avelyn smiled to herself. 

She pulled her clothes closer in her chest when the wind found her window again. The Moon somehow seemed to lighten even the breeze’s path. 

Still, as she travelled her gaze lower, the brightness was waning with it. Under the curving rooftop of the Temple, shadows lurked. They weren’t completely black, Avelyn could recognise the faint outline of the magnolia trees dancing at the centre of the main garden. For a moment, she seemed to forget about the dread in her bones, as her infinite companion, the darkness successfully calmed her nerves. 

The draar and the driadlin always fought for lands, but one time, the draar Queen had enough. She chellenged the best warrior (the driadlin Prince) for a one on one fight, so they could decide the conflict once and for all. All their force stopped for that time, sealing the deal in a treaty. Then, the fight has come, and the Queen seemed to win. However, the driadlin Prince’s bride was so desprate for losing her love that she interrupted them, stabbing the Queen in the back, saving the Prince. The driadlin foces then sorrounded the draars in the valley kind of place they camped and conqured those parts.

Looming shadows stretched around like a blanket covering the sweet children at night. Formless, familiar figures. Those, who she wouldn’t name without worrying about tasting sand, her tongue turning ash in her mouth.

People, surround her, caging her. 

She was in the temple. Alone. Lonely. There wasn’t a single soul around, only her and the echoing halls of the Phravani. They were mounting, stretching into heaven, far above the sky. She couldn’t see the ceiling, just like in the Illatheum. 

She couldn’t breathe. 

“Worry not,” a gentle voice called. It was everywhere. 

She trembled, standing in the great hall, letting the wind play with her locks. 

Wind.

Tender, caressing, soothing. 

Merciless, dangerous, deadly. 

She was trembling, searching for the voice in the vast, open space, her toes sinking into soft satin. Pillows for praying, scattered around. She was standing on one, her limbs numb, immovable.  She tried to encourage herself to step, yet never succeeded. 

“It’s alright.” It was the same voice, but where did it come from? 

Shadows were all around, as if idly waiting people. Watching her. Studying her. 

Reading her soul. 

Then, a pathway opened up — an aisle really. Beautiful, rich, decorated. She was walking through it, passing paintings of great philosophers and prophets. Theoden, and his Path. He was among them, the one she recognised immediately. 

She wanted to hide. 

The aisle led to a two-winged door, pearlescent gleaming glittering on its surface. There was no telling where from, but she knew where it opened to. And so she reached for the handle, pushing it gently. 

The door creaked silently.

She peeked in, her heart throbbing in her throat. She found a glimpse of fine praying flyers hanging from the walls discreetly, no paintings drilled into them. A simple carpet stretched across the floor, a similarly humble, carefully made bed and a vanity beside it. No carving ornamented the mirror painted matte obsidian, leaving the place without a lively glisten. Something she always noticed in a place lived in. 

She shuddered, a knot that never left her stomach weighing her down even more. The place held so much in itself, yet she nearly crumbled under its emptiness. 

And she knew it was Amorellan’s. 

Seemingly, the thought brought her out, her eyes catching the other’s regal form blending into the crashing shadows. As if they were coming from her. 

Amorellan was inspecting something, an object, almost as radiatingly hollow as herself. Her back faced her, which let her believe Amorellan was not aware of her presence. 

Amorellan twirled the object in her hand, inspecting it. There was no sign of what it was, or what she intended to do with it. Yet, she had a sickening feeling in her gut, a warning. 

Amorellan held up her hand, and so she caught a little peek of an awfully familiar, yet foreign item.