The caves of Helovia's Heart were, oddly enough, the place where the Dark Empress felt the most at ease. When she had been imprisoned in the cells of old rock and ancient carvings, she had been uneasy, flighty, desperate to claw her way to the surface - and yet, now that she had the freedom to emerge into the sunlight, she found herself unable or unwilling to do so. Perhaps her last meeting with her Ice King had left nostalgia in her heart; perhaps she merely liked the loneliness. Either way, here she was.

And yet it did not make her unhappy, this newfound apathy - she found the darkness of the caverns quite pleasant. Even in the heat of Tallsun, the damp caves were cool, if a bit humid, reminding her of easier, happier times. She had been so long in the north that she had forgotten how to live in a real summer; her coat had not shed as it was meant to, lying in patchy ugliness, shedding clumps here and there but failing to fully disperse. Perhaps it was a bit of vanity that kept her underground, for though she had never been particularly beautiful, she had always been sleek and well-kept. But down here, it hardly seemed to matter.

In fact, nothing seemed to matter in the bowels of the earth. Why should she emerge into hatred and revulsion when she could stay in peace down below? Why should she set herself up for failure when she could continue to hide from her fears?

They would not forgive her, those creatures up there, the ones who she had targeted and attacked again and again. They would not want her in their lands, in their homes, in their herds - they would not want her to taint their children to madness, to turn whispered nothings into sweet betrayals. No, they would not want her - and, further, they did not need her. She was wholly inconsequential, a discovery that had, at first, driven her mad with anger and sadness and pain. Now, though, it was almost a relief. No one could ask anything of her anymore, if only because no one cared to. No one could hurt her anymore, if only because she would not give them the chance. No one could expect anything of her, if only because she was now, by all accounts, little more than a ghost.

Once, she had been everything.

Now, she was nothing.

@[Snö]

"Talk talk talk."