Life could be rewarding and wonderful, then crude and cruel the next. This was another one of those callous moments, sprinkled amongst the serene nuptials and gallant endeavors, to engulf, to dissuade, to ensue and instigate the paradoxes of virtue into assembled nefariousness. While they moved through the caves, while they peered at the gleaming varnish and the glimmering jewels, another body was found, and her heart sunk, plunged. She hadn’t yet become used to the decaying corpses or the fallen comrades buried in clues and mysteries, hadn’t become immune to the promises their lives had kept, then sundered, then ruined, then tossed out into the void with one perilous motion. Perhaps, what was worst of all, what rooted and withered, festered and brooded, amongst her serpentine soul, one day waxing poetical, the next, traipsing in hollowed cores, was that she clearly recognized the tiny soul bludgeoned, beaten, and battered upon the cavern floor. Öde, a child once immersed in demonic tracings, in pestilent chords, in the hours of devils and fiends, collapsed upon their wintry doorstep, and she’d healed him, brought him back from the brink of chaos, of anarchy, of destruction, only to have him meet this disturbing end. The guilt ate away at her as she stared, wide-eyed and unbelieving, towards the gathering crowd, towards the boy who’d been so close, and then so far. She ignored Imogen’s comforting chirp, the swallowing dovetails of charity and benevolence, because she hadn’t bestowed enough on this lad, hadn’t kept him safe, hadn’t protected him from the dangerous, treacherous entities carving their niche in the brutal waves of Helovia. She closed her eyes, breathed, felt the pain arch and slide through her frame, attempted to bestow the beautiful serenade of Time and all of its whittling components, desperation clawing and biting, scratching and rasping - trying to undo what had been done. The Mender poured her concentration through songbird requiems and passionate whispers of I’m sorry, little one, beat moments and hours and junctures against the cave walls, but when she opened her eyes once more, naught had changed. The child still remained in repose, in quietus, and the forlorn etching of her failure rang against the drumming echoes and the inept granules. Each beat of her heart was one he would never have again. The Songbird lowered her head, ashamed to glance upon him any longer, and stayed, reciting silent prayers, practicing vigilant alms.

[Alysanne has already posted for our team, so this is for character development. ^__^]