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Close to the city of Alduun stood Marcellus’s favorite tree, its leafes a vivid red. Beneath its canopy, he often came to escape, and there he sat down to sketch. Many times during his years as a ward of the Tar-Zôrzagar, he had hidden himself in the cool shadows of its branches. Marcellus knew very little of his uncle, Emperor Hadrian. The man always seemed either too distant to approach or to daunting to confront. On the parchment before him, faint figures began to take shape, one of the Tar and one of the Emperor. It was drawn from a vague memory of his youth, of a rare moment when he had seen the two speak with one another. It was the only memory he had of Hadrian in which the Emperor did not seem frightening or cold.

Marcellus Antony thought of his uncle woke af

The Ember sighed as she folded the missive gently in her hands. That it had to come to this, she thought to herself. A night was dedicated to prayer by The Springmother's shrine, wishing upon clarity, peace and unison for what there was to come. The prayer left little to no trust for Liriana as she made her way back home in Illivira.

Liriana wondered what a simple elf could have done to cause all this. You would think the man killed people!

Liriana waved the missive in Yra'lissa's face; one the Eltaliyna surely had already seen. "HA! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? After all these years. But a promise is a promise! - How will he even return it all if Dyonne left? What will you vote for to happen Yra'lissa, would you tell me? Tell me please!" she begged, grabbing her arm as she jumped up and down. "Oh! I wonder if they will shave of his hairless head. It would be HILARIOUS! Promise you'll vote for that! Promise Yra!" Liriana went on, like a child having candy for the first time.

· · ─ ·✶· ─ · · A RAVEN’S WISH Octavia stared at the cane, her only tangible connection to a lineage of women. A heavy inheritance gifted first by a great-great-grandmother, passed down through generations until it found itself within her trembling hands. The Raven that crowned the handle of the cane missed both its eyes. It was blind, just like the rest of the women in her family were and acted much like an inescapable metaphor. Soon she looked back at her reflection in the mirror by her vanity. Her eyes were pale and grey, boring and mundane. Her glass was pale and spotless, like porcelain. For many years she had taken a detached pride in her beauty. It was normal, safe, and hers. But now, it was all a blur. The woman she once recognized within that reflection was now a mere hazy figure, dissolving. Desperation seized her, she widened her eyes and tried to force clarity back. Yet, minutes passed by as she stared into the mirror. A knot began to grow in the pit of her stomach. ”Not me. It was not supposed to be me,” she screamed out at her reflection, punching the mirror with her fist until she bled, until it broke. Every moment, and her entire existence, had been an effort to evade this very moment. She dismissed subtle sensitivities, assured herself with soft-spoken lies of misunderstandings. The once-pristine surface of the mirror lay scattered before her, shattered into pieces and her reflection returned into a thousand jagged, glittering pieces. Her knuckles coated in her own ichor, and dripped onto the floor at her feet, only to see her own blur still. · · ─ ·✶· ─ · · Her vision had finally met the end of the line, darkening with each blink until it looked no different than spilled ink. Octavia rubbed her eyes frantically, smearing her tears and panic across that visage of hers but the friction brought no clarity in that pool of darkness. She gasped, her throat suddenly feeling too tight as the periphery of her vision collapsed inward. A terrifying nothingness, a thief stealing the shapes of the room and finally the light of the windows. “No, no, please, not yet,” she screamed in a pathetic plea, whilst dropping to the floor. Her hand raised, clawing at the empty air as if an attempt to physically tear away the darkness that surrounded her yet it was absolute. The world she guarded so jealously vanished, assured with the final wooden echo of that wooden relic falling against her leg. · · ─ ·✶· ─ · · Octavia dragged herself across the floorboards, clawing her way to the balcony of the building which was followed by the rush of night air; a familiar sight to be met even if she could see. Her head tilted back, aiming her unseeing gaze to what she presumed to be the skies, and where those vast indifferent heavens laid. With a cracking voice, she heralded and begged of the distant lords of the world. That voice carried a rawness unmatched, a terror draped over its essence as she grasped onto the balcony’s ledge. “Take the music from my ears, take the sensation from my hands or the years from my lungs; I do not need to hear, I do not need to feel. Just let me see! I am not like my elders, you cannot take this from me, not yet, not when I have so much to look upon!” Those words came out as a disjointed litany, offering to the skies anything she could; her voice, her ability to walk, the very years of her life all in trade of hypothetical futures for one single glimpse once more. She pleaded and pleaded, to burn through the curtain which had fallen over her eyes, yet no response came. Only the calm winds rattling the pane and the heavy, settling silence of a universe that had claimed her inheritance. Slowly, her screams faded into broken sobs, her face wet with both rain and tears, staring blindly into the infinite. The fury which once burnt within her had long faded now, leaving only a hollowness so vast it felt physically heavy for Octavia. Her knees could barely support the weight of her grief, and she slid down the walls until she curled against the balcony’s edge. The rain continued to mist over her, yet she no longer carried a will to care. Her hand, fumbling within that darkness, brushed against the smooth wood of the cane she had discarded just mere moments ago, and her fingers found themselves curling around the eyeless raven, clutching onto it. Octavia closed her useless eyes, perhaps more so out of habit than anything else, and surrendered to tire as she fell into slumber.

I am grateful for my beautiful gorgeous amazing wonderful friend @Phersadesily so much. happy thanksgiving

Vevina did a big thumbs up.

Down the square of Rittersberg Mirabella walked, and the emptiness left by Lorena's absence weighed upon her. Where once she had glimpsed her in every corner of the Empire, her absence was no more but a vague memory.

A young prince frowned over the words spun of rumor and gossip. Yet as he moved through the crowd in Rittersberg, his gaze lingered watchfully on the strangers he passed.

Warm was the smile that fell over Mirabella's visage. Very soon after the news had reached her, she sent out one of her maids to travel to Petra on her behalf. The task for the maid was a simple one; she was to deliver a richly adorned basket, carrying gifts for the mother and her heir to the Archducess. A treat the Rostova hoped the Mother would enjoy.

Iuilé squinted her eyes as she read the missive. "He is looking for.... deliverymen?"