From
Dusk til Dawn

Sole Survivor

I can't escape it
I'm never gonna make it out of this in time
I guess that's just fine
I'm not there quite yet

A meaningless death. None of the honor from dying for a cause. Lacking the solemn sympathy of a death by a malicious enemy. Without the tragic understanding of death at the hands of nature. When all is lost at the hands of an apathetic error– a faceless army who simply had the wrong target– how is the sole survivor of a pointless massacre supposed to cope?Collateral damage to a myth.In an act of religious zealotry, an enlisted band of knights and clergy of the Holy See sought to find an old relic dating back to the founding of Ishgard beneath the Sea of Clouds. In place of the shrine they expected in the beautiful valley tucked between peaks of Abalathia's Spine, they instead found a hidden village of Vieran defectors who had left the Skatay Range a generation ago. The blades and flames claimed every life and structure, save for two. A pair of siblings: the sister burned and bleeding, carrying the brother that was succumbing to smoke and ash in her arms.Ellaria didn’t have time to mourn her home nor the rest of her family. She didn’t have time to regret the strained relationships with her people that could never be resolved. There was only Veren, the frail young man in her care, and the endless expanse of rock and snow of the frozen mountain Spine.They made it all the way to the Coerthan Eastern Highlands, where the pair took shelter at the Dawn’s Vigil. Lost to the Calamity, then reclaimed by the elements, it still stood resolute against the biting wind. Enough to keep a fire to feed and warm the shell-shocked siblings. Ellaria did everything in her power to keep her brother alive. He'd always been prone to illness and injury, frail and fragile. But it wasn’t enough. She wasn’t enough. One night while Ellaria slept, Veren walked out of the Vigil and into the white darkness to spare his sister the grief of watching him die in that forsaken place, still thrumming with the energy of the calamity that destroyed it.The next morning, Ellaria was truly alone for the first time. After days of futile screaming into the abyss of the mountains, and a retracing of steps, she came to terms with the fact that she would not find Veren alive. She slaughtered any stragglers of the small band of armored crusaders that had set her home ablaze who dared to linger, searching for clues on their righteous quest. Ellaria had always been strong, violent, and brutal. A hazard born to her people once a generation through the cursed end of the genetic lottery. The obsidian-haired omen. A rage and power that would earn her fear and distrust from her own people, relegated to the fringes of the village, relegated to its protection. And as she put down every soul she encountered, she proved her elders right, only adding more blood to the snow.Faced with the unfamiliar world ahead, Ellara would build a life for herself in the city of Ishgard. For years, she carved a niche, earning work and making connections. All the while, the need for vengeance kept simmering in her blood, just beneath the surface. She was on constant alert for information, paying any price for leads– even if she would not be the one to pay it. Behind the taciturn, yet beautiful facade she wore, she was ruthless in her pursuit. Finally, she would find her answers after copious sweat, tears, and the blood of friend, foe, and self alike.Unfortunately, the answer was that there was no revenge to take. The order that had come to destroy her village and people had been sent as a result of a misinterpretation of old, vague maps of the mountains Led by a religious zealot, the group that had coordinated the attack had dissolved shortly after, after learning that their target had been a mere mistake. A mistake deemed not worth investigating due to the assumed total destruction of the people they had found. The order’s respected leader had died peacefully of old age, surrounded by loving family and respected friends and colleagues. Unaware that his obsession with legacy had left behind a bereaved survivor seeking justice.To Ellaria, this was the worst possible outcome. She’d been able to suppress her rage only by assuring herself that retribution would quell the searing fire in her chest. Once she came to terms with the harsh reality, she had nowhere to aim her fury. Her sorrow. There was only one direction it could go.Inward.

Sinkin' like a stone
Use me like an oar
And get yourself to shore

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on the edge

You trick your lovers
That you're wicked and divine
You may be a sinner
But your innocence is mine

Once the Viera had settled in the city proper and began making a living, she found herself alienated from the people around her for much the same reasons as why she'd always been kept on the fringes of her old home. She was too quiet. Too strong. Too angry. Too rare to smile. In her new life, what few friendships were forged felt fleeting and shallow, wrapped in an air of aloof mystery to avoid putting her true nature on display. Beyond friendship, love felt like something that was wholly incompatible with her way of life. But it was just the way of the world for her to be completely taken by a prickly, but passionate young Hyur.What started as a playful flirtation continued to escalate until the pair were wholly entangled with one another. Their happiness was hard-won, neither equipped to navigate the unexpected development of their relationship. But eventually, they did win it, settling into a comfortable companionship that Ellaria cherished above all else. She'd never loved so deeply, or trusted so fully.It was hard to imagine a better match for Ellaria than Emile ‘Aquila’ Pendragon.If anyone was going to save Elle from herself, it was Emile. And in a turn of good fortune, Emile had recently extended a timely invitation for her to visit him at his new apartment. It had been some time since they’d spent time together– not unusual for a pair of busy and ambitious people. Relieved, the Viera resolved to go and confide her despair to the person who mattered most to her in this world, and he would know just what to say. He always did.But as Elle danced precariously on the rim of oblivion, life decided to send her tumbling down into its depths. She was greeted not with a smile and embrace, but with awkward quiet and averted glances. It was over. His heart was no longer hers to claim. As her heart and mind crumbled alike, she used the rest of her will and strength to take the blow with grace. The smile on her face fought with the tears in her eyes, but she resolved not to break until she was out of the door the following dawn.She never got the chance to confide her struggles; her grief swallowed with the bitter tea they had shared. He saw her off into the spring morning none the wiser. Their parting was so amicable, so peaceful. An ambiguous promise of seeing one another again. Words that should have been comforting, twisting the knife instead. It granted her no true resolution, only adding a new flavor of muddled and confused heartbreak to the swirling storm in her chest.They both knew, in the quiet corners of their hearts, that the promises he made throughout their two years together could never come to be. He was too young to be so sure of his words, and she was so hopelessly devoted that she deluded herself into believing them, ignoring the tugs at the back of her mind to take caution. It was a toxic cycle of hope that would just doom Ellaria to further destruction.She returned home, donned her armor, slung her heavy axe along her back, and never looked back. The small apartment, once a cozy respite from her daily life, was left to squander in dust, the forge growing cold, and fire gone out.The rampage began. The spiral of despair and failure would fuel her to walk off in any direction, axe drawn. She’d fight her grief to a resolution or die trying. The poison of depression stained her thoughts. Another failure. Pointless, just like the deaths of her family. What a fool. He always deserved more than her.The only thing that could soothe her heart was blood, pain, and as much vodka as she could carry.

I want to reconcile
the violence in your heart
I want to recognize
your beauty is not just a mask

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Burning

If I could find a way to see this straight
I'd run away to some fortune that
I should have found
By now

Six months passed and not a soul searched for the raging Viera. It was her own damn fault for being so aloof, so reluctant to make genuine connection, and she knew it. It wasn’t unusual for her to slip away for weeks now and then, but… six months? She’d carved a bloody arc in the continent for six months without so much as a whiff of a search or seizure party. And that streak might have continued if Ellaria hadn’t gotten herself into some unlikely trouble.In the Black Shroud, the Viera had begun to unnerve the native Sylphs with her reckless violence and wanton destruction of flora and fauna alike. When Ellaria made a pit stop to a local tavern, she’d been apprehended by a small company of Twin Adders. The resulting brawl had ended with their captain drop kicked off of a balcony, and Elle seriously injured. She managed to slip away in the chain of command chaos that ensued, but she desperately needed help if she didn’t want to bleed out onto the forest floor.While a dark part of her mind was tempted to simply accept the end, the rage still burned too brightly to be snuffed out just yet. Once again finding herself broken and bleeding, she stumbled to the home of someone she once knew as a talented healer. Ona, the popular Miqo'te bartender and medic alike, lived nearby, and Ellaria had thankfully committed her address to memory long ago. She wouldn’t even count Ona as a close friend, but she knew the woman well enough to know that she’d be more than willing to give any vaguely familiar face all the aid she could spare in times of need.In a stroke of horrible luck, Ellaria stumbled into the quiet home to find Ona absent. Only her husband, Kelta, was home with their young children recently put to bed. Despite the panic of having a distant acquaintance bleeding on his entryway rug, the Miqo’te man acted swiftly, offering Ellaria a potent potion, water, and bandages. He managed to half-carry, half-drag her to a place of comfort, but nothing topical was stopping the blood coming up with every cough and heave of the tall woman’s lungs.Fortunately, Kelta had recently been trained in the craft of Red Magicks. Unfortunately, Kelta had never healed anyone before. Even while heavily inebriated, Ellaria was hesitant to be his first attempt, but they were running out of options. With a resigned acceptance, Elle urged Kelta to try. What could possibly go wrong?A lot, apparently.Thankfully, the healing was successful, the Miqo’te able to manipulate the aether to soothe the flesh and slow the blood. But he did not account for his own exertion, setting his own veins ablaze with the aetherical backlash. His skin began to blister. Ellaria, sobered just enough by the whole experience, had to muster what little strength she had left to tackle the smaller man into a nearby fountain in the entryway of his home. He lost consciousness as soon as he hit the water. Elle was close behind, energy spent, out cold on the hard, wet marble floor.Upon her return, the unfortunate Ona had to clean up the mess in every way imaginable. Despite the healer’s objections, Ellaria was determined to keep moving, only reluctantly accepting a small portion of food before continuing on her way. Her path had taken her in a southern arc, but it was finally time to head north again. To close the circle and return home. Which home she meant, even she was not yet sure.

Restore life the way it should be
I'm waiting for this cough syrup
To come down

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Great Expectations

And we will never be alone again
'Cause it doesn't happen every day
Kinda counted on you being a friend

After cleaning up the mess of blood and water from her floors, Ona sent a letter to one of Ellaria’s closest friends, an Au’ra man by the name of Lokein. He, along with the Miqo’te Cayden, had formed the aptly named ‘Adventure Trio’ along with the Viera currently in distress. Elle considered them the people who knew her most aside from Aquila himself, now lost to her. They were the closest she’d gotten to real friendship, though it was still often at arm’s length. Half-truths. Vague answers. Perhaps it was no surprise that they’d not noticed how long she’d been gone.The two men found their Vieran counterpart looming over the body of a slain Ixal. A pair of Gridanian Wood Wailers lingered nearby to direct them, too frightened to deal with the enraged woman themselves.As Ellaria attempted to breach the Ixali encampment through brute force and a sharp axe, her two closest friends decided that the best course of action was to attack her. Under the assumption that she was simply fighting for fighting’s sake, the pair attempted to subdue the Viera with fists and magicks. But Ellaria was hurting, blades pointed inward. Even the attack on the Ixal was an attempt at dehumanizing herself for her own pain. So when she was pushed to the ground by one of the few people in the world she trusted, it felt like a deep wound of betrayal. A reinforcement of her current course. Of the dark whispers of self-destruction whispering across her mind.Eventually, it was clear that she would not fight back. After they had thoroughly halted her momentum, she agreed to accompany them. The pair took Ellaria to a nearby inn to talk and eat. The woman went with a quiet reluctance. The fastest way out was through. What she did not predict, however, was just how much worse it could get from there. A naive, optimistic corner of her heart had thought her rampage would end that day. That her old friends would come through. Ask about her quest for information that they themselves had aided in the past. Ask about Aquila. Apologize for not finding her sooner.Instead, It was as if someone had given her friends a manual of all of the worst things to say.Lokein could only ask what was wrong, seemingly without any memory of what she had confided in him over the course of their friendship. Like he was interrogating a stranger. Relentless. Aggressive. Shallow. Each repeat of the question set Ellaria’s walls up higher. He was too good and pure a person to understand the tempest in her heart. The urge to hurt and be hurt. It made what care he did show feel hollow and unearned. At the end of everything, he didn’t really know her at all, did he?Cayden took a different approach, talking of his own life. A reasonable idea, except for the part about how blissfully happy his recent wedding had been. A celebration of the type of love she'd just lost at the worst possible time. A wedding Ellaria might have been to if not for her depressive rampage. A picture perfect example of just how little anyone needed or wanted her around. How quickly the world moved on without her. With Aquila out of her life, there wasn’t a single soul that considered where Ellaria might be or what state she might be found. Useless. An afterthought. Pointless.They accused her of not acting like herself. But this was who she always was, beneath the carefully crafted surface. Only barely contained in a fragile glass cage. A cage frequently broken and re-built. She thought they knew. She thought they saw. Perhaps they would never have thought to be her friend if they truly understood. Or perhaps they simply forgot. Just like they forgot the rest of her.At the end of the uncomfortable conversation, Elle agreed to stay at Lokein’s lodge for adventurers and take odd jobs in the area as an outlet for her energy.It was a lie. She would have said anything to end the exchange that was slowly tearing her apart.That day cemented her goal to head back to the place where her journey truly began. Back to Dawn Vigil. Perhaps to share in her brother’s fate, or maybe she would continue even further, to the ashen remnants of her former home. Perhaps the way to cope as a sole survivor was to simply stop surviving.She was gone by morning.

Now I thought about what I wanna say
But I never really know where to go
So I chained myself to a friend

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Reprieve

Had to leave myself behind
I've been flying high all night
So come pick me up
I've landed

If Cayden and Lokein had been given a manual of all the wrong things to say to Ellaria, Kire received its opposite.Elle had found herself somewhat stuck in the Coerthan Western Highlands, lingering outside of the Dusk Vigil, looming abandoned and wild over the now frozen lake that surrounded it. It was something of a symbol of her own resolve, of her goal in its twin at the Dawn to the east. She spent some time in the area, gathering the energy and the nerve to continue towards her grim destination.She’d made something of a routine, traversing a wide semi-circle around the ruins of the Vigil, cutting down whatever wildlife she came across. In her rage, she abandoned the efficiency for which she’d gained a reputation, opting to both inflict and receive as much damage as possible. In the absence of her more routine coping mechanisms, the Viera was reduced to her basest instincts, taking out her grief on herself and her environment in a much more direct, physical way.It was in a rare moment of quiet that Ellaria received a visitor. A familiar face, but only vaguely. As Kire, a fellow Viera dressed in delicate pink and leather approached, Elle couldn’t decide whether to be surprised or not. Kire was, after all, one of Cayden’s new husbands. On the other hand, Ellaria would not claim to even know Kire well. And yet… in the few interactions they had over the years, each had been subtly profound with an unlikely understanding. Ellaria, the roiling tempest to be controlled, and Kire, the fragile fawn to be protected. Both wanting the autonomy to express emotions like frustration and anger however they wished, even if it was via the cathartic outlet of unrestrained violence.Kire’s scant but important information on Ellaria was quick to pay off, loosing an arrow to draw forth more prey from afar. Encouraging Ellaria to feel however she needed to feel, however it was that she needed to feel it. Between kills, it was a moment of genuine sincerity that broke Ellaria’s stubborn silence. Kire apologized for losing track of someone they considered a friend. The regret was honest and earnest, and it was what Ellaria had needed to hear most from her friends. It caused a crack in the dam, the stubbornly quiet Elle finally drip feeding information on what had happened, avoiding too many specifics. The sense of loss she felt-- loss of relationships and loss of purpose alike.Ellaria was not always kind about it, her words drenched in venom to retort against any hint of optimism from Kire, and doubly so at anything that might be interpreted as a promise. There was no trust left in Elle's life to allow for promises anymore. But thankfully, Kire was quick to take it in stride, accepting that Elle was not receptive to solutions beyond her current course. Instead, they offered a line of communication and an assurance that Ellaria was not forgotten.They even managed to exchange a few relatively lighthearted jests, unfortunately at their mutual friends’ expense, but, it was the closest Ellaria had gotten to levity in months. And it was the kindest way for Elle to express her dismay and betrayal at the whole situation. It perhaps wasn’t fair, but it had been eating away at her, and even the smallest outlet gave her a touch of relief. Softened the blow, just that little bit.Once both were sufficiently bloodied, it was time for Kire to return home and for Ellaria to continue on her journey. It was, once again, a fleeting interaction between two kindred souls. Once she was alone again, Elle found herself wavering. Conflicted. Her journey was not yet done, but what did it mean now that she didn’t feel... quite so alone? Her rage and despair still overwhelmed her, so she must continue.But suddenly, the option of dying on the mountain felt just a little bit less appealing.

And you will be so
Happy to know
I've come alone
It's over

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normal

If I move, this could die
Eyes move, this can die
Come on, take me out

With a conflicted heart and mind, Ellaria began her journey east.Or at least, she would have, if she had not been interrupted by the appearance of a complete stranger who seemed intent on bothering her.A man appeared, immediately spouting nonsense about mortals and death and how pathetic Ellaria was for… murdering everything in the area before he got to, apparently. It was one thing for the Viera to be approached by familiar faces, but her attitude towards a new one was completely different. Apathetic and impatient, Elle was quick to snap back at the man. Creature. Whatever he was. One of those beings that somehow did and did not belong to this world. Shrouded in power and darkness, wielding a scythe that would simply be impractical in average hands.Their interaction was contentious and crass. The man who called himself Gaelen seemed to be fishing for some sort of reaction from her. He took digs at her weapon, her posture, her general state of being, her perceived inferiority. But Ellaria was still on the precipice of madness, and fear was not on her menu of available emotions, even as his scythe swung in front of her. However, there was one burgeoning feeling that bubbled to the surface.IrritationIt shouldn’t have meant anything. But yet… it was the first thing she’d felt since some flavor of rage or despair since her journey began. And it was somehow, in the face of some self-righteous otherworldly presence, very humanizing. Their barbed exchange somehow fell into something practical, almost… educational. Ellaria’s bleak outlook on life allowed her a level of frank honesty about the human condition that Gaelen found somehow wise. Useful, even.Somehow, after being accosted by a rather large drake, a sense of understanding settled between them. An odd sort of contentious respect. For Elle, it didn’t really matter how it happened, but for once, she was able to take solace in the unshackled lack of expectation that came from interacting with a completely unknown entity. There was no preconception about how Ellaria would behave. For once, someone did not invite her to hit them as if that would help her somehow.They spoke about the nature of death, the satisfaction of violence, and the pointlessness of life. Without saying so directly, it was a safe way for Ellaria to express her frustration with the judgement of those around her. And Gaelen, in turn, expressing a desire to temporarily be free from much the same, even if their situations were rather distinct from one another.Despite everything, this bizarre interaction ended with the pair traveling eastward together for a few days. Simply hunting in relative silence with mutual respect to competence and an utter lack of judgement. Despite it being one of the most baffling and unique social interactions Ellaria had ever engaged with, it reminded her of what normal truly felt like.A very odd and roundabout reminder that there was more to life than the path she was on.
She simply needed to decide if it was worthwhile.

I know I won't be leaving here
I know I won't be leaving here with you

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Reckoning

Yeah, I'm under his thumb, I'm on his back
I will not show my teeth too quick
I needed you there, I needed you there
But I didn't know, I didn't know

If their meeting had ended in blood, it would have been more merciful.Ellaria’s constant culling of the Coerthan Highlands wildlife had started to cause problems for the locals, even after she and Gaelen had parted ways. Blood and corpses were inconvenient, to say the least, and fellow hunters and adventurers found themselves without quarry to support themselves. The Temple Knights were called to deal with the menace, and, on a hunch, Aquila himself took the job.He found his former girlfriend up on an icy peak, worn and weary as she overlooked the Dusk Vigil in the distance to the west. The last time they had seen each other two season prior, they had been warm and comfortable in his home, sipping tea while one soulshattered. Now, they were both armed and armored, innocent heart facing one of shattered stone.She would never dream of hurting him, but just like her friends before him, he approached her with a defensive posture. Claiming not to want a fight, all while a greatsword was gripped firmly in his hand. Ellaria was tired of this game, frustrated as she opted to goad him on, all while the blade of her axe was turned away, still unable to conceive of causing Emile harm. But her charade lost effect as the woman could barely stand, dropping to one knee, her beloved axe becoming a crutch just to stay upright. Over half a year of constant movement, questionable diet, and far too much alcohol, she was losing steam. Having to face him was apparently her breaking point.All that was left was an overdue exchange of words. Words that ripped at her heart far more efficiently than any weapon could have. A verbal confirmation of all of her fears. He’d… never truly loved her. Not like she’d loved him, anyway. His lofty promises had simply been what he thought she wanted to hear, to keep her to himself. He liked the way she made him feel. But it wasn’t love. These were all things that she’d known in the dark, abandoned recesses of her mind for quite some time. It didn’t matter. Her love had been real. And hearing the words from his lips was even more brutal than she could ever predict.But… he wanted to stay in her life. To be friends. To… help her.She hated herself for saying yes.He asked her to live.So she would.He found her a place to finally bathe, and to eat. Ellaria was truly and utterly broken. She was wracked with an empty sort of numbness that hurt with every motion, like a limb that was struggling to wake after sleeping nerves. Despite it all, as the lukewarm water of the Coerthan bath washed the blood and grime, she finally felt something she’d been searching for. It was difficult to recognize at first, but finally, it hit her like the cold winter air. Closure.Ellaria still loved Emile. She always would, though perhaps that love would eventually manifest differently. It would take time, but, at last, the idea of letting him go felt possible. The pain remained, raw and visceral, but a weight was lifted. With a flicker of indecision, she considered ending her journey there. Considered dealing with the delayed processed grief of her brother and village back at her old home. But as her immediate rage cooled, she realized that she would just be here all over again if she did not close the chapter that had started this whole ordeal. She had counted on Aquila saving her from herself. Now, she had to finally find the strength to face it on her own.She’d travel to the Dawn’s Vigil. But this time, she was resolved to return from it alive.

I'm gonna say what's on my mind
Then I'll walk out, then I'll feel fine

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at Dawn

No more askin' questions or excuses
Information's here
Here and everywhere
Don't go there 'cause you'll never return

It took nearly a week of hiking to traverse the Eastern Highlands. While the whole of Coerthas had suffered from the Calamity, the former alpine mountains to the east had been hit especially hard, buried in snow, ice, and debris. Traversal across the terrain was always difficult, but especially as winter began to tighten its hostile grip was it particularly slow and treacherous. Even for as cold-hardened as Ellaria was, she had to take extreme care as snow concealed sharp rock and thin ice alike. For better or worse, wildlife was sparse, meaning the Viera had to subsist on whatever she had left from her mindless rampage. Which wasn’t much.Eventually, Ellaria reached the Dawn Vigil, half-buried in the snow, Dragonkiller ballistae still armed with frozen bolts that cast ominous, jagged shadows over the white landscape. As the harsh winds of a blizzard stung at her pale skin, she trekked to her destination with hard, weary eyes, set to complete this dark chapter she had started so long ago.It took a whole day of digging, trudging, and frustrated axe-chopping to get to the interior of the Vigil. Once inside, it was exactly as it was when she’d last been there with the aid of her friends. Which was exactly as it was when she was there with Veren, burned and in shock from the attack on their home. Aether from the Primal Bahamut still clung to every nook and corner of the structure like cobwebs, keeping torches and brasiers alight in eerie blue flame, preserved in time by the cold, stone walls.Each footfall echoed hollow and ominous as Ellaria strode slowly through the ruins of the Vigil. Racks of weapons slowly rusted and rotted along the walls, while supplies squandered in various stages of freeze and decay from years of exposure to the harsh elements that still swept through the halls. Finally, she navigated to where she and her brother had taken shelter beneath a collapsed portion of the outer walls, a stain of ash on the hard floor, hinting at where their fire had once been. With a resigned breath, she sat where she sat those years ago. Where she’d slept as her brother slipped away. Her head hit the frigid wall behind as her eyes closed forcefully, face twisted as she forced herself to relive the memory.The tears that flowed were painful. Wet streaks frosted over near instantly, only to melt and re-freeze with each subsequent fall. Her eyes ached from lack of sleep, and the physical act of crying only exacerbated the issue, swollen and searing beneath her lids. But she wouldn’t fight it this time. She’d come to terms with the fact that she needed this. If she learned anything from her recent interactions, it was that sometimes closure only came from the acceptance of pain. She lost track of how long she remained there, lost in a sea of muddled memory, and yet… resolved to keep her word. That she would return to the land of the living. She just needed… one more thing.With a fatigued groan, Ellaria got to her feet, finding a reasonably clean segment of her forearm with which to wipe her tears. It didn’t help much, but it did dislodge any frost. Regardless, standing at her full height, she surveyed the crumbling outer walls of the Vigil with renewed determination in the set of her brow. It was time to find any trace of Veren’s final steps. He’d clearly not walked out of the front door of the fortress, nor along to the battlements. He had been too weak to attempt any ladders or stairs, so he must have simply found a point to walk out of any of the yawning gaps in the damaged structure.Heart hardened, Ellaria tried to make logical judgements on where he might have slipped away. He was so ill, so frail, it couldn’t have been far. With a soft leap, she chose a direction that fit the bill, and began to walk along the most direct path away from the grey stone. The morning after he disappeared back then, she’d sought him frantically, but she, too, had been badly injured, weak, and delirious. She’d been searching for her brother, alive and walking, not a body taken in by the cold. Now, years later, her eyes searched with the understanding of the harsh reality.She knew not what she would find, if anything at all. When she did spot something out of place in the landscape, she did not expect just how quickly her heart rate would spike, how swift her steps became until she came to a jagged boulder jutting out of the white expanse of snow. Snagged along a sharp edge was a small grey satchel. No, not snagged, hooked. It was his. He’d hung it deliberately. For her. Waiting all these years. She went into a frenzy, tripping over herself to reach it, Grimy, shaky hands struggled to free it from its long-frozen perch. Once it was in hand, Ellaria couldn’t unlatch the small bag, fresh tears flooding her vision as grief’s sharp claws dragged her heart to the pit of her stomach.Crunching into the snow, Ellaria collapsed to her knees, clutching the bag to her breast as she allowed herself to truly, openly weep. Her wails were swallowed by the apathetic howl of the winter storm. She was paralyzed by the rush of her own pulse pounding in her ears until her voice was hoarse from the gutteral screams of despair. When there were no tears left to cry, she finally took a shaky, painful breath of frozen air to try again, shaky fingers still fumbling with the satchel’s hooks, stiff and brittle. But at long last, she wrested it open, to find it containing just… four things.A set of four feathers.Before the Calamity, a beautiful species of birds once migrated over Abalathia’s Spine, stopping for rest and refuge at the Vieran village tucked away in the serene hidden valley of the mountains. Their plumage was a striking gradient of purple, blue, and green, blending in a deep, rich indigo and teal hue. Veren had always enjoyed gathering the feathers to wear in his hair every year, but they always degraded long before the birds’ return. So, one year, he’d gotten the aid of their father to preserve a set of four feathers, cast in clear resin and affixed to small metal clasps. He’d worn them in his white hair ever since, confiding in his sister that they reminded him of her eyes. That if she was not welcome into the heart of the village, he would carry a reminder in her stead. A quiet, gentle act of protest on her behalf.And now there they were in her hands, as pristine as the day he’d gathered them from along the small lake in the heart of their home. Cold and hollow, Ellaria was compelled into motion, reaching up to affix the feathers into her hair, just like he’d done before her. For once, her memory was filled with the kindness of her sibling, warm and optimistic despite his constant battle with the fragility of his own body. He wouldn’t want her to make the grueling journey up to their home just to witness it’s ashen remains. He would want her to live. More than that, he would want her to chase hope.Her search ended there. She no longer felt the need to dig for further remains. It was enough. Back on her feet, she turned and looked southward with red and weary eyes, landscape obscured by the storm. With her heart just a bit lighter, hair a bit heavier, she began her descent.She couldn’t save him, but she could honor him.

I don't, I don't want anything
I know it's not, it's not your fault
I don't want anyone

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