Physically, she bore the scars of the events of the last few seasons.

Mentally, those scars were not as easy to see.

Eisa had traveled towards the Grove... to try to feel something that reminded her of who she was before. Who she was before her life had gone to... well... shit.

The grove was the same. It smelled the same. It felt the same. Pine needles carpeted the ground before her, and she wondered... if were not to be better off seeking some semblance of solace within the confines of the Grotto. Yet it was this place that called to her, this place that brought her... that flicker of recognition, that brief moment that reminded her of who she had been, and what she could have been.

She sits back, heavily onto her haunches, her scarred face (vauge because idk what Luther is going to maim) fixed towards the ground, as she lets out a sigh- her shoulders rolling inward, defeat heavy on her shoulders.

@Aquila

ART BY YUMPY, CODE BY LARS

Irony has it's way of him. As desecrated and meaningless as this forest has become it still yet chains another Valour soul to it for eternity. Death? Death was nothing. He had withered and wilted quiet and alone. Perhaps for the best as he did not really need or want to burden anyone. He was just an old cat who crawled off into a dark corner to die. But since then he could find no rest, nothing to calm him. Without need for sleep and no body to grow tired he walked. He walked. He walked until he hit the edges of the forest and then was dragged back into the middle the second he tried to take a step further. He walked alone for hours, for days, for weeks. Never feeling cold, never feeling aches. Feeling nothing.

Until there is at last a shape. Unlike the prey animals who wander and the strangers who never seem to see him. A familiar shape. @Eisa.

She bore upon her the signs of the failure of the Valour. The failure to protect one of their own. And now that he's truly seen once more what pain is, feels what loss and heart break is like, is when he feels absolutely the most helpless. ""I-"" He says aloud to her, his voice then cut off abruptly. He has no idea what to say, what to do.

ART BY NICOLEXV , CODE BY LARS

She does not hear the approach, and it isn't until a singular word is uttered than cut off that she flinches, startling around as she realizes she is not alone. Where fur travels up her spine, pricking in fear and panic - it is halted only by the realization that she knows who this is. Two things hit her at once, this is Aquila... and he is... there is something different about him- a glow to him, no scent... is he... what?

She doesn't expect the wash and range of emotions that crash through her, claws flexing into the soft earth as she stares at him- open-mouthed. The word that comes out when she speaks to him is strangled. "Uncle 'Quila." She whispers, her breath catching, heart stuttering in her throat as she takes a singular step towards him, and her brows furrow in confusion. "You... look... different." She breathes out, concern and worry filling her up until she feels as if she can burst.

@Aquila

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Different? ""Not saying it doesn't make it any less real."" If he could manage an ounce of scolding tone it would be a miracle. He sounds disappointed, he sounds so very sad and distant. ""I look dead."" Give it the name, give it truth. He was useless and a failure- he felt as hollow as he looked right now in this stange present state.

He takes a step near. Plants do not move for him, nothing bends or responds to his presence and there is a flicker during which he vanished and then reappeared like some god blinked. ""You-"" He tried to dig up conviction and force in his voice. ""-you look different.""

@Eisa

ART BY NICOLEXV , CODE BY LARS

Uncle Aquila had always had a solidness to his presence, and she had never realized that anyone could seem... less solid. He had been counsel and safety, a figure she'd always had and known as she grew within the confines of Vermeda. He speaks, 'Not saying it doesn't make it any less real -- is that a trace of disappointment in his tone? Her heart seems to stutter in her chest, as she looks at him - and really looks at him, her brain trying to process, trying to understand what she is seeing. Then he speaks the words. Those damning words. I look dead.

Dead.

Her heart's beating is no longer steady. It is pained, it is stuttering. It is as if the twisted world she has developed in... is knocked off it's axis, and the blood seems to reverse - to pool sideways in her body, as bile rises in her throat.

In seconds, she lets out a shuddering sigh, her eyes on the male - the uncle before her, hoping that her inner turmoil isn't... so obviously visible, that he feels worse. "No." She denies it, her lashing. "You... you can't be-" A whisper of the next word. "Dead." As if, if she says it softly, the universe will not hear it- will take back what he has said, and then he seems to flicker in and out of existence, and she takes a startled step back, jaw gaping open.

"I..." She stammers, her mouth closing and opening like a gaping fish, "I'm... Sorry, Uncle 'Quila." She was raised to believe that she could commune with those gone before, those who left too early... but losing someone, for the first time in her life like this- them being truly gone, and not immediately brought back? "When?" She asks, her voice a whisper. Had she been angry all this time, and he'd died while she was blinded by anger. By disappointment that everyone in her life had seemingly abandoned her and Ana. Was she truly so foolish that she'd been angry all this time and he'd been gone? As if, at the end of it all, her anger even mattered?

Shame washes through her, the waves of it seeming to drag her down as if - as though it weighs her to the earth. His next words, make raise her battered head to look at him. "I am broken." She clarifies. (**Major maim results aren't up so idk what was maimed but something is. Trying to be super vague**) . She was ruined, actually, and her breath comes out in a wave of a sigh. "Aeistrios. Luther." She whispers. "They've done so much."

She had tried. She had tried to be brave. She had tried to be a Jarl of the Sigrun. She had tried. She had tried, and she wasn't enough.

Facing that reality, that she wasn't enough, may damn well be what kills her.

@Aquila

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