#there's a lot to unpack here but in true sovann style we will just throw the whole suitcase out

[phantasmaw]

♢*   —  @azurescaled  ​/  𝐮𝐧𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐝

      〈 ☽* 〉┊  Weak light the color of crushed amethyst filters in through the broken skylight, bathing the enclosed garden in the same twighlit liminality as the rest of their homeland. They sit a few inches away from a concentrated pool of light, legs drawn to their chest, cheek resting atop one knee, not so terribly unlike the way they used to in adolescence. Sovann's gaze traces across the patterns of constellations engraved into the semi-transparent dome ceiling. Their polearm lays askew beside them. 

        "It doesn't feel the same, does it?"

         They keep their back turned toward Lars. Looking at him-- acknowledging that he's there beyond the abstract sense of knowing --would sever the taught strings of dissociation holding them together. The claws flexing against impossibly soft grass (how, they wonder, has it not wilted in this dead light?) will finish the job they started centuries ago. And it's funny, isn't it, how they would mourn a few flowers far more than the fall of an entire empire? 

         "You know," Sovann says after some time, each word squeezing around the bitter pit of grief clogging their throat so as not to become tainted by it, "I had once hoped the next time both of us were here, it would be to dance together again." Something else begins to creep up from their guts then, something that melts their grief with acidic heat. It slithers against their tongue, knocks against the back of their teeth, plucks at their vocal chords. "I'm sure the Venerable Everlight would have been eager to offer these grounds as a wedding venue." A hollow, humorless laugh tumbles from the recesses of their lungs. "I could have offered you and your husband the first blessing of the moon seelie to be heard in nearly a milennia."