His mind had become a twisting labyrinth of never-ending hallways and a compilation of dead ends, one after the other. His sleep had soured since the onslaught and punishment from the lake. His appetite had decreased in an effort to quell the uneasy desire to quench his thirst, and though he tried his best to disregard the feelings that riddled his mind, Amaris had eventually lost the sweet escape of sleep, even if he had barely known of it before. He no longer knew which way was up, which direction to take, nor how to appease the Gods from the suffering they delivered.

He was perhaps a bit worse for wear. Disheveled with a slender body that carried him forward through the trees of Elysium, his gaze as haunted as the weary sun that hung overhead.

First, the water, his once sweet solace. Then the minds of those once strong and iron-willed siphoned against their will, and then finally the Dream Visitor, whose lengthy words meant nothing to him.

Runes, his mother spoke about—but what was the importance of runes in the face of disaster and disarray?—

The moon-child’s ears perked at the onslaught of a howl, the string of his name accompanied by the familiar cadence of his mother. He turned away from his thoughts and the never-ending path he bound himself toward, and paused, considered, and then approached.

His slender form, no longer boyish and premature, now sat atop longer legs built for a man--if one were to ignore the displaced fur and his troubled stare that marked his own insomnia. He sauntered forward, slipping easily throughout the shadows of the trees until he came up to a place beside his mother and faced the group with a careful glance.

He recognized only one of them.

The two-faced man who had battled the water-demon beast and had claimed that they had been a friend.

A brow perked.

And his head had shifted.

Hello…there, he murmured politely to the group.