Eidola’s evenings had become quieter, not peaceful, exactly. Peace was a word that implied the absence of something, and Eidola was rarely alone enough within herself to know what absence truly felt like. There were always whispers tucked beneath the rustle of leaves and shapes moving where nothing stood, voices that borrowed familiar tones and unfamiliar ones alike. She had learned long ago that fighting them only exhausted her.

So she walked and tonight, the purple flowers had caught her attention.

Eidola stood among them with her head bowed amethyst eyes fixed upon a cluster swaying gently near her paws. She had been watching them for some time now, though she couldn't have said precisely why. Perhaps because they were pretty or because one of the voices had insisted they were watching her back.

Her paw reached toward one, Don't. and she stopped ears flicking backwards

Why? she whispered, they bite. Eidola stared suspiciously at the flower, it did not look as though it had teeth so she leaned closer anyway, nose hovering just above the petals, when a sound carried through the evening and her head snapped upright.

For a moment she simply stared in Foxglove’s direction, body gone unnaturally still. The motes surrounding him caught her attention first, gaze followed them instead of him, tracing their lazy movements through the air as they collided and separated again.

There were nights when Eidola might have immediately decided that he was not real. Her nose twitched, searching for a scent beneath the overwhelming perfume of the flowers and finding little that helped her. Hello? she called softly, she did not recognize him.

Perhaps once when she had been very small, their paths had crossed beneath the same sky, but whatever memory might have existed had long since disappeared beneath months and everything that had happened in between. To Eidola, Foxglove was simply a stranger standing strangely illuminated in the distance.