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Elysium comes home to the Respite. Feel free to post your character making their way back; otherwise let me know what is to be assumed of your characters! I tagged all who are still labeled 'active' and will be cleaning up the pack page later today to reflect its current state.

Amaranth Aelia Amaris Fiora Cyrus Amaya Lylith Glitch Pennyroyal Verbena

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She had made certain.

The walk to the lake of Fate’s Respite was not so long given Avon’s proximity to their territory, and so she’d embarked on a short trip to assess the status of the fouled plague-water. A part of her still half expected to find it thick and acrid with that awful, sludge-like consistency, slick with a sickly purple hue that somehow drew you in but left an endless, burning thirst.

Yet the Howling River had begun to run clear, and hope sprang anew within her chest.

Was it time?

Valeska quickened her pace, tongue lolling distractedly as her eyes widened with ever-increasing excitement. She could just see over the hill now, the grey light from the heavy clouds overhead casting a dim glimmer across some great, glassy surface – her heart threatened to rattle out of her own chest.

Even in that dreary light the lake stretched out before her like the sparkling jewel of a crown, clear and crisp and free of the poison that had tainted its waters for so long.

A cold wind whipped through the air as if to make a point; Valeska shuddered. She acknowledged there had been an… exchange of some kind. The plagues for something else. There was something deeply wrong with this winter, for already it had grown far too cold, too quickly, and she hadn’t seen the sun in days – or was it weeks?

She shook her head; no, it had been a month.

The world had not seen the sun for a full month.

Her gaze shifted toward the dancing blue flame in the distance, flickering close to where the lake’s mouth opened and emptied out into the Howling River. She remembered its pervasive heat – how it spread far beyond the flame itself in a wide radius, like a pair of open arms struggling eagerly to embrace all that they could.
Warmth enough.

Valeska snorted, her breath coming out in a soft plume of steam. She was well-suited to the cold, but even she could feel the bite of winter’s fury beneath the thickness of her fluffy coat.

It was time to come home. They had been too scattered for too long.

She made the effort to climb a portion of the way up one of the great mountains that ringed their home, grunting with the strain as she scrabbled with dull claws to gain purchase; a wolf’s howl could be heard for six miles on a good day, and more than ten if she could achieve a solid vantage point.

She stopped to catch her breath. This was good enough.

Looking toward the south, she could see the vast expanse of the Respite in all of its frozen splendor; she could easily gaze upon the mountains of the Vale, even the distant tips of Northfall’s mighty peaks through the great stretch of land before her.
Avon nestled comfortably somewhere within that space.

Valeska took a deep, steadying breath, lifted her head, and called them home.

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Skill: —

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To some degree, Amaris never left the Respite.

He had gone to the South on Plague and Dream Visitor Business, but when he and Aelia returned to their home, they found it abandoned. A shock it had been at the time, but Amaris and his twin had easily found his parents not long after. Perhaps it had been the Five’s all-seeing hand guiding them both to where they were needed (like intervening when Amaranth had tried to kill Valeska and instead amputated her silver tail)…

Amaris had returned to the Respite after that. The horror of what he had witnessed was enough to send him into an early grave had he stayed much longer between the howling river and that blue flame. Instead, he found comfort and solace in the familiar dens he remembered as a child. The cavern walls were cold but filled with the warmth of memories, and for now, that was enough to soften his fraying edges.

He had kept to himself since then.

And only at the sound of his mother’s call, interestingly enough, in the mountains that they called their home, Amaris rose from inside his cave and snuck a nose out into the windy and frozen morning.

She was calling everyone home.

Amaris blinked into the dreary, cloudy morning and stared into the distance where the northern mountains painted the sky. Was this what healing felt like? The sound of his mother’s song on the wind as they waited for the faces of all those they had known and lost return to a place they called their home.

Maybe.

The Moon lifted his head to the sky, following in the wake of his mother’s voice, and howled in harmony with her own.

She's been wandering in the in-between.

Avon, Howling River, the edges of Fate's Respite.

Always moving, always trailing after Pennyroyal or leading him to food, did she know anything else at this point?

Duty kept her close to the boy, love for her family too of course, but it was duty that ran in her veins as thick as it had in Fleetwood. It's been...9 months...since they had left without telling their parents, 9 months since they had seen them alive, 9 months of being the sole caretaker on their hunt for Runes and Spiderlily.

But then she heard Valeska's call to come home, faintly, almost as if it was a wish her mind made up as she huddled against the cold, but then Amaris's call was in the distance.

Confirming what she had heard.

The acolyte left her little den and threw her head back to howl in return, to spread the word of 'come home' where Valeska's voice couldn't reach.

Skill:
With Glitch !

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They'd been scattered, battered, challenged.

But the soul of Elysium would take much more than that to break.

It had been so long since they'd been able to come home. The haunting hovering of the Plague had left their lands hollowed, a painful vacancy that drifted across the familiar lands like a cold breeze. It would send a shiver through Amaranth's thin frame — and it was much more than the physical cold that shook her.

Gently, she'd lean, allowing Glitch to take a bit of her weight. Unfortunately, he'd been subject to her woes ... but he'd admittedly been quite wonderful in helping her get back to where they both wanted to be ...

... home.

Valeska's familiar song would spear through the sky, rising with a ferocity and power that Amaranth had not heard in some time. And the voices of Elysium would echo, distant and haunting, as they all converged in their song of hope.

Amaranth would flick her ears forward, eyes brightening against the darkness of the winter sky. She could thank the spirits that Valeska had not been lost to the storm that Glitch had mentioned (especially after all the work she'd done to assure that Valeska not [i]die of Plague-Related-Injuries[/i]). It was instinct at that point, the flowing song that poured from the Augur's lips as she loosed her voice to join with the others.

All the while, she kept moving toward the heartland, ever-eager.

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Skill:

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Amaranth

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They came upon the respite, Glitch taking what weight of his mother that he could, and he listened to her woes and worries the entire time in silence. He was a good listener, taking in her words and concerns like a sponge. He heard the tale of Valeska's tail and winced when he took in the details.

There was a cry that rose above the peaks and Glitch smiles at the voices that echoed through his audits. His indigo optics closing halfway with a dopey smile, as Amaranth tossed her head back to let loose an outpour of sounds Glitch did the same, his voice mingling with those of Fate's Respite.