Life Ain't Always Beautiful

His ears perked up as she slowly pulled herself free of her hidey hole, and crept closer to him. She moved closer to him, and he felt a terrible yearning inside of him. A need for this to be real, and a fear that it might be. This cowering frightened creature scarcely resembled the woman he had pledged his life to.

He felt the soft rasp of her tongue, and shivered softly, shocked at the substance of it. No…

This wasn’t right, was it? Talk of ghosts and dreams clouded his judgement. He had been sent here. If only someone… someone he knew to be alive had been there too. Someone to confirm that Azure was really Azure, and the woman he had sent to fetch was really Zee.

“Azure… came home.” he whispered, but she knew that already. “Mortis came home, wishing to be heir again, to try again. Asla… Asla gave us grandchildren. Two beautiful tiny creatures with big, innocent eyes.” He squeezed his eyes shut. “Briar fell in love with Art, and the two of them spend so much time together. She remembered how to be happy after her mother… after…” After Zee died, but didn’t die? He moved on.

“Gossy and Aris could not believe, I have not seen Aris since, and the lure of a tournament brought Gossy home. Kotori is pretending to be tough, Ophelia is lost and confused. They need their mother.” he paused, swallowing heavily. “The campfire. What happened, if those bodies we found… if… what happened?”

"Speech"