King Elk Forest -- we can't say we didn't try

He can feel the change between them. Is palpable. Perhaps he is the cause of it, or perhaps it is simply the way things must fall. Though neither of them intended for this: is it was befell them and Mato is not one to fuss and dwell over what was. He has lost himself once to that void, that endless ourobos and he seeks to keep himself from losing himself to it a second time. It is no one’s fault, in the empyrean’s eyes. It is simply the path they both must walk; separate. For now. Perhaps Mato’s solution is to slam the door on resolving his issues in the stead of facing them. Or perhaps he feels that he’s worked through them on his own and simply does not wish to re-open those wounds though they seep at the sight of her before him. Perhaps in his haste to close them up he has not been a meticulous as he’d thought.

“Only because of loss and the coming of winter,” Mato speaks morosely. “There had come a time when we were barely surviving.” It was a dark period when the starlit king had considered relocating, of uprooting everything they have built here in the favor of a more populated region. He is still not sure that it’s not an eventual solution but for now their ranks have bolstered, much to the credit of Delight, and that is no longer so much of a pressing issue. Still, it lingers in the back of Mato’s mind as a possibility if they see another influx of loss and stagnancy as they had.

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