Shadewood kiaruk ❂

She was peace, where he was not. Everything- everything wanted to throw itself at her, to yank, pull, rip, tear, to rid this world of the despair and sleepless nights where he had thought of her, often returning to her den to see if her scent had returned, if she had snuck in without telling him, or if another lay curled in the nestle where she once lay...
Memories of all kinds flew through him with bitter shingle clanks, a strike for every single time he saw her...and the echo following all of the times he only wished he had seen her. 

A painful swallow, thick and coiling as some irate serpent was finally held low enough for him to speak, somewhat strained. "She is due tommorow...and she will want you there." He did not in the slightest mention it was truly him wanting her to remain longer, for him to get one last restful night within the Keep before her departure took a shard of the Shadewood from within him. Everyone here, he could feel, they were a piece of these woods. He was the heart of this junglesque forest. What more pain could a tree endure than to lose a chip of it's bark, splinter by splinter?