Fairspell Meadow I really hope that you find happiness

Many a time now had the moon cycled through, rising through the darkness and falling with the light. The shape one night was never the same as the next, always changing and then restarting, trapped in this constant state of starting anew. It was intriguing to watch, always settled back and observing. Different beings interpreted the changes in different ways but never Eros. No, for him it was the simple workings of nature, each phase driving him no differently than the last. Perhaps that is because he understood the need to change. After all, that was how growth worked, right? In the years that have passed since he’d delved into the great unknown, the once-lost boy had grown and learned a lot. His body was no longer that of a child, having matured into the physique of a father he’d never gotten the chance to meet. His mind, too, had developed in ways that suited a man of his standings, aged now and lacking the same overly-dependent ideals he’d once possessed.

He was all grown up now, and it was time to return home.

Eros travelled great lengths to return to the lands that had birthed him, traversing treacherous terrains and encountering a mixture of friendly and unfriendly faces. There were some that he had found it hard to part with, a few that had pulled at his heart, once upon a time. But in the end, he always moved on, searching for something that he doubted more and more each day whether or not he would ever find.

Then the outline of a distant range with peaks that struck some chord of familiarity deep within him came into sight. He was drawn to it immediately, knowing in his bones that it was home, it was where he was supposed to be. But then there came the rumbling, a quiver of the earth, and he was frozen in his tracks. Even from where he stood, he could see the descending shapes of boulders tumbling down, what were once rocky outcroppings now stripped from the mountain’s face by the ground’s rage. And it was then that he knew he could not return home, at least not yet. For now, the mountains were not safe and he could not risk injury, still out on his own.

Nearby there was a meadow, vines and stalks of what were once flowers strewn throughout it. He imagined it must be pretty during the warm season, vibrantly lit by wildflowers and blue skies. It was merely a ghost of its true self now, everything withered and the overall atmosphere dismal, at best. Even the sky overhead was dreary, further shrouding the meadow in a thick blanket of misery. Was this what the land had become in his time away? What had happened to cause this sorrow, and to cause the ground to shake with such ferocity that even the mountains feared its wrath? There were so many questions to be asked but no answers to be found, reminding Eros of the days of his youth—back when he knew nothing. Only now it was not his own doing, but the doing of forces beyond his comprehension. So he did the only thing he knew how to do and continued moving forward, carefully trotting through the meadow.