Dragoncrest Cliffs and just measure the beat on

sorrow was perhaps the oldest community on earth. it harvested from its subjects a communal burden that could not be easily unsaddled.

val wept alongside mireille, and held her all the more fiercely. if he did not ever let her go, maybe he would never lose her the way he'd lost his mothers (three yet), his siblings, his legacy. but in mireille was his legacy, he just didn't know it yet.

it was no small blade in the back to know the next generation of sapphiquians would not know the spiritual giants that had defined what it meant to be 'sapphique'. the successors would never meet their predecessors; would never know their hardships, their foibles, their laughter or joys.

his eyes closed, the rims glittered with tears. he would not let them grow without knowing the names of their forebears; of their exploits, of their stories, and of the giant, inimitable presence that ripped a hole in his heart with their passing.