As a child you would wait, and watch from far away.
But you always knew you'd be the one to work while they all play.

Librette is graceless. Librette is awkward. Librette often misses some social cues. But in a past life, Librette was the general of the Valley's army for more years than Shahrizai has been alive, and she knows someone who is dodging the question when she sees it.

She flicks her tail across her haunches as the boy speaks, knowing full well that he's trying to cover for a lack of observation. She wonders for a moment what kind of warrior training he's had. Scorch had seemed fierce enough during her previous meeting; would the woman not have trained her son at least somewhat? Even young children can learn to fight. Librette had learned at his age. But then again, she hadn't had much of a choice. When you're on your own, the battle training tends to come naturally.

"Rocks, trees, horses." she repeats, her voice flat. "I think you pretty much just described every kingdom – actually, every place – in Beqanna." she says, her gaze level. The ghost of a smile plays with her lips, but it doesn't quite reach her eyes. "Well, since you wanted to see what the Forsaken Valley is all about, I guess I'll give you a tour."

She wonders for a moment if Eight is going to pop in. She knows about the magic barrier he's got around the Valley; it's porous enough to let folks in (obviously, otherwise Shah would probably be planted very embarrassingly outside the borders) but he'll always know. She wonders if he's already looked through her mind to see who this person is, and decided it's not any of his concern. Librette is strangely just fine with that, if so. She's given Eight standing permission to flip through her mind, because at the end of the day he's her king and if it's for the good of the Valley, then she'll do anything.

Without waiting for Shah to agree or disagree, she starts off toward the periphery of the kingdom. She stops somewhere in the wilds, the fringes of the Valley, off the beaten path but not impossibly so. The main feature of this area is a very large tree, with wide branches. Despite the devastation of the earthquakes, despite everything that has happened in the many years since she first came to this spot, the tree remains. The tree that has done so much for her, meant so much to her.

The boughs are cracked in places, and it sits cockeyed as the earth below it has shifted, but the tree itself endures. There are new leaves, sprouts and roots showing that the thing lives on and will continue growing. Who knows whether it's actually a part of the Valley's magic, or whether the tree just got a little bit lucky in the calamity. Ironic really, that the same horse who now rules the area was previously the one to destroy it. Not that Librette knows such things.

"This is the tree that gave me wings, and the tree that brought me back to life." she says simply, flatly. She is looking at the tree, rather than at him, contemplating the mysteries woven in its branches. She knows that he will have a flood of questions; goodness knows he seemed to take to her stories well enough when she wove them for him in the meadow. Who's to say what he'll think of them now, but she would bet he'll still be interested.

Don't weep for me

LIBRETTE

Because this will be the labor of my love.

Image copyright FFFiiiAA

As a child you would wait, and watch from far away.
But you always knew you'd be the one to work while they all play.

Really, how is it even possible to be so enthusiastic. The only time she's ever felt anything even close to the exuberance of this boy is when she's been asked to serve the Valley, to fight or to mock or to whatever. But even then she isn't this way; she doesn't bounce, she is focused, excited in a purposeful way. She flicks her tail across her haunches and wonders what to do with this boy. She knows he thinks himself a warrior, and she knows that at the moment he's about as dangerous as a chicken.

Probably a chicken without a beak. Or something.

When she stops by the tree, the flood of questions is not unexpected, and she lets it wash over her before she responds. Once the flood waters abate and she gets her bearings back, she knows she's obligated to answer. It is strange, knowing that he's the son of Scorch. Librette does not dislike the dragon-mare; she seems to share the winged girl's own preference for war, and to some extent, her inability to word appropriately. But something about being so close with her son is just strange for the chestnut mare. But she brushes it off. It's already happened, the friendship exists, and it would be far worse to deny it, or pretend it doesn't than to simply embrace what clearly is.

"No, I didn't always have wings. No, it hasn't given me any other powers. No, it doesn't take the wings away if I leave." She catches herself there, ashamed that she knows the answer to that question. The wings had remained with her always, becoming her burden, her penance when she hadn't lived within the Valley's embrace. Here they were the constant reminder of everything that her land had given her, regardless of whether or not she felt worthy. The wings were a blessing, but they were also her burden.

"I don't have a clue how the jungle works. But I've heard that kingdoms can do that." she says, circling back to his question. She knows that some mythical kingdoms grant certain things and strip them away if you leave. Perhaps it would've been kinder if she had been stripped of her wings. "And actually, I'm not sure if that happens here. Getting things just for being in the ranks." it hadn't when she was here last. But with Eight and his magic at the helm of the Valley, who knows.

She considers the tree for a moment, looking at it in silence before she tries to answer his next question. "I don't think that's what the tree does. At least, that's not what it's made for, I think." she pauses again. How could she really know? It had been the nexus of both her remarkable moments. "But maybe it is. I mean, it's still here after all that…stuff."

She is silent again before inevitably turning to the last question he'd asked. She sighs, flicking her tail across her haunches. She never much likes thinking about her death. It's not that she's afraid of it, it just feels..uncomfortable somehow. "I don't know how it brought me back to life." she pauses again. "I was…dead," she hesitates, avoiding saying "killed", even though "killed" is definitely what it was. Hearts don't just rip themselves to shreds. "And then, I wasn't."

Don't weep for me

LIBRETTE

Because this will be the labor of my love.

Image copyright FFFiiiAA

As a child you would wait, and watch from far away.
But you always knew you'd be the one to work while they all play.

Yes, she died.

Believe it or not, it's a surprisingly common affair. Many of her old friends had done it; even one of her children. It's not the dying part that's really remarkable, it's the coming back part. It’s funny because it's always the dying part that they want to know about. How did you die? What did it feel like? Silly horses, you're going to know that yourself someday. You're going to know all of it, except, perhaps what it feels like to return. And yet none of them ever ask about that. What did it feel like to breathe again? What was it like to rise from the ground? They never ask. But maybe it's just as well, because she's a pretty terrible storyteller.

Her unremarkable eyes settle on the boy. And yes, he is still a boy – so young, especially compared to her. She shrugs."It happens to everyone." she says. Death, the great equalizer. But she suspects that those words won't stem the tide of his questions, and ultimately she's completely right.

What he asks demands another story, a long one much like the story of Trashlip, Magnus, and Joelle. She sighs, feeling bound to oblige."Long ago, there was a magician named Core." she pauses for a moment, frowning. "I'd expect he's still around, somewhere, actually. But I don't think he's been seen in years." she flicks her tail across her haunches. "He sought me out and placed a piece of his heart within mine, for safekeeping." She remembered the process, the white mark on her face that had been created as he'd literally put his mark on her heart. "He needed it back, and that apparently needed to mean physically removing it." She is not giving him any more detail than she needed to. He didn't need to know about the gaping hole that the magician had left in her chest, the hole that was exactly where the white scar slashes across her chest today. "But that actually didn't kill me. Carnage came along and finished the job."

She pauses for a moment, considering how to answer his next tirade. "The dying part hurt, yeah." She pauses again. "But being dead didn't feel like anything. I was just…dead, and then the next minute, I wasn't." he flicks her tail, trying to think how to explain it better. "Being dead doesn't hurt, and being brought back to life doesn't either. Being dead you don't really feel anything. You're just kind of there." Truth be told, that time was tremendously hazy. She couldn't have told you whether she had consciousness or awareness, let alone any details more specific. She looks at the boy. "It''s mostly the dying part that's always a little uncomfortable."

Don't weep for me

LIBRETTE

Because this will be the labor of my love.

Image copyright FFFiiiAA

As a child you would wait, and watch from far away.
But you always knew you'd be the one to work while they all play.

The boy talks of Carnage and Core, and Librette can't help but smile – a mirthless, ironic kind of smile. It all goes back to the conversation they'd had in the meadow almost a year ago, a discussion of what it meant to be light and dark. Core and Carnage both were undeniably dark. Carnage especially, there was just no doubt about it.

"So even though a lot of dark horses aren't mean," she begins, trying to choose her words carefully. "Core and Carnage are." She chuckles, again without mirth. "It's like you said, it just seems mean. And it pretty much was." The piece of heart sure hadn't been for her benefit. And her death hadn’t been either. "Carnage didn't know me at all when he killed me. Killing is just kind of…one of the things Carnage does."

She falls silent for a while, pondering the boy's final questions. She doesn't really remember very much of what it was like to be dead, but for him, for some reason she feels compelled to squeeze her memories together and wring them out, trying to remember any scrap. Her lips flick down in a frown. "Nothing much, not that I remember at least. I assume there's something. I mean, if there wasn't anything left of me, there'd have been nothing to return." she pauses. "I mean, I'm still me. If there was really nothing you'd expect all my memories and such just…float away or something, wouldn't you?"

Truth be told she has no idea how it happened. God knows she hadn't been a party to it. She had died within the borders of the Valley, killed by two magical stallions. Her bones had lingered here, her corpse had no doubt decayed, and yet here she stood. A complete contradiction, a beautiful insanity. And she had absolutely no explanation for it.

"I didn't remember anything, when it brought me back. I mean, not of the time I was gone. I remembered all my own memories. Just not the rest of them."

She still remembers everything, even now, years later. All of her friends, all of their encounters, she remembers them with startling clarity. Beqanna is a dramatically different place now, filled with new horses and strange rules she never knew when she lived here before, but the Valley is still here, it's still her home, and that's all she needs to know.

"I wonder why it brought me back sometimes." She says with a sigh, before catching herself and being surprised at just how much she'd said. She rarely lets herself become so pensive, let alone around others, but something about this boy brings out the storyteller and the thinker in her. "I suppose it'd be handy to know the how, but that's always been what's gotten me." She pauses, looking out across the landscape. "Why me?"

Don't weep for me

LIBRETTE

Because this will be the labor of my love.

Image copyright FFFiiiAA

As a child you would wait, and watch from far away.
But you always knew you'd be the one to work while they all play.

How had she become….well, what she is? You'd think, to look at her, that she isn't evil. She definitely doesn't walk around threatening other horses. She doesn't kill without reason. In fact, if you were to compare her to the current queen of the light mythicals, her own granddaughter, no doubt Camrynn would be the more "traditional evil" of the two. But Librette herself doesn't find it a contradiction at all. To her, the Valley is simply her home, and anything that strengthens it is not just right, but necessary.

His words catch her off guard, and she looks at him. This is the first time that she truly realizes that they've forged the most unlikely of friendships, that she, the old warrior, and the young stallion who had seemed so…well, goofy are getting along rather famously. That she'd get comfortable enough around him for a head bump to take her off guard.

She is silent, considering as he walks around the tree. She suppresses a smile from time to time as he tries some particularly novel way of testing it out, trying to determine its contents. She understands curiosity, has felt it herself, although she's also far too shy to ever touch something as powerful as the tree. She can tell that the boy understands, that he knows there is something special, something different at work here. Perhaps this tree is a nexus of power. Perhaps it is one of many, or perhaps it is the only one. Eight might know, he might be able to understand what the tree really means, but not them – to them, it's just a tree, albeit one that obviously feels special.

He returns to her side, and she regards him with unremarkable brown eyes as he speaks again, his gaze still locked on the tree. He speaks of it seeming by all rights to be entirely ordinary, and she understands something that she hasn't known for years. There is a reason that this tree took her in, a reason why it's been the nexus of so much of what has happened to her. She realizes it, and she can't help but chuckle.

They're kindred spirits, she and the tree. Both of them are unremarkable, absolutely normal, but not entirely. Perhaps the tree took pity on her normalness, or perhaps there is something more. But it cannot be doubted that the two of them have a bond.

"We're alike, this tree and me," she answers the question that she knows Shah will ask. She knows by now that he'll ask anything and everything he possibly can. "I wasn't anything out of the ordinary, and it changed that. It doesn't look out of the ordinary, but it is." she sighs, looking back toward the tree herself. "I wonder if it's done with me." she speaks, and it is more a statement than a question.

She turns to look at him again, flicking her chestnut tail across unremarkable haunches. "Do you have a home, Shahrizai?" she asks, entirely apropos of nothing. They've been talking so much about her home, about where she lives, that she can't help herself from asking about him. "I don't just mean where you were born, or where you came from." she explains, not understanding that she probably doesn't need to. "I mean, do you have somewhere that's like this tree, for you? A place that you've really chosen to be?"

It's deeper than the awkward girl usually goes, with more sentiment and dramatically more feeling. But they're by her tree, and she's feeling pensive.

And besides, he started it.

Don't weep for me

LIBRETTE

Because this will be the labor of my love.

Image copyright FFFiiiAA