[private] fell asleep inside a fantasy & woke up feeling lost

[Narya]

yes i know that love is like ghosts,
few have seen it but everybody talks —

She hadn’t expected the quest at the mountain to change her the way that it had.

She has heard stories, as gone through her own share of transformations—but none had come from the mountain. Even though it crossed her mind a time or two to go to the mountain and plead her case, to beg any who might have the power to do so to rid her of the whispers in her mind and of the ghosts that constantly haunt the edges of her vision, she had never actually done it. It felt selfish—there were others that had it far worse than her, and they bore their burdens in silence.

She had been acquiesced to do the same.
She would not beg for a relief she did not think she deserved, and so when she had followed the call of the sprites, it was not because she hoped they might reward her.

It takes her a few days to realize the changes that took place.

At first she had assumed the dizzying electric-feeling in her veins was an after effect of the portals and all the time jumping, as if her bones were still learning how to be grounded in reality. But the humming sensation never left, a quiet but incessant pull that seemed to be urging her to do something.

It was not until she commanded the ghosts to be quiet—and they listened—that she realized there was something different. It was not until she learned that she could make them disappear from sight by seemingly willing it that she realized the sprites had rewarded her.

The relief that floods through her is a physical thing, one that almost makes her knees go weak, as she breathes a shuddering sigh. She could control it now. She would be able to find peace, she would be able to help when she wanted but she would not be shackled to her gift, powerless to its ways.

She walks through the darkest parts of the forest with a newfound lightness, the weight that she had been carrying evaporating. There is a glow that radiates from her—an actual beacon of light that she manifests from somewhere inside of her, guiding her through the darkness. She did not know the depths of this new gift, but she found that, unlike the last time she had something bestowed upon her, she was looking forward to seeing where it led.

She does not notice the angel that also haunts the forest, does not notice the soft, ethereal glow emanating from just beyond a thicket of trees. Even if she had, she would not have been afraid. Angels are nothing to fear, especially not her own grandmother.

Narya

— spirits follow everywhere i go,
they sing all day and they haunt me in the night

[Ryatah]

now and then there’s a light in the darkness,
feel around until you find where your heart went --
She does not know why she comes to the forest.

She does not know why she seeks out this dark kind of solitude when Beqanna has gifted them again with lands they had thought were long-lost. Perhaps she is afraid; afraid that they will not be as she remembered, afraid that the Chamber will not pulse with the heart she liked to now think she laid some kind of claim to, afraid that the Dale will echo with memories she did not necessarily want to revisit. Afraid that the past coming back to life will make her melancholy for a time that will never return, even if the landscape does.

Or perhaps she is simply not ready to see everyone else revel in the return of the lands they had poured blood, sweat, and tears into, when the Valley is not one of them.

The Dale may have been her crown, but the Valley had been her heart, but she is so accustomed to her heart breaking that it catches her off guard to feel the way the shards of this particular break dig against her chest.

The forest is quiet, though, and though she senses the presence of someone nearby, she does not seek them out.

The darkness—the infinite black that had followed her home from the void, a near tangible shadow that she could feel—began to writhe restlessly, though. Whoever else was in the forest, they had something it wanted. She ignored it, as she so often did. There were days when it was harder to resist than others, days when she found her tongue formed an edge that was not usually there, when her emotions felt pulled taut and on the verge of snapping.

There is no explanation for why the magic in Narya responded to the call to the darkness inside her.

She cannot control it when it finally billows from her, an aura of darkness that douses out the light her ethereal form always casts, a thick wall of smoke-like shadows that obscures her view of whoever the darkness is after. She hears the startled gasp of the other girl, the way she pleads as something seems to tear itself from her. The darkness twists and tightens around something, and when it finally makes its way back to her—hardly at her command, since it never listened—she nearly starts at the strange jolt that travels the length of her spine, ricocheting off every bone and penetrating every vein.

She gasps, and when she exhales the breath that curls into the air in front of her shimmers like stardust.

-- ryatah

tldr: Ryatah's darkness aura convinced Narya's magic to ditch her and go with Ryatah instead.