[open] i leave you my dust and dry bones

[Osyva]

Still she dreams of them - sometimes bitter, but sometimes sweet - her mother and father. Years have turned like pages in a book and all traces of her youth have weathered and yellowed with them. Yet the story remains. Almost every night she sees them - sunny memories of her trips between the Falls and the Gates to spend time with her mother or father. Every morning she wakes and she remembers the loneliness she had set aside the night before. She had been of little use as a kingdom member. After magic had stolen her father from before her eyes she had been too preoccupied with finding him to be of any use to the Gates. And then, when her mother lept from the Falls, she had been too broken, too bitter. Straia had taken her in for a time, but Osyva was useless as a fighter during the war. So, she spent the majority of her time tucked within the pines of the Chamber as the world turned to ruin around her - helpless. She has always been helpless. Tonight the dream is much the same. A kiss from her mother as Osyva sets on her way back to her father’s home in Heaven’s Gates. But there is a scent that infiltrates her dreamland and skews the memory - something putrid and foul. She turns for one last glance at her mother, but what she sees is not the beautiful golden mare, but a sickly, hairless figure collapsing to the ground. “Mother!” she exclaims, or tries, but her voice does not make it past her chest. The realization that she can’t yell causes panic, and so she tries again! “Mother! Please!” she tries to scream, but her voice is caught somewhere between reality and her nightmare. Tears stream down her cheeks as she fights to move - fights to break the sleep paralysis. “Mother.” she manages to whisper in defeat as the figure dissipates wholly. She opens her eyes, but the pit in her chest remains. Her throat hurts from the strain of trying to scream in her sleep, and her cheeks are wetted with tears. She takes a shaky breath and realizes the scent is still there. The pines of the Chamber are gone away - replaced with a barren Meadow. There is blood splattered at her feet, she realizes, taking a step away.