[SpringsSong]

Listen. Can you hear it?

The Lavamancer looked up as she walked into the Shrine.  She had come here so many years ago--almost ages ago, she felt; she knew, though that this was not the case--and had met An'ama, who was then an Emerald Hunter.  Some time later, they had returned to Basantha: An'ama was in the form of a Paragon then, and she had been reunited with Ekal.

The music. I can hear it everywhere.

Oh, Deraj had been furious when Ekal had walked down the steps of the shrine, the chain he wore clinking against the ground.  He had been excited to see Aila, and she had been excited to see him.  At the time, she had not known why she had been so eager to run towards him.  Although at first, her claw flew to choke him using the chain which she had enchanted all those years ago, when the incident had first happened.

In the wind...

She didn't even understand why she had cursed him so, she realized.  It had taken time and healing for Aila to eventually remove the curse from the chain, but she could not remove the chain from him.  Ekal had told her that it would be all right; the chain would serve as a reminder to him to never leave her side; to never even give the guise that he was leaving her.  The wind howled; as it did, Aila could hear three distinct howls on the wind: two of infants, one of an older woman.  Some time after the first three howls faded, though, a fourth could be heard: the howl of a man who had just discovered the bodies of his infant children and the woman he had loved so dearly.

In the air...

There was a faint twittering of birds in the air, which turned Aila's head slightly.  It was so light and fleeting that it almost sounded like a flute, and almost instantly reminded Aila of the tune that she and Nyera would play in the Shrine; the cry and then the echo to let the other know that they were there.  Some days, Aila would sing it, and Nyera would answer on her trumpet.  Other days, Nyera would play and Aila would respond on her oboe.  One way or another, if one was there, the other would answer.

In the light.

A beam of sunlight came through the shrine, warming the Lavamancer Paragon through.  She looked out of the shrine, taking in the sight of the mountains.  The sight reminded her of the Mountain of the Guardians, back home in Re'klet.  The other Gods and Goddesses would gather there once a year, by Re'klettan reckoning, to meet with the five Celestial Beings--the heads of their order.  However, only four of them were in charge of the order.  The eldest--Atlantia--who took on the form of a Star Seraphent, was the one who took care of all of them.

It's all around us. All you have to do is open yourself up.

Opening up had been one of the hardest things for Aila to do.  When Aila had been hurt by Ekal, it had taken her years to come to term with the incident.  Even when she had, there were still days when she felt like the ghosts of her past were haunting her.  It had taken her so long to finally ley it all go--in fact, it wasn't even until the birth of her daughters, Mariah and Sakina, that the true healing had began.

All you have to do... is listen.

[SpringsSong]

All she did have to do was listen.  It seemed like such a small thing, but in listening to her heart--not just her heart, but also to the music around her; the music of her family, and the music of those all around her--the true healing began to happen faster.  When Mariah and Sakina both began to blossom into beautiful young girls, Aila wasted neither time nor expense in preparing them to enter society, even if it was not a common occurance in Evelon to have a ball for one's children when they came of age.  In her opinion, it would not have mattered if they were on Re'klet or if they were in a world much different from the one they were in even now.

She had remembered that night.  Oh, both Mariah and Sakina looked gorgeous in their dresses, and with their hair done up as nicely as possible.  Even Ly'ira and Noel, Aila's niece and step-granddaughter, had been at the party--not just at the party, but also participating in it themselves.  Ly'ira's angel wings had been shimmering that night--a trait that she had inherited from her mother, Alyssa; and Noel's dress had been tinged in a permafrost--a gift that she had inherited from her father, Kylistern.  Mariah and Sakina had also looked gorgeous in their dark purple and black dresses, both tinged in flames that merely lapped at the fabric, but did not burn through.

If only I could relive that night again, Aila thought to herself.  The entire Pantheon had been present, all in their humanoid forms.  Even the more reclusive Gods and Goddesses, like Bruicaunion, Valisilwen, Marthorion, Sairahiniel, and Zaman, had been there.  It had been lovely to see Sairahiniel in particular, Aila recalled, for she had taken to locking herself up in the library of the Fire-Forests, where they were living, and studying ancient Re'klettan texts, alongside Zaman, who was a recently-awakened God of Time.