A Path Through Time
Year 680, Central Itari
Now that the noise of nine years hence was gone, Eigengrau could properly think. None of the others would be of any help in this, and if they knew what she knew about his absence the questions would only grow. This would have to be a rather hidden affair, she supposed. Annoying, but not unexpected.
She decided to start the search through her veritable palace of memories the simplest way, by going to the first location she recalled that was related to the Raven King's death. The forgotten clearing was the first stop of many, a place that even the trees had forgotten. But like every other first stop she could have thought of, it was a map designed specifically for Eigengrau. A hedge against her nearly infinite abyss of memories, designed to jog her perfect recall. It would tell her where she needed to look.
On the ground was an arrangement of stones that at first glance seemed random or erratic. But if viewed from several hundred feet in the air, made a drawing. One that nobody would ever see, as they were covered in moss. Eigengrau carefully cleaned each rock, setting it back in place in the exact same way they were originally placed, and then flew up into the air. From the air it was plain to see what it was, now that they were all cleaned. The symbol of an ancient Elven Druidic Order, one that was long extinct, gone before Ammangoan was founded.
"The North. Everything always comes back to the North, does it not?" Eigengrau said out loud to no one.
With a brief glance, the moss returned to the stones, and she stepped away, vanishing from the point in time and space.
2140 Valgus, Far Frozen North
She was surprised she had to travel this far back in time to find the ruins of the Order still standing. She was all the way back in the bronze age and predated the earliest known Elven records. For that matter, the Raven King was still alive at this juncture, but it would do her no good to talk to him.
The ruins were practically in plain sight, not far beyond the edge of Ammangoan, and she supposed that's why they disappeared so early. The stones were nearly gone, but the trees they planted remained, and in one of them she found yet another symbol carved at exactly her eye level, and it was something far more recent.
"The Rozen Republica? Of course. Valenca, where else could he have died?" Eigengrau said with a smile. "Off I go, then. I think I know the year, too."
Ironhand 8770, Valenca, Southern Karand
Eigengrau stopped in a small grove outside the city and confirmed with her own eyes. The Raven King. This was not the suitable time to talk to him about The Harvester, she needed to be closer in time to that moment. But still, she wished to talk with him about other matters.
He lay in the branches of a Cypress tree that even as Eigengrau watched, seemed to be growing. Vines were coiled around his arms, not too tight, but not too loose either. Where his blood pooled on the ground sprang rose bushes, flowering in a beautiful white immediately.
She noted his crown was gone, or rather, removed. She spotted it melting away into the branches of the tree, as if nature itself was reclaiming its God. As she stepped further into the grove, the trees bent and stitched themselves together, sealing them off for the moment from the outside.
"So here you lay with no crown."
"Here I lay for the centuries yet to come." The Raven King replied, his musical voice as lovely as ever. "A world that will forget me, and yet won't. I'm surprised you came, o Lady Death." His antlers broke with these words and though it clearly hurt him, he did not cry out.
"You will sleep many centuries, dead but dreaming. It is only right that I see you off. Has she come yet?" Eigengrau stated.
"Lady Change came to see me. Many tears were wept, by both of us." His breathing was already slowing. "Will I... survive?"
She looked for a long moment and remembered him in healthier times. A tall muscular man, a crown of branches in his wild hair, and antlers to match. The trail of blooming plants that followed in his wake, and his many animal companions. The birds still nested in his hair even now, but they were silent. They knew what was happening, she supposed.
"That would be telling." Eigengrau teased, smiling. "Close your weary eyes o King of Nature. None will disturb your slumber, until the time comes that you are needed again."
"Not yet. There is one more child of mine that must visit. Leave me, Lady Death, so that he may mourn my passing in peace." His mossy beard hung in patches, great clumps falling like autumn leaves.
"We will meet again. Good bye for now, Raven King." Eigengrau bowed deeply before him, giving him the respect she always felt he was due at every meeting. He was by no means the first God of Nature she had known, but he was by far her favourite of the more recent ones.
She noted even the wind had stilled now. Thinking for a moment, she plucked a single rose. It turned to ice immediately upon her touch and she smiled as if remembering a moment long in the past. Placing it in his hair, she kissed him softly on his cheek.
"You will endure, o King." She said, and with that she was gone.