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 8870, Valenca, Southern Karand

Eigengrau stopped in a small grove outside the city and confirmed with her own eyes. There he lay, crown-less and bleeding. 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.

"So here you lay with no crown." Eigengrau stated, walking into the grove. The trees bent at her arrival, sealing it off from the outside.

"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."

"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?"

"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." The blood poured freely from his wounds, plants springing up from where it pooled on the ground.

"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.