You put stickers all over my house. Do you know how long this will take me to clean?

Timeline/World: Through the Looking Glass – Atheria 1st Generation
Current Date: September 3, 2058

Character: Kojiro Fukai
Race: Elf – Snow
Age: 92, physically about 30
Current residence: Atheria City, Eresiel
 

---

To everyone’s great surprise—but not truly—I am a loner, or perhaps the better term here is that I was a loner. Even my parents were not very big on socializing, it seems, and they never forced me to socialize either. A thing I don’t know whether or not to be grateful for. I remember watching other kids playing together and feeling no true desire to join them in their games. I was fine on my own.

I’m well aware that this is possibly not the greatest way for a child to grow up, but I don’t think that this impacted me in a negative way. I’ve made it this far in life and I’ve made my way where I know I belong, that is all, isn’t it? When it came to Raiden, I think we just did our best to make sure that he did socialize with others, however. We didn’t so much force him and it was closer to gentle nudges so he would have friends and he’d know that there were other things out and about in the world.

I still took time to take him out and about beyond the walls of Atheria when he was young. It seemed like something that needed to be done. He could learn about the world beyond the walls that made up our safety and I think it just added a layer more to the wonderful man he turned out to be. Often enough, however, when he was old enough to be in school, I would find myself roaming the city streets. I wasn’t looking for anything in particular. I knew every nook and cranny even without really needing to go look for them.

There is one strange memory that clings to me about these walks that has surfaced recently and perhaps so because I have found, through the system, a collection of rolls of tapes. However, I believe the proper term for what they used to be is washi. It was the design on them—cats, mostly; cats and moons, and bats—that brought that memory to the surface.

I do recall, even though it is quite faint now, that there was an afternoon during which I had gone to pick Raiden back up from school. On that walk, I came across a little home that looked so very different from what I knew it always did and it made me pause for a few moments until I realized why. Somehow, from the ground up, all the way to the top of that first—and only—floor, somehow, someone had put stickers on the house. Not just a few, either. There were enough stickers that you could spot them easily without having to search for the next one.

There were some of all sizes, even from afar I could see some that looked to be as big as my head but some that were a fraction of the size. I remember the owner coming out as I was finally moving on, coming out and crying out about how long cleaning all of these stickers up would take. So clearly, this hasn’t been done by the owners themselves and it seemed as though whoever had done it, hadn’t stuck around to find out the result of their little game. Or prank, or whatever it was that this would have been called.

Our walk back home took us through a different, shorter route, so I didn’t get to see any more of the whole thing, and it was fine by me. Truly, the whole thing had no sway on my life, and I suppose it really only left a bit of a mark on me because it was so different from what I do usually encounter, in the end. Life has a way of showing you things that might not hold much meaning to you at the point it is happening, but it still might come back to you later on.

I walked by that house a few days later and the stickers were all gone. I can’t imagine the time it took for them to remove everything or how much it might have cost them to get it done. It’s hard to see and yet, it hardly matters. What matters is that I do remember thinking that some people were clearly a little strange in their hobbies and this was coming from someone like me. I know I’m far from anyone’s definition of normal and I’m all right with that.

Maybe I’ll get the washi. Use it to decorate something or others. Maybe as a border in some of the books I’ve used for transcribing. It certainly would be different from the norm, but we’re all allowed to change, aren’t we?

Final Word Count: 792

You can’t have my soul. I already planned on giving it to someone else.

Timeline/World: Newfound Worlds – Terraphim – Quiet Lives
Current Date: January 24, 2516

Character: Kojiro Fukai
Race: Elf – Snow
Age: 138, physically about 30
Current residence: Xiang Po, Terraphim
 

---

Being mistaken for something that I am not, is not an oft happening thing, mostly because I tend to ensure that most folks have few memories of our passage unless they are the ones we see more often than not. For the most part, they believe we only come once, perhaps twice a year and that suits me fine. Altering their memories, even if just barely, to suit this need to remain mostly by ourselves, is an easy task.

One thing I do avoid doing, however, is shifting memories in children. It isn’t as though it would truly change anything in their lives but most children, especially under a certain age, have vivid imaginations and letting them believe that they have seen something that no one else truly had just seems natural.

As it does stand, in the winter, the children might mostly see us coming up and leaving, draped in winter gear and covered comfortably for the weather, there isn’t much for them to see or properly remember and that is just fine.

There was a little girl, however, the last time we went. I know her name from having glimpsed it off of the top of her head while she was internally scrambling to find an excuse to get away from me. I won’t lie, her behaviour amused me, mostly because I gave her no reason at all to react the way she did to me and even a quick look into her most recent memories revealed nothing of the sort.

We were in the process of exchanging goods—a good few loaves of bread for furs that had been cleaned, cut and fixed just so. The hunt had been quite good earlier in the season though I only ever went after what we needed. There was no point in killing more animals than we would need and even a single kill kept us fed for a while. There are good meals to be prepared with everything that is found in the animals that roam near. A rather unpopular opinion, I’m aware.

This child—a young girl, she was nine—only spared me one look. A single look before she was turning her nose up at me—a feat for how short and skinny she was under all those heavier winter clothes—and telling me that I couldn’t have her soul because she’d already planned on giving it to someone else. It made me smile, how could it not? While she sounded certainly quite sure of herself as she spoke, it was chaos inside her mind as she somehow sought a way out of the situation.

What situation, you might ask? This one leaves me somewhat baffled as I didn’t dig deeper, I never do unless it is an absolute necessity but somehow, this child seemed to think I was out to steal her soul from her and her best escape plan for this was to claim she had already planned on giving it to someone else.

A very, very small part of me wonders if there is any truth to her words; she was quite young, I can hardly imagine a child of that age already having her heart set on someone, but I could be wrong, I know. I hardly grew up in an environment that was rife with this kind of thing. It was quite the opposite. Affection, be it physical or emotional, was not commonplace as I was growing up and finding one that my heart yearned for hardly happened at the age this young one was.

Then again, races aside, my life is meant to be much longer than that of others so I know that I might not have been mature at the same age others are and just, all in all, my life and hers are so different that basing my own emotional knowledge on that of a young human girl would be idiotic, so I won’t.

We didn’t stay very long, I barely held eye contact with the girl for more than a few moments. Just enough because she had caught my attention with her shifting weight just next to me. Mostly. I looked at her to understand why she seemed to be squirming and the rest is history, clearly. Gave her one glance, she panicked or something-other, told me her soul was not for the taking, I might have quirked a brow at her, and then my attention was back to the older gentleman I’d been dealing with for the last few minutes.

The rest is rather history, at this point.

Final Word Count: 760

If you want a nice and relaxing vacation, I wouldn’t recommend taking me with you.

 
Timeline/World: Newfound Worlds – Terraphim – Quiet Lives
Characters: Kojiro Fukai
Race: Elf – Snow
Age: 137, physically about 30
Current residence: Xiang Po, Terraphim
Final Word Count: 751 words
 

---

There are a few particular people with whom we have more interactions than most. Certain people we trade with more than the others though that trading still is done sparsely. For the most part, our lives here in this little cottage are just fine. We grow our own food, we catch what we need to catch and that is that. Certainly, in the winter, we do need to head off to trade now and again but it still doesn’t happen as often as one might imagine. We’re fine on our own and the trips are for extra more than the bare necessities.

Of these people, some I’ve allowed to become familiar with us—with me, in a way. I don’t care much for the idea of any of them truly knowing how often we come and where we come from. People are curious creatures, and they often ask questions and try to figure things out, but I don’t care much for that type of thing, not if I can help it. I am a very private person, an oxymoron to some, I’m certain, considering the reach of my gift. A gift I keep to myself and use for little else than just that, making sure that people leave us alone.

There is this young couple—to me, they are young, though physically they might be around my age. They have been living in that same little area for as long as we’ve been out there in that cottage. Every time we’ve gone to the market, we’ve seen them and, little by little, I’ve opened myself up to them. That’s not to say I’ve told them anything about myself or my life. They do know my name and that I’m from the far edges of this place, if you would, but that is the extent of things, and I don’t see a point in them really needing anything else. It’s not as though extra knowledge about myself or Cordelia would do them, or us, any good.

During my most recent visit, they were actually arguing somewhat. I don’t know that I can truly call it arguing as it seemed to be playful and amused banter, but there still was an undertone to it that, to me, felt as though there was some bitterness going on between them. I didn’t dig—I did just mention that I have no intention of knowing more about them than I already do and though I’ve seen them for years, I don’t know that I would call them friends, they are mere acquaintances.

Still, they were both outside as I came up, they didn’t wave as they almost always do when someone comes up. That perhaps was the first clue that something was amiss. I didn’t stay very long to listen, I merely offered them the goods I had come with, they offered meat and a few other things in return, and I was on my way further in. All I caught from their little tiff she seemed to be wanting a relaxing vacation and he told her repeatedly, in an amused tone perhaps to take the sting out of it, that if she wanted that, he didn’t recommend asking him to go with her. It would be everything but relaxing.

If the couples have issues with one another, that is on them. I have absolutely no desire to get involved with anything of the sort and this is one of the reasons why I don’t often allow any of them to truly have proper memories of my presence. They know of me. They know that I do come, but unless I am in their line of sight, their memories of me or Cordelia are fuzzy at best and near impossible to pinpoint.

Mind you, I don’t do it out of any desire to meddle in their memories. I do it out of a desire for safety for myself and my companion. While I know we can take care of anyone that might come about while being a problem, there remains the fact that I just prefer that our quiet and peaceful life remains exactly what it is. Quiet and peaceful. We’ve had enough to take care of in the past, I feel as though we deserve this quiet that we’ve come to have now, in this place. We deserve our peace and I’m just doing my part in making sure that this peace lasts long enough for things to be as perfect as we might manage them.

I’ll tell you the truth, but I don’t think you’re going to like what I have to say.

 
Timeline/World: Through the Looking Glass – Atheria 1st Generation
Characters: Kojiro Fukai
Race: Elf – Snow
Age: 91, physically about 30
Current residence: Atheria City, Eresiel
Final Word Count: 739 words
 

---

Even now, it is impossible to tell why I still had a link to the outside world once I had stepped into the dark. I am an anomaly and I have long since accepted that. I knew I was an anomaly long before I stepped into those waiting arms and I had no issues with it.

That is not to say that I had a full range of control over things while I was in there. I only had a faint link that let me know of passed-by time. Had I asked it, I’m sure it would have given me detailed information about how I had been there for however long it had been but I never did. At least, not beyond that first tug and it was an involuntary tug. It had only been a few days and my mind, in its struggle to control the power that was trying to overtake it, had sought the outside, as though it could escape the all-encompassing darkness.

I do remember, though, it was so very faint when I came out and it is fainter yet, but there was one time when I’m fairly certain that I was not on my own in that darkness. An impossibility, I’m aware, but we’ve already pointed out that I was an anomaly, so what is one more thing that makes little sense in a sea of absolute darkness and nothingness?

What I have no idea of, is where that presence—a voice, far more than anything else—came from. Was it my mind, reaching out there into the world and pulling that presence in, or was it something else that makes the dark what it is? I have never asked the question and never sought to know the answer. What good would it do me?

The little bits that I do remember are of that voice telling me that the truth I was seeking was not a truth I wanted to hear. It was a truth that would be too difficult for me to accept just yet. Only that part remains with me. I feel as though I perhaps might have not heard what truth that voice believed I was not ready to hear.

At this point, though, so many years down the road, I can only ask myself, did I truly sense that presence, or was my mind simply trying to adjust still to the darkness? I know how faint that memory was when I was first drawn from that darkness. I know how it was pushed to the back of my mind because there just was so much else to focus on, but still, the memory remains.

It is faded to near nothing. The memory that might not even be a memory. I hardly know why I think of it now. There is nothing going on with this world that would take me away from things as they are now. My power is as it is and my control over it is at its best. That’s not to say that if it somehow were to shift again—how, I have no idea—I would not need to learn the control all over again but, as things stand? I fear very little, and I know that I am here to say.

This little maybe-memory voice that comes to the surface now and again, reminding me that there was some truth out there that I was not going to be ready to listen to, a truth that I would not like, it can go back to the darkness. It can go back to the nothingness and leave behind what it is—nothing at all.

Life has not been perfect at all times since our lives all settled again. There have been ups and downs but, I believe, that these should be expected. They are part of what makes life what it is and while death, here, is almost absolutely avoidable, it is not inevitable and there is a rare possibility. The mind should remain open to the possibilities of things, even if they are rare.

The more we believe that we are forever, and nothing will ever happen to us, the harder all things will fall when it does come to pass. It might be tomorrow, just as it might be a hundred or a thousand years further down the road, but I do believe that it will happen at one point or another.

If you can get me that book, I’ll help you with whatever you need. Good luck, though. No one knows where it is.

 
Timeline/World: Through the Looking Glass – Atheria 1st Generation
Characters: Kojiro Fukai
Race: Elf – Snow
Age: 89, physically about 30
Final Word Count: 691 words
 

---

I am a loner by nature. Even as a child, I wasn’t the type to want to spend time with others unless I truly had to. I have few memories of my parents and I suppose it might merely be one of those things. I remember the elders, I remember vaguely someone teaching me things I knew I needed in my life but the rest of those younger years are a lost blur.

I don’t mind.

I do have a memory of a time during which I was perhaps twelve or thirteen. The definite age is hard to pinpoint and there seems to be no real need to know for certain. I remember being in the middle of transcribing something—whether it was for myself or for someone else, the memory doesn’t really seem clear on this. There was someone else in the little room with me. Someone who clearly seemed to need my help but I wasn’t all that willing to offer it. Not while I was busy with my transcribing duties.

If you’ve ever transcribed things with a quill pen, you know how much care goes into it, and this particular quill pen was old and worn and I remember being very frustrated with the task, despite the fact that I remember having an odd love affair with transcribing things. It got me time in a mostly quiet place and I was left to my own devices, it was when I appreciated things the most.

I don’t know if I sent the person bothering me on that wild goose chase out of frustration or out of spite. That is the one thing from that memory that I can’t remember. I do recall telling them that if they could get me one particular book, I would help them with whatever they needed, no matter what it was. I also recall wishing them luck but keeping to myself that no one really even knew where that book was and, as far as that memory goes, I don’t think I ever saw them again. At least not during that time frame.

It might be odd of me but I wish I could remember what I was transcribing. The old tomes looked more than a little worn and the care that I was putting into turning each page is something I don’t remember having to do with many a book I’ve handled in my life.

A memory walk would most likely give me an answer to that particular dilemma, but at the same time, I have no true desire to walk back through childhood and teenage years that were filled with uncertainty. I was a completely different person from whom I now am and the idea of looking back to who that person was isn’t something I’m overly open to. I have nothing to hide, not really, but my stay in the dark has changed me; there are no two ways about it.

I likely would have died if not for the dark and the person I was before feels… weak. Not that I made terrible choices before the power came; furthest from. The choices I made were simply just not as well thought out as they are now and, if the power had been mine to learn to work with from the beginning, my life likely wouldn’t have turned out the way it did.

Would I have wished for that power to be mine from the beginning? No. It would have indeed changed my life and while I am not fond of the person I was during these so much younger years, he is exactly who I needed to be to grow into who I am now. My life happened as it should have and I will not be convinced otherwise. I’m quite certain that there are endless alternate universes where I grew up with that power and I’m quite certain that in most of them, I do not have my lovely mate at my side and we didn’t share all that we have shared up until this very day.

I cherish my life as it is now and that is that.

One more time. We have to go back one more time and if we don’t find anything else, I’ll forget about this entirely. I promise.

 
Timeline/World: Newfound Worlds – Terraphim – Quiet Lives
Characters: Kojiro Fukai
Race: Elf – Snow
Age: 135, physically about 30
Final Word Count: 655 words
 

---

The stories I could tell from our visits to the nearest town for trading and selling are endless. It isn’t so much because I dig into the mind of others but some project so loudly that it is impossible to actually ignore them. Well, no, that is something of a lie, I could block them out if I truly wanted but I already block out the vast majority of them, that those who project, well it is on their head.

I know that some project because they know they can, it seems to amuse them. Others project without truly realizing that they’re doing as such and their stories are usually more interesting than the ones who do it on purpose.

A little before the winter, on one of our last trips before the snow-covered everything, we came across a young woman with a child on her hip. Whether that child was male or female is moot at this point but the little one was definitely hers. In her head, a mantra seemed to be taking place. As though she was trying to convince herself so she perhaps could convince whoever it was she would be speaking to once she gathered her courage.

Her mantra went on and on about going back one more time. About going back and if they didn’t find anything else, she would forget about it entirely. Something she promised to do. By her constant mental repetition and the worried look on her face, I somehow doubt that she managed to even convince herself to believe in her own words.

It was tempting, trust me, to give her a gentle boost but somehow, I get the feeling that it would have helped but, at the same time, it was clear by that mantra and the way she kept on trailing off—all mentally, mind you—after each promise, that she couldn’t get on board with the whole idea.

I didn’t dig deeper, it wasn’t my place. I don’t know whether the place she thought of was somewhere she perhaps had spent years at before, perhaps the place her little one was born at, perhaps a place where something had been lost, or found, and more was desired to be found. Those were all things that would have been found easily with just a thought more but I didn’t want to dig into her mind, I wasn’t there for that.

After several moments, I finally made myself tune her out completely though her little one actually looked my way when I did that. Those icy blue eyes were full of curiosity and it made me wonder if there wasn’t a dormant gift in that mind but, again, it really isn’t my place to do these things and if there is a latent gift in the child, it must come from the father, I sensed nothing from the mother.

It was surprisingly difficult to actually turn my gaze away from the pair. There just was something there that seemed to want to keep me rooted but there just was so much more for me to do on that particular visit that I couldn’t just stay and contemplate this forevermore.

Not that it was very difficult to check in on her a few weeks later and not much seemed to have changed. She was quiet, the little one was quiet, there seemed to be a sense of peace surrounding her and no surface thoughts about going to whatever place it had been before, so it’s hard to know what might have been going on with her on that day.

It’s strange, really, how some people seem to be able to snag your attention like that, effortlessly on their part. Mind you, I have no interest in her, in a general sense of the word, her history and behaviour are what seems to have drawn me in but I’ve let it rest again.

There’s no stopping me now.

 
Timeline/World: Terraphim – Quiet Lives
Characters: Kojiro Fukai
Race: Elf – Snow
Age: 134, physically about 30
Final Word Count: 604 words
 

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What is it with these so-called villains that, every time they seem to think they have the ‘hero’ down on their luck and unable to save the day, they’ll start spilling everything about their evil plan and how they’ll take over the world and how there’s no stopping them?

Not that I need anyone to tell me about their plans, I could get it from their mind with as little effort as it takes to open my eyes but I don’t. Prodding and rooting around in other people’s thoughts are an invasion and one I don’t take lightly. I might have been gifted powers that were beyond my comprehension at the beginning but it hasn’t taken from me my sense of respect for the life of others out there. At least, if that life deserves to be respected, I will respect it.

On our recent trip down to the nearest little town so we could exchange a few goods—or buy them as it may be—has led us to witness a situation that I’m sure someone, somewhere would have found hilarious. I personally only found it saddening. To think that someone would become so desperate for some money to be able to afford food is just a sad thing but it was the situation in general that might have amused someone out there.

There was this man, a stocky fellow that made you wonder if he didn’t dip into the ale far too often, who was now flat on his back, a lanky young man—barely more than a teen by the looks of him—was on top of him, waving a dull enough looking knife at the stocky one’s face. It was clear by the look of the lanky one that he wasn’t all there. That might be why I found no amusement in this situation either, none. He was waving his dull knife around and ranting, rambling about how there would be no stopping him now. He was unstoppable, invincible. The words were garbled and I refrained from reaching to his mind.

Broken minds like his leave a rotten feel behind when you probe around and I had no desire to have to deal with that sensation any time soon. There was no saving the young man.

A crowd was gathered around the pair, whispering to themselves but no one was stepping forward to put a stop to the whole thing. No one was trying, or willing, to help the stocky man. Again, finding out why wouldn’t have been very difficult but I kept myself from that much. I didn’t care to know whether or not it was because the man was a problem in the city or not. It was just sad to watch the whole scene play out with not a single person willing to offer their help.

In the end, I’m the one who stepped in. I had no wish to but it was all too clear that nothing would get done if they were still at it so I intervened. I touched shoulders and I touched minds though not in any invasive way. I merely let them have some peace, some light. The lanky one—Roman was his name, I heard from the whispering about—went on his way, a little confused but much calmer and talking to himself. The stocky man, whose name I didn’t hear and didn’t pry for, eventually pulled himself back to his feet and the crowds pulled themselves apart as though the spectacle was done and over with.

I still wonder about who might have been the villain in this situation.

Thank you for joining me.

 
Timeline/World: Atheria – 1st Generation
Characters: Kojiro Fukai
Race: Elf – Snow
Age: 88, physically about 30
Final Word Count: 546 words
 

---

Life cannot be predicted. No amount of wanting to be able to write it all down before it happens will make it happen the way anyone might want it. Something might go according to plan but that is but a mere coincidence.

I couldn’t have planned that I would end up in the darkness.

It was for my own good, there is no arguing that, arguing that would be beside the point but I thought that my control was strong enough to keep me from the dark. It sought me out, however. It isn’t an overwhelming sense of emotion—like it happened to some others—that opened its doors to me. It was the developing power, something that threatened to consume me. It just so happened that both happened around the same time. Perhaps the former—the power growth—was triggered by the latter—the uncomfortable overflow of emotions brought up by the puppeteer’s ugly work—but it is hard to pinpoint and I have not dwelt upon it much.

When I first stepped into the darkness, it was as though its arms were open in welcome, thanking me for finally joining it and I slipped into its hold more than willingly. I needed it and I knew it was for the best. That is not to say I did not do such a thing with a heavy heart but the well-being of all was a bigger necessity than my necessary emotions on the subject of being apart from her.

I know that, for the most part, those who step into the darkness lose track of everything. You are floating there, or just standing still, no one truly knows, and there is nothing happening. There is no time, no temperature, nothing. You are more a figment than anything else. Yet, when I stepped beyond the threshold, there remained something of me latched onto the world outside. It was faint but it was there, open and willing, telling me that I was gone this long and that it was x time of the day or month. That was if I questioned it. Otherwise, it merely remained there, faint but within my grasp.

I rarely touched it.

I did not ask to know how long I remained in that darkness. There was no need. When I stepped back out of it, the air felt different, perhaps not so much fresher and it was clear that something had been removed, something that did not belong. There still remained an undertone of danger—something that was taken care of just a few days later—but it was not mine to deal with and I left it be. I had more pressing matters.

All of this now feels like a lifetime ago and I suppose it very well might be. Most of those who had wandered following the puppeteer’s word had returned. Others had not. Some returned but left again, new souls came and settled. There was a slow in and out trickle up until humanity brought itself to an end.

Following that, the trickle became a near-to-nothing flow but still, there have been new additions. Rare ones but additions nonetheless.

We are good people. We welcome those who need us with open arms and we protect our own.

There’s no easy way to say what I’m about to tell you.

Timeline/World: Atheria 1st Generation
Characters: Kojiro Fukai
Race: Elf – Snow
Age: 87, physically about 30
Final Word Count: 617 words

---

Life is not pain-free. Those who claim to have never felt any pain during their lives are liars. The pain does not have to change your ways of life forever but it has come and gone. Some block it out, others adapt to it or learn to work around it and some just cannot endure it and move to the great beyond.

When the first end happened, when the puppeteer took hold of all that we cherished and drove a stake right through, each of us reacted in a way that was purely unique. While it may seem that, for the most part, all fled, pushed away from their loved ones, they all did with different reasons, different reactions, different thought processes. In my particular case, the stake struck something that was more psychic than emotional or even physical. Though the psychic bleeding, if it might be talked of in this way, resulted in physical issues.

My retreat into the darkness was a move I have done willingly and yet not. I was doing it to save my own life—which did not quite work out the way it was meant to—and to save the life of those who surrounded me. While my power is not one of the strongest about, the metaphorical stake shattered the box in which my control resided. Falling into the dark, near quite literally, is the only thing I could have done, and did do, to save all those who remained within a certain distance from having their minds shattered by an out of control telepath.

The retreat was not a pleasant one. Most say that once they step into the dark, they lose track of everything, as it is meant to be but I was different and I still could feel the cold of the void around me though it was not so much ‘cold’ as—well it is complicated to explain. I could keep track of time and I could keep track of everything.

I kept track of my life escaping me, little by little as the dark could not stop this slow descent into nothingness, not for me. I died while within the dark but there was a stronger power at play and it put me back together, little by little. It finished putting all the pieces back where they belonged perhaps a week or two before the doorway opened to the sight of her beautiful eyes waiting for me.

Telling her that I had died was no easy task but I had never had any lies for her to be told. I had nothing to hide and I would not begin now. It was not easy but it was not something to spend hours thinking of, either. I was alive, stronger, more ‘durable,’ as it were. Those were the important details to things and while I did not spend much time on the details of my fading into the darkness until I was put back together, I also did not skip out on the information as she deserved the truth.

Decades later now, I still feel the ghost sensations of the tendrils putting me back together while I was in the dark. I have never found any information about what it was that did put all those pieces back to one finished puzzle and asking our Lord and Keeper hasn’t yielded any results. I cannot tell—he is the only one whose mind escapes me, not that I dig or root around the mind of others without their permissions—whether it is because he does not know himself, knows but would rather not tell me or knows and cannot tell me. I suppose it does not matter.

I can’t stand any of you.

Timeline/World: Terraphim
Characters: Kojiro Fukai
Race: Elf – Snow
Age: 132, physically about 30
Final Word Count: 553 words

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My memories of what was, before the dark are clear as day. I know why I landed there, though it is not so much landing as that would make it seem as though I was not given a choice. I stepped into the dark willingly. I opened the doorway myself and stepped through. I had to.

I had had no desire to leave her behind but it turned out to be a necessity to keep her safe, to keep others safe while my powers did whatever it was they had to do. As it turned out, my gifts were expanding and taking a stronger hold, I had not been born into these and I’m not sure why the change happened, only that it did. Only that I now feel closer to a god than I should and I do what I can to not let it get to my head. I have no reason to let it get to my head as I have, just the same, no reason to abuse the gifts that have been bestowed upon me.

Telepathy was the first and only gift I really could call mine before I came to be in the dark before I matured and came back out. It was at such a high level, as they would call it, that I could pluck thoughts from someone’s mind from a distance that was far greater than one ever would have imagined. The voices had always been there, I had always heard them and when I was so much younger it was terrifying. I was raised in solitude and anyone stepping by too close, even within a few miles of where I was, I would hear, I would not be able to block out and I hated each and every one of these voices until I understood what they were, until I was able to learn to control the reach of others and strengthen my own.

My time in the dark was a lonely sort of bliss. It was quiet in a way my head never had been, though now and again passing thoughts would reach me. They were far, however, within another pocket of the dark and I felt no desire to reach out to them. It seemed useless. The quiet, the near silence, really, was blissful, but being away from her was something else entirely and I missed her more than I thought would be possible. Our interactions had been so brief, I had not expected for the longing I felt for her to be so present, so there, but it was.

What I am unsure of, is whether or not the dark released me because of her presence or because it simply was time. She was the one who opened the doorway for me to slip through, after all, but it hardly changes the fact that I do not know if it is her or simply time that dictated whether or not I was ready to face the world once more.

I had already, despite the dark, accompanied her so she could find her way back to me, in the end. It is hard to know and I suppose it matters little. We live a peaceful life, we grow food, we gather the rest, we hunt and fish. It is enough for me.